They’ve kept those colours nailed firmly to the mast, and never more so than on ‘No Money Music’, an aptly named track that adopts the aural scare tactics of Suicide’s ‘Frankie Teardrop’.

It is a serious album for serious rock fans, even though taking anything seriously isn’t exactly Andy Falkous, Jack Egglestone, Jimmy Watkins and Julia Ruzicka’s strong point.

The glorious quirks and inventiveness of Let’s Eat Grandma’s earlier work might be amiss on ‘Two Ribbons’, but its immediacy will likely win them new fans. This is the stirring sound of reinvigoration in the face of loss.

Movements is full of urgency; songs struggling to keep up with everything thrown at them.

‘Bewitched’ enchants in its own beautiful, unique way. Richly detailed orchestral arrangements and her masterful musicality – the multi-hyphenate is an an acclaimed cellist, and studied at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston – support her thoroughly Gen Z ripostes

He has an uncanny feel for the triangulation of folk, jazz and blues that came from the fleet fingers of Bert Jansch and John Fahey back in the ’60s.

Parks has a singular talent for tapping into sadness and turning it into something uplifting. ... Arlo Parks may be the voice of Gen Z, but there’s no doubt that this is a universal collection of stories that’ll provide solace for listeners of all ages and backgrounds for decades to come.

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.

It’s minimal without being clinical, catchy without being clichéd and, thanks to the influence of MBV and Neu!, full of sonic left turns.

It’s a deft, heartfelt and above all personal record that pays fitting tribute to Jara’s immense legacy, all the while providing a platform for some of Bradfield’s finest songwriting in recent years.

On his Sub Pop debut, he's sliced off the excess, preachy rhetoric for something inventive, bold and brilliantly fresh.

Melding Motown melodies and pop chords for heartbreak and house party listeners alike, Hive Mind is a triumph.

The fourth album from Caribou is the sound of the summer we're only just getting round to enjoying.

An album of gloomy, almost gothic techno splendour. Beneath its typically sleek, urbane deep house grooves, it beats nervously with foreboding, fear and loathing for humanity as a whole.

Weirdness far from gallops across the dozen songs that make up the pick'n'mix bag of The Whole Love though, as the straight up alt.pop of 'I Might' testifies, coming across something like a breezy Weezer packing PhDs and lime-topped Coronas.

It’s Grace’s own personal journey with gender dysphoria in ‘True Trans Soul Rebel’, ‘Paralytic States’ and ‘Drinking With The Jocks’ that has the most impact, though, the latter being the sort of raging polemic that proves the hardcore spirit of Black Flag is still alive and kicking.

The perfect entwining of brain and brawn. [9 Sep 2006, p.37]

A joyous surge of drums, guitars, wild brass and potent Spanish-English vocals from powerhouse frontwoman Victoria Ruiz.

It’s a satisfying ride. This smooth and consistent journey through nostalgia and the energy of new ideas means that ‘Profound Mysteries’ parts one and two stand up as latter-day career triumphs for Röyksopp.

By going back to the music that producer Don Was calls the “fountainhead of everything they do”, however, they sound younger than they have in decades. Blue & Lonesome is proof that old dogs don’t always have need of new tricks.

They’ve made an absolutely magical record--the jagged edges of their past have been smoothed by the sea, making Teen Dream a soft shore gem in the crown of the great chronicles of youth.

When it works its magic, as on the opening suite of tracks, you will happily sit mesmerised for seven or eight minutes of glimmering sonic twilight and translucently tingling ambi-organic pearly-dewdrops droppery. But when the spell is broken, as on two or three later tunes, when more traditional instrumentation turns up late and dishevelled for a half-hearted cosmic-rock supernova, the effect is rather like gatecrashing some purgatorial soundcheck by a Pink Floyd covers band in, say, 1968. Or possibly Spiritualized.

Every tangled note of Option Paralysis drips with honesty and endeavour, and it shines like a beacon of integrity in a world that's been focus-grouped into the dirt.

There really ain't anyone bringing the world party quite like LV.

Nine Types...will make those who over-contextualise TVOTR finally quit their chin-stroking and live a little.

I’m A Dreamer is another stellar effort.

Even if you've been fortunate enough to live with these tracks over the last year or so, they still sound more vital, more likely to make you form your own band than anything else out there.

She’s combined the joy of Chairlift, the atmospheric mastery of Ramona Lisa and the experimentalism of CEP. The result is a Caroline Polachek record in its most distilled and fully realised form.

Lyrically lucid and sonically exciting. [11 Jun 2005, p.67]

Godspeed’s new album articulates dark times, but it also presents the countermovement with breathtaking power.

Metz deliver the same righteous anger that informed much of their favourite music in the early '90s.

Like the works of other great swooners from Cole Porter to The Divine Comedy, 'Poses' is held together by its maker's maniacal attention to detail and conceptual strength.

The album has a coherency that was absent first time around, and there is also a rattling freshness to the sound that Timbaland has rustled up.

Thank you very much, Mr Rubin--The Man In Black is still with us. [1 Jul 2006, p.36]

This real-life fairytale is made up of myriad difficult home truths but Marling's hejira, her flight to freedom, makes for absolutely compelling listening. Oh, and there's a happy, redemptive ending to boot.

A more diverse and calculated album than a usual Hey Colossus offering, and all the better for it.

Overall, though, despite a couple of subpar verses, ‘Insomnia’ is one for the books. The UK rap world has never seen three of the scene’s most in-demand rappers surprisingly team up for an album. Here the best of north and south London have come together and paved the way for others to follow suit.

With ‘CRAWLER’ they take their own advice, adding a whole new dimension to an already beloved band. This appears a stepping stone in the band’s evolution, rather than the finishing line.

By tying together contrasting sounds and stories into this brilliant collection, Biig Piig embraces the joy of reinvention.

If Squid can make daring, experimental music sound as fun as this, then they will take some stopping.

Variety keeps things interesting, but it also allows the duo to flex their musical muscles, and they’ve traded in some of their previous blistering punk for a more relaxed pace on certain tracks, but without sacrificing any intensity.

It’s enjoyable and familiar, but retains Billie’s disruptive streak. It’s a brave and resounding first step for an artist with bags of potential and over the next decade, you’ll no doubt see popular music scrabbling to try and replicate what this album does on every level.

Utopia is where art, real life and deep experimentation intersects, and it’s utterly compelling.

It’s not much more than the sum of its influences, but when its influences are this strong, it really doesn’t matter.

'The Czar' is a microcosm of Crack The Skye: thuddingly impressive, richly textured and constantly surprising.

Often ‘Saves the World’ is brutal in its specificity – with devastating effects.

The south London grime don delivers a knockout debut that’s brash and pensive in equal measure.

The album’s first half is fantastic.... The album’s second ‘suite’ is mellower and less consistent.

Musically, it’s a soothing sound--think Imogen Heap, Regina Spektor, Laura Marling and Tori Amos--that without attentive listening could be mistaken for a pleasant enough electronic-pop record. However, in Half Waif’s quest for some kind of calmness they’ve actually made an album that, inwardly, burns furiously.

Ultra-lo-fi, but an album nonetheless stuffed full of rich melodies and arch lyrical observations.

Brimming with the prickling anxiety and stress that’s become commonplace during the pandemic, as well as the comfort Charli XCX has found in a strengthened relationship, it’s a glorious, experimental collection.

Josh Homme and his all-star pals prove the virtue of taking your sweet time on a record that’s as self-assured as it is damn sexy.

Compulsive and conflicted.

With Freetown Sound, he’s made something bold, challenging, uncompromising and overlong--an album, like the man who made it, that’s the sum of its parts and then some.

‘ÁTTA’ is at least the band’s best album since 2005’s monolithic ‘Takk’ made them a household name, and at most a record that gives Sigur Rós plenty more reason to exist in adding some pure and natural soul to this cold and unfeeling world.

Get past the initial jolt of weirdness and you'll find in his delivery a soul-puncturing cry from the very frontlines of life, able to evoke both desperate tragedy and skyscraping joy all at once.

It’s one of the oddest beauties of the year so far.

I Made A Place is a soft, sumptuous delight. It’s a cult classic, not a bestseller, but we’re pretty sure that Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy wouldn’t have it any other way.

Unlikely to sway anyone not already on board with Richard D. James’ weirdo-funk, Collapse is nevertheless a brilliant, warped addition to a canon like no other.

It’s a contemplative, conflicted look at modern life and feels relevant in a breathless, always-on society. ‘Sad/Happy’ is bittersweet more than anything – which feels like the truest emotion for this album, one that successfully communicates the modern maelstrom of everyday pain and joy.

Whether channelling her larger-than-life musical heroes or shrouding her music in something more subtle, Moriondo’s lyricism shines through – she’s yet another Gen Z star willing to try the pop-punk outfit on for size. The fit? Pretty damn good.

Yes, ‘Vince Staples’ was a beautifully personal reflection from start to finish, but ‘Ramona Park…’ enriches the listener’s relationship with the rapper.

‘The Theory Of Whatever’ shows that – unless he chooses to hit the eject button for himself – Jamie T should be sticking around for a lot longer.

Scraping off the garage 
rock grit and disjointed sharp edges that characterised his 
previous album ‘Emotional Mugger’ for this definitive self-portrait, Segall scrubs 
up great.

'Capricornia' and 'Europe' thicken their debut's effervescent jangle to a rich lustre, and Morris' solo uke classic 'Tallulah' makes sending postcards of sausage-eating Germans sound as romantic as dinner on the Danube.

Absolutely stunning. [4 Feb 2006, p.29]

There’s plenty of furious bluster on the record – vocalist James McGovern sounds incensed on ‘More Is Less’, and ‘Feeling Fades’ remains a razor-sharp torrent of feeling – but maybe its most interesting moments come in the slow-burns.

Guiding you on a whistlestop tour of his life, community and resultant beliefs, the record serves not only as a statement of identity, but also an indication of the sprawling possible paths for his career to grow into.

As the album’s title implies, this is transcendent stuff.

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

If Bain’s lyrics are poised to pull you one way on ‘In The End It Always Does’, her voice and instrumentals yank you back in the other direction – it’s disorientating, dizzying and utterly intoxicating.

Specifically speaking, Elbow have retained their crowns as everyman kings.

A kind of urban folksiness runs deep through the record, and the strummed softness of ‘Would You Rather’ even features Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst. The downbeat vibe is cut through by unmitigated banger ‘Motion Sickness’ but Strangers In The Alps is definitely album for the sad times.

Once given the time and attention it demands, ‘Warm Chris’ is the kind of album that will eventually take root somewhere deep. Its complexities mean that each listen holds new revelations, the record growing richer and richer over time.

‘God Games’ serves as a testament to their new era, one that sees them push each other out of their comfort zones and explore new ways to keep adapting their iconic sound, providing a grand and edgy comeback that is as fresh as can be.

By adding a decent dose of 2017 into her classic sound, Price creates something truly great.

This is a crisp, focused wobble through a primarily 'Philophobia'-derived set with drummer Dave Gow and bassist Gary Miller adding crucial propulsive qualities.

No great departure, rather 16 more tracks of campfire folk, quivering vocals and a brilliant baby's-eye view of the world. [25 Sep 2004, p.64]

Before you even consider the sonic and melodic innovation paraded through the album there’s so much crammed into each of these fifteen songs (without any one of them sounding overproduced or cluttered) that repeated listening is a must.

This record heralds her as one of the most enticing acts in R&B’s contemporary canon, near-guaranteed to become a bonafide star in her own right.

Cooked up in a session originally meant to spawn a batch of B-sides, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed instead debuts 10 songs that outstrip LC!’s debut album at every turn.

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.

The hard-fought ‘My 21st Century Blues’ is unequivocally RAYE from start to finish.

America is a profound statement; splicing Fuck Buttons with Sigur Rós in a state-of-the-union address balanced between hope, despair and an accomplished collision of strings, brass, soaring choirs and beats.

Production here is crisper and warmer than that of the original, and Swift’s vocals are, understandably, more mature.

Often, fantastically, all at the same time.

Familiar but daring, ‘Heartwork’ is a dynamic, surprising and enjoyable adventure.

‘Positive Mental Health Music’ is chaotic and warm at the same time but there’s star quality at every turn. It’s not always comfortable, but this is a confident and brazen debut that channels emotional turmoil into something positive and familiar.

They imbed stories (thought-provoking, moving or entirely made up) into future-pop bops that are bright and, most importantly, fun.

Despite the numerous directions ‘Greatest Hits’ charges off in and the many styles they splice together, this album never feels like bad cover versions.

The results, on LUMP’s second album ‘Animal’, are simply thrilling.

This is a special record by a band who are not-so-quietly raising the bar for the whole British scene.

The most doubter-defying second album since 'Modern Life Is Rubbish'.

There are plenty of familiar garage-y thrills to be found here, but a new sense of menace too.

Seemingly existing on a higher plane, this feels like upended R&B beamed down from outer space, encapsulating everything from the smoothness of Sade to the edginess of Aaliyah.

A titanic assault of monstrous proportions. [29 Jan 2005, p.59]

It may tail off towards the close, but genuine warmth emanates throughout. A partnership that’s charged with ideas, this feels like a collaboration that’s only just getting going.

Immunity is expertly paced, and as good for coming down as it is for coming up.