Brilliant and bittersweet, Shoot For the Stars Aim For the Moon is the work of someone whose success should have been stratospheric.

First Rose of Spring is the work of an artist who will never grow old.

What’s Your Pleasure? reveals the magic that happens when an artist feels truly free.

Haim take us through a dark place and they do it frankly. But they never let the momentum dip. And they never lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel.

He could easily have served up another full helping of R&B romance, but instead he’s tested himself – something you rarely see in artists of his stature. It’s impressive.

Homegrown is his most personal. Intended for release in 1975, Homegrown retains Harvest’s country-rock sound, but has more of an intimate feel.

Punisher ends with a thunderstorm of manic, discordant brass and drums and a pained scream, the physical culmination of the undercurrent of doom that has lurked throughout. But you emerge feeling not deflated but purged. Punisher has the effect of a particularly pummelling massage.

His richly soporific new album – his first new material since 2012’s Tempest – plays like an extension of that [2016 Nobel Prize acceptance] speech: a folksy recitation of literary and pop references sprawling over long, ramshackle songs with minimal (mostly acoustic) melodies that sway back and forth behind him like curtains in a light breeze.

No matter how sepia, settled or bowed the tone, On Sunset remains sonically voracious, Weller still challenging himself to make the greatest, most adventurous music of his life. The Changingman strikes again.

Weeks’ haunting lilt is perfect for embodying the magic and fear of creating a life, whether writing letters to his unborn son on “Takes A Village”, mooning over 20-week scans on “Blood Sugar” or finally tucking the nipper in on “Milk Breath”. It’s gorgeous, but expect more gin and screaming on the follow-up.

Taking you on a journey which reveals new landmarks and perspectives each time you listen, To Love is to Live is a compelling and real cinematic picture of the emotions that life throws at us. It’s a journey you will want to relive.

It’s fortunate that Jones chose to hold on to these songs – they form one of the most intriguing records she’s released in years.

Yes, there are moments when their sound threatens to stir up the ghosts of indie landfill past – his staccato “ah ah ahs” and “la la la” drawls on “The Races”, for instance – but ultimately the charm and unpredictability of their vignettes see them through.

Run the Jewels 4 is the culmination of their near-30 years of experience, during which time they have observed, listened and reacted. Their anger, hurt, elation and love – along with their near-psychic ability to read and riff off one another’s individual thoughts – build to the radioactive “a few words for the firing squad”, the album’s astounding apex.

Chromatic is an extravagant, sometimes even overblown album – but I suspect it will keep revealing itself over time. And by that point, she’ll be on to the next era.

Each track makes unpredictable bedfellows of certain sounds; even the deceptively simple guitar ballad, “Gross”, drops a synth that sends ripples through Von Schleicher’s lilting top register. It’s a disruption that echoes the most prominent theme, the struggle to translate her deepest thoughts to a lover, and consequently find her own power.

I Love the New Sky, might just be his best. Compared to earlier collaborative projects, this new record was composed solo in the Norfolk countryside, perhaps explaining why it has such a wonderfully expansive feel. It’s big and brash.

Listening to it feels like fleeing from a warehouse rave. Just like lockdown itself, How I’m Feeling Now can be overwhelming – panic-inducing, even – when taken as a whole. But there are snatches of brilliance here, and as perhaps the very first album to be produced under lockdown, it is really quite an achievement.

When the album shifts into its second part, and turns inwards with a slower pace to match its vulnerable introspection, there’s no jolt: Sumney’s voice ensures that his soundscapes melt together. It’s here that the emotional heft is to be found.

It is an album as multi-faceted as it is innovative. And that’s Sparks to a tee.

Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, lands with devastating precision. These 13 tracks are finely wrought works of art that draw as much influence from Purcell and Mozart as they do scuzzy Nineties post-punk.

Petals for Armor doesn’t offer up an easy redemptive arc towards happiness; it is a Herculean effort to pull yourself out of depression. But in letting us in on that effort, Williams has created something special.

It Was Good Until It Wasn’t is the latest work demonstrating the 25-year-old’s profound emotional intelligence. Its 15 tracks waft in as though carried by a summer breeze; Kehlani’s crystalline vocals shine through arrangements of sedate beats, jazz piano motifs, and luxurious twangs of Spanish guitar.

A meticulously crafted work that sticks to their winsome, Nineties-influenced slacker-rock while sounding freshly liberated after two years described as “the best and worst” time of their lives.

Gone is much of the external noise – typewriter clatters, vinyl crackles and the whir of bicycle spokes – replaced by ambitiously ornate compositions. As on Dark Days, I Grow Tired feels spookily prescient.

Manic descants, discordant pianos and abrupt changes in time signature at once complement and compete with each other in a carefully crafted clatter. The melodies are wonderful. The lyrics, too – conversational yet precise.

Rina’s mini album may have marked her out as one to watch, but SAWAYAMA stakes her claim as one of the boldest voices in pop today.

Her best work to date. ... Violins courtesy of Rob Moose (The National, Bon Iver) make this in part an elegy for her own experiences. What a marvel this album is.