This is the sound of a band at their most confident, capable of still pushing the boundaries they seemingly reimagined years ago without overwhelming audiences with their own love for endless improvisation. There are no lyrics on this album, but it feels like you can hear these three musicians louder than ever.

With ‘God Save The Animals’, these genre-resistant idiosyncrasies remain, though a few moments shine through with newfound clarity and vulnerability. Across the diverse and consistently excellent 13-track record, he hops between styles, perspectives and energies with abandon.

Genres may come and go, but Sawayama’s second album is defined by her ability to fashion each of these sounds into big, brilliant pop songs. The best British pop album of the year.

Mura Masa has again pooled disparate guests and sounds to make a record that is somehow both steeped in a sense of curation and individual to his artistic identity.

Blake Mills’ production is exquisite throughout what is Mumford’s most crafted studio recording to date; this album is a career-best for the musician. While it is undoubtedly an emotional and often heart-breaking listen, it’s also a record full of defiance, hope and faith.

This is a Suede record, so there are moments of aching majesty – see the tormented ‘It’s Always The Quiet Ones’, ‘Turn Off Your Brain And Yell’ and the hopelessly devoted ‘What Am I Without You’ (which sees Anderson giving himself to his fans) – but, all in all, ‘Autofiction’ finds the indie greats getting back in the garage to make a racket.

This isn’t just a striking return for one of the most individual bands of the last 20 years; it is, musically, an astounding masterpiece. Their finest hour? Quite possibly.

Shedding old skins with jubilance, ‘Expert in A Dying Field’ is testament to the belief that better things are always yet to come. For us as listeners, they’re already be here.

‘Asphalt Meadows’ is as assured and stately as you’d expect and hope for from indie veterans now 10 albums and 25 years into their career, but this beaut is as consistent and satisfying as their early-mid ‘00s career peak.

It’s a fizzing piece of hard-rock magic.

The results are beautiful, moving and – regardless of subject matter – brilliantly inventive.

Spirituals’ gets more brutalist as it goes on, weaving its way from tropical space-pop through cosmic reggae to the gothic R&B cranks and coils of ‘Ain’t Ready’ and, finally, to ‘Fail First’, a wonderfully New Order-ish concoction of indietronic chug, industrial grunge guitars, spectral cheerleader chants and punkoid yells.

‘I Love You Jennifer B’ is the product of a voracious appetite to find the gaps in between the familiar, a record emblazoned with such pristine, disorienting, unsettling originality that at first, you don’t quite know what to do with it.

His most confident, cohesive album.

Beautiful. These are soft, lush pieces that deep-dive into life’s everyday moments and turn them into something extraordinary.

Boasting their strongest set of songs for an age.

The vocals and instrumentation help the album ultimately overcome its few shortcomings, such as its occasionally unwieldy lyrics (“I’m scared of flies / I’m scared of guys” is one such culprit on ‘Valentine’). Yet the lyrics also give us one of ‘Everything I Know About Love’’s primary delights: Laufey’s candid self-expression wrapped in the dreamy lilt of the old jazz standards.

Confidence is channelled in compelling directions, as The Chats come for everyone and anyone trying to ruin the feel-good party vibes. Poking fun at ticket inspectors, beach racists and boy racers, this record finds them fighting jobsworths and ignorance with laughter.

Aitch’s debut draws on local heritage but remains heavily anchored in a forward-thinking rap blueprint. With the ‘cheeky chappy’ mask tucked slightly back (if not fully removed), and a more introspective attitude on show, it’s an even more powerful formula.

Yes, ‘Viva Las Vengeance’ is a very different Panic! At The Disco album, but it stays true to their devil-may-care attitude.

Green’s studio debut is relentlessly vibrant, an album that writhes and squirms in the eternally unpleasant truth that we are creatures of inconsistency and contradiction.

The album features more deep cuts than you’d expect from a Megan Thee Stallion record, but it shows just how she’s pushed her pen since ‘Good News’, while also illustrating her broad musicality.

Sylvan Esso’s fourth offering doesn’t dwell in solitude, despair, or desire for escape. Instead, it resides in what is left after the darkness clears: tighter connections to the surrounding world and the people who populate it. To borrow Meath and Sanborn’s own words, the album is a bold and defiant example of what could happen when you walk back into the world, “wilder and stranger” than before.

Surprising, eclectic and intimate.

Danger Mouse and Black Thought remain firmly in their comfort zones, and though the record constantly delights, it rarely surprises. It seems a little churlish, however, to criticise two greats for simply living up to their own high standards. ‘Cheat Codes’ is brilliant.

The Sheeran-featuring ‘Peru”s inclusion on the tracklist of ‘Playboy’ is a further nod to his rise. But this album more than demonstrates that its creator is no one-hit wonder.

On ‘Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2’, the producer meshes a wistful grab-bag of influences – nu-disco, funk, boogie, soul – with his skill for creating a mega-watt pop-hit, taking listeners on a journey on a psychedelic trip you won’t want to end.

As much fun as the big names prove to be – Thundercat’s turn on ‘Bowling’, .Paak on ‘Moon’ – it’s often more thrilling to hear DOMi and Beck go at it alone.