While there are plenty further examples on the bitterly disillusioned Dark Matter, the most effective songs here are those which pack a more personal emotional punch, echoing the solitary desolation he’s mined throughout his career.

It’s an album that cools and shimmers its way through a delicious range of nuanced moods and subtly layered musical ideas. Delightful.

Truly, a remarkable debut.

The air of exultant expectation recollected in tranquility pervades the entire album, with Garvey confiding memories and misgivings to the natural world in "The River" and "The Birds", the latter appointed "the keepers of our secrets", while the former ultimately washes them out to the west-facing sea.

Whatever the subject, it’s always conveyed with unexpected charm.

It’s delightfully weird.

From start to finish, Monet’s songs deliver mellow yet funky instrumentation, with a hint of glittery disco on the livelier songs. Often, she adopts what would be described as a traditionally masculine gaze: confident, brash, assertive. Monet knows what she wants and exactly how to get it.

A very brave, strong record. Hats off, Raye. These blues are smoking hot.

This is the perfect moment for Fearless (Taylor’s Version): there’s no time like a pandemic to be given a dose of nostalgia, and it’s nice to have a refresher of some of the best pop songs committed to record. Even the six “from the vault” tracks that didn’t make the cut first time round feel oddly comforting.

A sweet, joyously transgressive album.

Between the piano-led dreamscape of “Red Snakes”, the shimmering electronica of “Bloom at Night” and the pop-leaning “We Cannot Resist”, Animal feels restless right up until its six-and-a-half-minute closer “Phantom Limb”, which concludes with Marling’s autotuned voice reading out the album’s credits.

Elverum’s voice’s masculinity-defying diffidence couldn’t be more indie, but his words now add all the weight he needs.

Save for the big live band arrangement of Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody” that closes the album, it’s a thoughtful, intimate set.

The Lookout not only shows Veirs prevailing as a prolific songwriter, but also proving she has a welcomed perspective to emotional turmoil.

In range, energy and freshness, this may be their best album yet.

The song order mirrors the real-life messiness of dismantling a past relationship while falling in love with someone new. ... She frequently weaponises her voice, snarling and howling her pain into the ether; on the French-spoken piano ballad “Falaise de Malaise”, though, she is whisperingly vulnerable. What an extraordinary artist Martha Wainwright is.

This collection of early 1960s Stones sessions vibrates with youthful revolutionary fervour--though sadly, there’s none of the witty, whimsical mini-interviews with which the Fabs’ performances were punctuated.

The Talk Talk of their era.

The results have a lingering, languid charm, which does, as he suggests, help to liberate the material from the rusting manacles of big-band and cabaret mannerisms.

The confidence of the performances benefits strong contemporary material dealing with issues from outreach to domestic abuse.

Chlöe and the Next 20th Century is another shocking left-turn from indie-rock’s chief provocateur: a charming (huh?!), innocuous (gasp!) sojourn into lovely baroque-pop.

This year's version features the usual relaxed jazz-pop grooves, sophisticated horn arrangements and tinder-dry ironic tone.

An album that perhaps skips too easily from one style to another for its own good, though there are other sublime moments.

The songs on her third album are more concealed in their arrangements than before, despite a sonic palette still based in the slim, austere piano and cello settings for which she’s known.

An album that’s as enchanting as it is astute, from a band to treasure.

Thankfully, Burn Something Beautiful confirms his own fund of creativity is far from drained, the collaboration with Buck and McCaughey resulting in all three’s best work in years.

Not only is it a drastic step up from an impressive debut, but it shows an artist keen to test himself emotionally, as well as artistically.

It’s Turner’s persona that gives The Car its charm and intrigue, though. Where Tranquility Base… provided his obtuse lyricism with a sci-fi framework, here it roars off in every direction, as wonderfully imagistic as it is largely impenetrable.

In Jeff Tweedy, singer-songwriter Joan Shelley has surely met her perfect production partner. This, her fourth album, is simply magical.

There’s nothing particularly Nashville about Jason Isbell’s new album--no cowboy hats or keening steel guitars--but it does possess, in spades, the kind of blue-collar concerns that have traditionally furnished country music’s backbone.

A handful of tracks stand out, and are among Yorke’s best solo work.

The eight tracks of Cool It Down (a real mission statement of a title) make for a quasi-gothic synth record that beefs up the Eighties revivalism of the past decade... even as it leaves behind the yelping dynamism of their youth for a more considered and placid middle-age.

At its best, it’s quite thrilling.

It’s a cosy record, clean, and good for the soul.

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.

Gaslighter is not a reinvention for the trio by any means. Still political, still resilient – if you were a fan of The Dixie Chicks back in 2006, then The Chicks are precisely who you hoped they would grow to be in 2020.

What’s impressive on 7 is how they show a fascination with genres that should have no business being on the same album, but without the “smash and grab” attitude of so many Western artists. When it comes to music, 7 is is cast-iron proof we all speak the same language.

Collins herself brings a demotic charm to whatever she sings.

This is one of Wainwright’s finest albums.

The album slips into a febrile combination of reminiscences, boasts and complaints that manages to keep an eye firmly on the present whilst gazing fondly back on former tribulations.

There is some sense that Blood Red Shoes are trying too hard to cultivate their own myth, with all these tales of rock and roll hedonism. For the most part, though, the music on Get Tragic is good enough to speak for itself.

By the time you reach the angelic post-rock “Rubicon”, you’ve given up looking for any cohesive thread in Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 and given in to its hazy momentum. Like the post-pandemic age, you never know what’s coming next.

I’m Your Empress Of is a bold statement of her individuality, nodding to her Honduran heritage but also her clear love of electronic music and Chicago house. ... This is an album that bristles with life.

Produced by Sturgill Simpson and David Ferguson, the arrangements offer a feisty take on bluegrass mountain music which sets off Childers’ perkily engaging delivery splendidly.

Drunk Tank Pink offers a new sense of space, of notes ricocheting off walls. Green and Coyle-Smith clearly enjoyed experimenting with unconventional guitar tunings, playing energised ping pong with the tangy twists of key.

It's an unashamedly middle-aged affair, from the quietly moving affirmation of devotion in "Two Children" to the comforting reverie of "I Remember You".

Not a party album.

An unfashionable record, then, and that may be its best asset. With such low stakes and barely any emotional intensity, Father of the Bride won’t cement Vampire Weekend’s legacy. But after a highly strung decade on the indie-rock A-list, it gives them room to breathe.

The confessional, autobiographical elements that are its strongest aspect also serve as its Achilles' heel: the whole enterprise depends on how fascinated the listener is with Rowland's psyche.

Its dark, unflinching songs certainly ponder humanity’s less attractive traits, with arrangements to match.

The Future And The Past is a journey of self-discovery brimming with hope and grooves made to help Prass and her listeners find optimism.

[Ventura] streamlines .Paak’s sound, making for a tightly packaged, melodic and danceable album.

At its best, Overgrown proves that James Blake doesn't need to listen to anyone's advice. He's doing fine already.

The dazzling deftness of his fingering in the Presto and Double Presto sections evokes a kind of giddy delirium and his feathery technique wrests the tenderest of emotions from the second Sonata's Andante.

Into just nine songs, BMTH have distilled a breathtaking demonstration of their ambition, their technical skill, and their awareness of the social climate.

Lyrically, there's a pervasive fascination with California outsider culture that soon palls, though the troubled relationship excavated in "Marked" suggests a deeper vein of inspiration may yet be mined.

It's an enchanting snapshot of British rock'n'roll at its moment of greatest revelation, the point at which the Tin Pan Alley production line of ersatz Elvises was rendered utterly obsolete.

Already Disappeared, which was co-produced with Cate Le Bon in the sprawling desert expanse of Marfa, Texas, is not an easy album. It’s often bleak and experimental: Cox’s vocals burst through like distorted, burbling fragments of static, or appear muffled amid the instrumentation. This is a new side of Deerhunter that gives the listener much to contemplate.

Elsewhere, these grand new performances with the Danish National Chamber Orchestra serve to pinion some songs too fixedly.

Listen, Whitey! seethes with righteous anger and revolutionary determination.

The unusual alliance of Floridian rapper/singer Eric Biddines with south London groovemaster Paul White brings an engaging, infectious charm to Golden Ticket reminiscent of Outkast and Arrested Development.

There’s a delicacy to his songs, lazily ambling along with just a few key elements allowed to flourish; the gentle, echoey guitar winding through “You’ve Got Your Way Of Leaving”, the fuzzy, Yamaha YC30 riff that “Abandoned Buick” is built on, the melancholic piano that appears on “Wildflower”. All of this gives his soft, lilting voice space to shine, and framed by such elegant, pastoral music, his delivery--and his lyrics--do most of the emotional heavy lifting.

The Australian artist sounds like a brand new person, ready to make up for those years she played it safe. Produced by Thomas Bartlett and Annie Clark (St Vincent), Sixty Summers is a celebration of newly claimed liberty.

Sadly, WOAPD is devoid of the sly wit of Vile's early material, and consists of mid-paced alt rock, reminiscent of the Dandy Warhols in a coma.

Not bad, but not brilliant.

Where his recent albums have leant more towards long-form improvisation, 50 focuses on songs, with the warm drizzle of Chapman’s gnarled Yorkshire burr lending a bluff, worldly-wise character to American tableaux.

Guitarist Vieux Farka Toure here seeks to extend his Malian musical heritage beyond the country's borders, by collaborating with American musicians on several tracks--though never obscuring the native essence of his style.

Lurking behind the cosmicity, there’s usually a solid pop hook.

It’s starker and sharper than you might expect--the most pop-conscious piece is a collaboration with Robyn, “Out of the Black”--but it works well on the sinister shuffle of “Spit Three Times” and bleak jitter of “Naked”.

[The] debut album sparkles with invention and throbs with emotion.

The result should be something that feels rooted in nostalgia, but in fact these songs sound and feel as modern and innovative as they did when first released decades ago.

This is music that sounds as fun to make as it is to listen to. The energy here is thrilling, the strong rhythm section provided by former Detroit garage band The Greenhornes’ bassist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler. ... Help Us Stranger has been a long time coming, but it was worth the wait.

She has pulled off the difficult trick of developing a new signature sound, without losing the personal perspective that separated her from the pack in the first place.

It’s certainly rare to hear a comeback effort that not only reflects an artist’s own best work, but stands alongside it in terms of quality, as The Next Day does.

Patti Smith's latest album, her best in a while, is held together by a spine of pieces themed around exploration.

The past typically isn’t the most comfortable place to inhabit, but Swift embodies her younger self fully, imbuing these tracks with the same immediacy and emotional heft as she did all those years ago. Country twang or not.

Moreover, Newman never sounds more quintessentially Newman than when experienced, as here, alone at the piano, with the lyrical intricacies and ironies of his songs dependent on just his laconic delivery and trenchant accompaniment for their effect.

Lindi Ortega split sessions between Nashville and Muscle Shoals. The result stretches her character in new and intriguing ways, effectively redefining Ortega as a cross between Loretta Lynn and Amy Winehouse.

Not Your Muse is an album that will lure you back time and time again, as much for its technical brilliance as any of its other qualities.

There’s so much deliciously analogue texture to cherish here – all bakelite, mahogany, coconut shells and bougainvillea, with woodwind you could drink and percussion you could tuck behind your ear. It’s 2023’s hippest release. Get up, get down, kick back to it.

Tarpaper Sky finds him relaxed and confident in his craft.

While Doyle struggles to balance his various musical elements--the opening 10 minutes is sheer drudgery--he has a nice way with layered vocal harmonies, which deserve more regular exposure.

A record with some rich layers and embellishments, but you sense that the excess of outside influence might be making up for something.

With the help of stellar producers like Cadenza (Kiko Bun), Swifta Beater (Kano, Giggs), and Nyge (Section Boyz, Yxng Bane), Tracey incorporates electronic music, rock, garage and even country on his most cohesive work to date.

A significant improvement on both Humbug and Suck It and See, suggesting they’ve found a more satisfying rapprochement with the classic rock that tends to come with the territory over there.

But it's Alex Glasgow's lament "Close the Coalhouse Door" that packs the most powerful punch, the cyclical piano like a minimalist murmur behind Becky's poignant delivery.

Now, it appears to have been reduced to simply a checklist of familiar sounds and effects, harnessed to the dullest beats imaginable, and dependent on outside collaborators for interest.

Wood is one of our finest songwriters, a brilliant exponent of the topical troubadour form, and rarely on better form than he is with None the Wiser.

There’s a strange, comforting beauty to Romano’s sombre baritone.

On her best album in years, Thea Gilmore darts back and forth between sharp, intelligent pieces on dark themes--depression, loneliness, murder--and more positive songs about love and hope.

At its best, it’s like the oddball offspring of Prince and The Left Banke, its elliptical melodies wreathed in strings and woodwind; but as ever, they sometimes can’t resist adding one more waffer-thin-mint to an already overstuffed musical pudding.

“Valid Jagger” and the Genet-referencing “Steed” are suffused with sensuous carnal urgency, while the turmoil of “Talk About It Later” is perfectly captured in the eerie, keening mellotronic strings riding its lumpy bump’n’grind.

It’s a much better album than Sea Change, just as immersive, but wiser and less indulgently wallowing.

Along with the anger and regret comes the usual hip-hop baggage of aggrandisement, recrimination and old-school reminiscence.

Zeros is the sound of an artist pushing his creative development, and enjoying himself as he does so. Exciting stuff.

The first of two albums planned for 2017, From A Room: Vol. 1 builds on the success of Chris Stapleton’s Grammy-winning debut Traveller, through a similar blend of country songwriting smarts and soulful engagement.

The entire thing is produced meticulously; each track slides into the next to ensure the party never stops. Club Future Nostalgia is pure, undiluted fun.

Archer took half a decade to make this record – no surprise, then, it makes for such a wonderfully unhurried listen.