DAMN. sees the rapper make a 180 degree turn from the sprawling jazz/funk/hip-hop odyssey of TPAB to deliver 14 taut, tough and wise cutting-edge examples of what’s possible in hip-hop today. ... Essential stuff.

IV is simply packed to its dank rafters with monstrous riffs, muggy low-mixed vocals and more discordant amp noise than you could shake a deaf stick at.

It’s powerful stuff, still wholly worthy of “10 fucking stars”.

Later songs Bear and Cleaning Out The Rooms are rewoven to even more emotional effect than in their previous guises, on the Zeus EP and Valhalla Dancehall long-player respectively.

While his guitar-playing remains robust and his vocal range undiminished, it’s the characteristically immersed, impassioned songwriting that most vividly illustrates his ongoing vigour.

The King Crimson archive is a thing of genuine wonder: it feels as though there isn’t a single picosecond of their career that hasn’t been somehow preserved, and the meticulous largesse with which this archival cache is curated and packaged sets an intimidating benchmark.

A joyous blend of dumb fun and sonic smarts with the talent that Stevens has been peddling for nearly 20 years to glue them together, this feels a fresh start in a career that didn’t exactly need one. Somehow, a wonderful surprise. Wow.

Divers is another meticulous masterpiece from one of the songwriters of her time, an album that’ll still be spellbinding generations from now.

Song For Our Daughter is, well, so uncannily, unreasonably and astutely beautiful that it meticulously sets aside every last one of your emotional checks and balances to wrap your core in a firm embrace.

It has been five years since their last studio album proper, and with The Wilderness, Explosions In The Sky have created something very special indeed.

Bereft of freestyle ivory plonks, You’re Not Alone captures WK doing what he does best: that utterly distinctive fusion of metal riffs, Springsteen bombast, pristine ABBA hooks and choruses bigger than Hercules’ biceps.

Old sweetens the deal, with tracks as good as anything from previous releases. However it’s New that intrigues, confuses, saddens and ultimately tempts you back with its sheer vulnerability--this is far deeper than the cash grab landfill this reunion could’ve spawned.

Deceptively simple, Cocker’s economical narratives sit atop Gonzalez’s evocative ivories, drawing you in with their intimacy, like an old rummy spilling the beans.

Kicking off with I Am Dust, it hangs together marvellously as an album.

As the original album did for Prince’s artistic progression, so this super deluxe edition does for the posthumous reissue series: refine a vision, making good on all the promises of the past while pointing to a future full of possibilities. Whatever expanded edition comes next, if it builds on this it cannot fail.

These 17 discs comprise every Island studio album, each with generous extras, plus standalone discs of genuine historical worth.

The erstwhile Felt and Denim frontman, the innately enigmatic Lawrence, is doing his best work right here and right now.

Spooky Action is all a bit like an ambitious sixth-form production--and I mean that in the absolute best way--the sheer excitement of experimentation with the requisite chutzpah to banish any gaucheness.

It’s an album blazing with a refulgent light that illuminates the darkness. Ultimately, it’s a cathartic celebration of life co-created by someone who’s survived a traumatic experience. More importantly, it shows how heartbreak, suffering and tragedy can be refashioned into transcendent art.

Tthis dark horse of a debut isn’t just vastly superior to most of the recycled indie landfill swilling around--it’s one of the most emotionally-charged guitar-based debuts to be unleashed over the past 12 months.

At their strange best, they sound like Radiohead with an ABBA obsession. A special album from a special band.

The set ends with a trio of songs from a 1964 BBC session; the sound quality may be poor but those voices shine through, utterly peerless nearly 50 years on.

He has certainly struck gold. This is out-and-out the best pop release so far this year.

Lament For Nepal is one of three love letters to the earthquake-ravaged Kathmandu Valley. A stark Nepali bell opens and closes this haunting piece, though as is so often the case with Chapman, the English pastoral qualities of the composition are equally compelling.

They took their sweet time, but that Breeders line-up is back, and has just nonchalantly knocked it out of the park.

While there is little new ground being broken on this debut album – DJ Spinna and Onra have both pursued similar territory--Kaytranada adds a pop nous and Dilla-like beat-making precision to the equation.

The charm of Thanks For The Dance can be found in the tidemark between the lapping waves of Cohen’s poetic self-effacement and the shoreline of our appreciation for his lyrical accomplishments.

What remains is a tightly-focused snapshot of an intensely creative period in Prince’s career: perhaps the most generous single-album box set of all time, for an album that itself just keeps giving.

75 Dollar Bill are blending elements from the past to create a stunning future.

Fragments: Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997) serves the showman well, making this era sing, one of The Bootleg Series’ most intriguing investigations so far into Bob Dylan’s working practices and mindset.

The first thing that strikes you is an apposite openness of sound, achieved not just via thoughtful, spacious arrangements and due diligence at the mixing desk, but built into the compositions themselves, from the ground up. ... Is it too early to call 2018’s album of the year?

There’s rich pleasure everywhere you look: Peter Case’s heartfelt delivery of I Don’t Worry About A Thing, a spectral The Way Of The World by Anything Mose! and Taj Mahal’s nimble, forceful version of the sardonic opener, Your Mind Is On Vacation. The latter offers a thrilling pointer about how high we are going to fly, and includes Bonnie Raitt’s stunning version of Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy, where her passionate take skilfully unfurls the raging force underpinning the song. Elsewhere, there are blasts of controlled power such as Ben Harper/Charlie Musselwhite’s fiery take on Nightclub.

Beautiful, dark and mischievous, this is an album which is sure to baffle and delight in equal measures.

On this album, Harvey is again sweeping up sonic history and weaving it into a pattern of her own making, but it’s more relaxed and more raucous, its reference points less, appropriately, English. It’s a deeply melodic record.

The Super Deluxe edition of Vol 4 supplements a crisp remaster of the original album with extra discs containing alternative takes and revelatory studio outtakes (“What’s it called?” “Bollocks”), plus an entire set’s worth of live tracks from their March 1973 UK tour, a poster and a booklet so hefty you could tether a bull to it.

From Wanna Sip’s opening videogame blitzkrieg to the Blade Runner drones of Mustn’t Hurry, Plunge is a complete thrill.

Relentless is a masterly achievement, tasting of truth.

Dirty Projectors have released their career highlight to date and already one of 2017’s best. Encore surely.

Those wanting a more authentic experience (whatever that means) will be glad to know the band’s psychedelic groove is still very much present (see the swirling Gabi or Assadja) while those wanting less retroisms should head to Pour Toi with its insane disco trucker’s shift. But at its heart, Optimisme deals in the same joyous protest music Songhoy Blues are known for, only now bolstered with a grit that matches the multi-lingual lyrics.

Greg Dulli’s vocals grow only more aching with age as he transitions from cocky young buck to greying Don Juan. There are jagged riffs and funky organs aplenty; the latter a welcome call-back to last year’s reissue of 1996’s sumptuous Black Love. Yet there’s a fresh emphasis on lush, elegantly experimental arrangements with much snazzy brass and graceful orchestration on show.

Harding’s delivery is unique, her range from the deepest velvet to the most discordant cry; her enunciation infusing every syllable with her tortured soul. ... Simply stunning.

This one challenges in its immediacy, with an emphasis on melody that twists into more muscular signatures so that listeners are never quite sure of the ground they’re on. Meanwhile, in the words and music, there is spellbinding poignancy and aching beauty.

The phenomenal Revolutionary Spirit reveals that while Manchester copped the lion’s share of the critical plaudits during this epochal post-punk period, the quality of Mersey was also second to none.

It’s a record that her late father would have been enormously proud of, and the first essential country album of 2014.

The real gold is in tracks that didn’t make the final album, such as the funked-up Autologic and a jazz workout, Darkness Of Greed.

It’s hard to imagine a more prescient-sounding record than one that explores how nascent technologies affect our motivations as modern consumers at a time when we’re all frantically buying online to stave off the effects of lockdown. The songs dealing directly with this are The Future Bites’ most captivating. ... There’s no need for the buyer to be wary here. The Future Bites is guaranteed to weather the ravages of time.

If ever an album begs repeated listening, it’s this one, which manages to surprise and reassure at the same time; you’ll want to return to it more than any other post-’83 Floyd album.

The contents, which comprise the first volume of the Lou Reed Archival Series, are of enormous cultural significance – fascinating, extraordinary, at times revelatory.

Can – The Singles is laid out logically and chronologically, and makes a convincing, consistent case for the accessibility of enigmatic, semi-abstract art rock when delivered in concise and chewable chunks.

A great record that proves her writing remains as vital as ever.

The whole thing works beautifully and, if you shop carefully, you will end up with superb value for money and a repackaging of a great album that for once isn’t stuffed with redundance.

A strong contender for album of the year. ... Titanic Rising is remarkable for its breadth, effortlessly shifting from the 90-second ambient wash of the title track to Picture Me Better’s homespun take on the cosmic cowboyisms of Kacey Musgraves. Then there are Merings’ lyrics, evincing a similar shift in scale and scope.

Her artistry had never been so robust. As the earlier, more mournful In Concert version of Carey shows, Mitchell would dig deep in the studio to find a euphoric vocal that causes the song to soar. ... For Mitchell at this stage, then, nothing was ever truly a failure, but more an opportunity to take her art to new heights.

All four members are gifted musicians, but they sacrifice virtuosity over a rough-hewn spiritedness which makes Between The Earth a thrilling listen.

Is This The Life We Really Want? is a stunning accomplishment, as rich as anything Waters has ever managed.

A 12-minute version of the album’s title track is more séance than song. ... Elsewhere, the audience’s enthusiastic response to the first few bars of Helpless is rewarded with a despairing deconstruction of the CSNY favourite, Nils Lofgren’s funereal accordion aiding the communal catharsis taking place onstage.

Overall, Bird Songs Of A Killjoy is the sound of someone recording exactly what they want to. Nothing here feels out of place, or sounds like a pastiche of another era. Bedouine has found herself a winning formula.

Sounding classic on arrival, Lonesome Dreams is certainly the best album of its kind since Damien Jurado’s Maraqopa.

By the time The Morning Is Waiting appears, all glorious awakenings in pianos and strings, the album begins to feel triumphant. The elation continues to the end, with the funk returning in spades for Same Name, before closer Stay Awake warms you up to start over.

Hhe serves up striking versions of some of his most famous Riverside-era compositions, including Rhythm-A-Ning, and Well, You Needn’t. Also featured is the only known studio recording of Light Blue. The second disc in this 2CD package includes alternate takes and rehearsal versions and is accompanied by an informative 60-page booklet, including an essay by Monk’s biographer, Robin D G Kelley.

The lust for life evident on the streets of Havana is reflected enthrallingly in an album that looks set to take the Daptone ethos to the world at large.

Across the years, the album has often been discussed in terms of its proto-Britpop ‘moment’. But it holds up superbly freed from that context as a deeply distinct and thrillingly flash statement of what Suede do, creating its own world while doing practically everything it can to grab the attention.

The attendant singles, EPs and B-sides distil their career into manageable chunks that tell the surface story, but the real gems lie in the albums themselves--each of which is also being reissued singly.

Musically speaking it’s a marvel.

Rewardingly, Cinema buries its snout deep into the trough to root out the goods.

Beautifully played, arranged to perfection, crystal clear recording and production with the vocals to the fore, but cushioned by immaculate musicianship. A classic of the genre.

There’s a light, electronic dusting to many of these songs, but on tracks such as The Pain Of Never, Marc’s distinctive vocals have rarely sounded richer and warmer.

This is Banhart’s best work because it functions as a unit.

It’s a staggering, swaggering achievement more vital than anything they’ve done in the last 35 years.

Hippopotamus is exactly what you’d expect and more besides.

It works because it’s so astonishingly, genuinely clever.

An attack on the lack of dissenting voices in popular culture, if this isn’t Mason’s bona fide masterpiece, it’s certainly approaching it.

With expressive restraint, key collaborators John Parish and Flood utilise instruments and field recordings to tactile effect, while leaving room for Harvey’s voice to resonate. The results hold their folk-horror secrets close and harbour dark suggestions on investigation.

Over the course of an hour, Straight Songs unloads a lifetime of pain. But there is a happy ending to this story. Whereas much of the album has him merely “hanging on”, by Eden Lost And Found – a track built from a mobile phone recording of his wife messing around with an old Casio keyboard – he has embraced survival and moves towards his new dawn with, if not quite piranha teeth, then a mischievous, Cheshire cat grin.

The album’s immediacy is impossible to escape.

It’s a persuasive, heartening, softly seductive little basket of light; and as such is welcome anytime round here.

Sublimely crafted, incredibly well-played, there are all the reference points, yet it never sounds like a composite of old glories. The intelligence, urgency and immediacy of his 32nd album are a most welcome surprise.

Blue & Lonesome is as defiant a statement in its own way as any earlier landmark. Stones co-founder Ian Stewart should be beaming wherever he is, as his boys finally realise the potential he spotted at those first rehearsals 54 years ago.

Purgatory is a formidable equal to the Southern states snapshots Steve Earle took on Copperhead Road, and the largely acoustic melodies and arrangements will have some listeners checking the sleeve to make sure they’re not playing a long lost record by The Band. Yes, the likes of Price and Simpson have returned country to impressive heights, and Childers has the weaponry in his arsenal to take it even higher.

There’s not a weak moment in these 11 songs.

Among the burning forests and boiling oceans, it's reassuring to know that raw beauty can still be found within the groove of vinyl, of which this--the Newcastle band's fourth long-player--provides rich evidence. [Mar 2020, p.110]

This is possibly Dawson’s best work. Yes, it’s tough-going – you’ve probably realised he REALLY doesn’t dig this country of ours right now – but the blend of smarts, art and heart is more than enough to demand your ears on repeat.

Bonnie’s smoky take of the INXS funker Need You Tonight and a rollicking version of Los Lobos’s Shakin’ Shakin’ Shakes. Another Grammy on the way? That would almost certainly seem to be the case.

Nightmare Logic says it all over eight tracks in a damn near perfect 35 minutes.

All in all, it’s an exhaustive trawl through this proud provincial stronghold’s extraordinary creative archive and arguably the definitive guide to our trends in the north.

With seamless storytelling through its 34 songs, magical moments of intricate instrumental interplay abound, magnified by an orchestra and massed choirs, while a template for the staging of a musical production sees the principals realising a grandiose next-step in their creative development.

It’s the real deal, the meat of his canon and bearing rewards for fans old and new.

Throughout, this is the sound of three world-class talents raising their respective games, as if trying to keep up with each other, creating something far greater even than the sum of their world-class parts.

Sabbath leant towards greater sophistication without losing their elemental bent. The super deluxe treatment introduces plenty of live material from the same year’s North American tour.

Their political agenda from this distance is not quaint, it remains entirely relevant.

This set, which has been remastered from the original analogue tapes, features sleevenotes by the unmatched Amanda Petrusich, as well as an interview with Sinatra and unseen photos from her personal collection. It’s nothing less than her supreme career warrants. Here’s to the queen of danger-pop, and to Light In The Attic for getting the belated celebrations started.

For all its musical sophistication and all its lyrical heart, Ignorance is a confident, almost bolshy statement of intent.

This is one of the most confident and charismatic debuts in years.

Finally, this disturbing masterwork’s moment in the sun. Phoebus be praised.

The six songs that make up Terminal hit the sweet spot between glorious pomposity and roughshod urgency, all underpinned by the sheer delight in maximalist sonic attack.

Put together with love and care, it’s all a grand tribute and beautiful vindication for a once-despised band. Those witless saps who savaged them may be long forgotten but Motörhead are up with the greats. We’ll never see their like again.

16 Lovers Lane arguably even shades the triumphant Liberty Belle… when it comes to defining the Go-Betweens apogee. The extras, meanwhile, are both plentiful and tantalising.

Such is the unrelenting flood of language and emotion from this remarkable performance that it’s difficult to take everything in on first viewing and repeated listens become essential to experiencing the fullness of it all. ... We can just be glad that this particular spell of lightning was bottled so beautifully.