The result is probably the best work of the singer’s career, a wide-ranging survey of contemporary shortcomings in which the frequent bursts of offhand spite and bitterness are perfectly balanced by the warmth of the folk-rock arrangements.

With the striking falsetto of Peter Silberman dominating their songs, The Antlers may be America's equivalent of Wild Beasts.

Even among the country music gems already released this year, Stapleton’s feels like a small miracle.

The production here is superb. Tyler has never been one for traditional song structure, but on IGOR he’s like the Minotaur luring you through a maze that twists and turns around seemingly impossible corners, drawing you into the thrilling unknown. ... This is Tyler’s best work to date.

These are big themes, dealt with imaginatively by a singer and a band both operating at the peak of their powers. Album of the year?

Interspersed with vox-pop musings on matters like police shootings, The Last Days Of Oakland is a state-of-the-nation address akin to Sky Stone’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On.

The result, in tracks like “You Got To Run” and “No No Keshagesh”, is uniquely uplifting, a powerful affirmation of steely spirituality.

It's music that slips between the generic niches favoured by broadcasters; but isn't that exactly where the most interesting music comes from?

Former Only Ones frontman Peter Perrett sounds as languidly wasted as ever on How The West Was Won, though thankfully it’s the kind of wasted that demands the devotion of his sons, both involved in this solo debut, and sparks insights and locutions that enable him to make sense of his life.

With Build Me Up from Bones, Sarah Jarosz restores an earthy inventiveness to folk music--despite the violin and cello of her touring bandmates Alex Hargreaves and Nathaniel Smith tweaking the bluegrass settings with classical flavours that reflect the singer’s conservatory training

A great storyteller, Del Rey consistently delivers the who, what, where and when. She picks out the telling details – turquoise jewellery, the TV in the corner, “on the second floor, baby”. She sketches a backstory (“I come from a small town”) and then tells you how it all feels.

This conflicting need for independence within affection, thrown into stark relief during her self-imposed exile, is one thematic mainspring driving this Short Movie.

Accompanied by a crack hometown band for whom the intricacies of New Orleans’ distinctive second-line rhythms are clearly second nature, it’s a parade of infectious funk and soul right from the moment Bruce Springsteen romps through “Right Place Wrong Time”, to the Doctor’s closing roll through “I Walk On Guilded Splinters” and “Such A Night”.

Both artists sound far more liberated here than on each of their separate solo projects; it’s a collaboration many will want to continue.

Weird, wonderful and whimsical, McCartney III finds the walrus on inspirational form.

A resounding, bitter corrective to the pleasureland fantasies of modern R&B pop and the empty braggadocio of hip-hop clichés, Key Markets may be one of the year’s emblematic albums.

When the songs do drop in tempo, they’re stripped down so the sound is soulful and raw, rather than sickly sweet.

There’s a warm indulgence about the arrangements, which augment the folksy guitars and banjos with ruminative horns, misty string drones and electronics, that speaks loudly of hope and possibility.

A record that finds the 52-year-old Grant on his most romantic, melodic form, as he looks back on the pleasures and fears he faced growing up as a gay kid in America’s Midwest. ... A lovely, generous album.

[There are] some decent moments on this debut album.

Weller’s magpie tendencies pay dividends.

Unsurprisingly, it’s not a pretty sound, though there are moments of transcendent grace.

It’s a magnificent return to form.

Nichols’ explanation of its development--starting out in the mould of country legends The Stanley Brothers, but metamorphosing through exposure to Malian desert-blues master Ali Farka Toure--reveals the blend of influences his music subtly weaves together.

Musically, Dark Matter is some of their catchiest and punchiest material in years. It’ll have you nodding your head – but it’ll never let you get comfortable.

While the Bootleg Series cupboard appears as well-stocked as ever, the value of outtakes from a notoriously weak album (Self Portrait) is debatable, though there are gems among the oddments.

Blessed with clear, characterful voices, employed in beautifully modulated, bell-like harmonies, the Söderbergs find beauty in the bleakness of mortality and the cyclical nature of things.

Crush is an insight into Shepherd’s brilliant mind and – such is the sheer variety of this album – a way to inspire one’s own imagination.

Like Randy Newman, the Mael brothers have a knack for voicing the hopes and regrets of diverse, sometimes unsympathetic characters; and the latitude afforded by their operatic arrangements allows them to add commentary in real time, like an instrumental Greek chorus.

Movingly prefaced by Gillian Anderson reading the novelist’s suicide note, its gently absorbing string undulations, with a faintly keening soprano occasionally audible amongst the oceanic swells, bring fiction and real life together in a deep, powerful manner.

This album’s intricate, pressurised urgency keeps Sons of Kemet at that movement’s head.

Be More Kind is certainly a step in a different direction, it still retains much of what everyone fell in love with, while appealing to a much broader audience than ever before.

This is a quietly momentous album of depth, soothing in its introspection.

That could stand as a motto for the album: this is music seeking to let in the light.

It’s Blumberg’s longest commitment to a way of working, which is just as well because it is brilliant.

Though it doesn’t deliver the promised 2020 twist on the Nineties formula, beabadoobee’s debut album is a terrific new addition to the “bubblegrunge” genre.

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 their best album to date.

Faithfull lifts them from the page with a compelling combination of crispness and tenderness. She doesn’t use that soporific “poetry voice”. Instead, she can make 200-year-old visions of beauty, love and death feel as urgent as the latest true-crime podcast.

Feist here cements her position as the poster-girl for intimate US indie rock, with songs that peel back the skin of the human condition.

It's tasteful but a touch bloodless.

The predatory, hypnotic swamp grooves that have been Tony Joe White’s stock-in-trade throughout his career lend a magical backwoods bayou ambience to the nine tracks of Rain Crow, on which his peculiar songcraft and grizzled Woodbine baritone conjure up gripping regional narratives.

There’s a pleasing congruence between the way that the surreal invades the ordinary in Rennie Sparks’s lyrics, and the way that Brett Sparks’ voice and music illuminates that invasion.

It’s one of the most considered and thought-provoking electronic albums of the year.

On Cavalcade, black midi feast on a smorgasbord of influences but the result at times can leave their sound meandering aimlessly.

Heart, ultimately, is the key to a project which links personal, small-scale disturbances of loneliness and homesickness with broader concerns of population density and ecological sustainability.

There’s barely a moment on Distance Inbetween that doesn’t ooze new-found strength and inspiration.

Carter Girl reaffirms Carlene Carter’s role as scion of country music’s leading family through a mixture of Carter Family classics and original material, plus shaky duets with Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson.

The secret is their infallible way with a tune: tracks such as "Get Away" and the single "Georgia" possess a beguiling melodic charm that illuminates the lo-fi boy/girl vocal delivery of Blumberg and his sister Ilana, bringing uplift where once all might have been gloom.

On Kill the Lights, though, he makes the arduous process of self-editing sound simple; with no fat or frills, the melodies shine through in gorgeous fashion.

Realised here in more expressive interpretations, and interspersed with poems read by her daughter, the actress Gabrielle Drake, these songs are full of acute observations, deft allusions and metaphors, and the subtlest of emotional revelations, wielded with an English restraint redolent with the aromas of freshly-mowed lawns and cucumber sandwiches.

he record is a confident immersion into a genre he’s only toyed with before. And just as Good Thing never fully sacrificed Bridges’ style, neither does Gold-Digger forget his roots.

Council Skies is guaranteed to make the old fans feel right at home.

Fender drew plenty of early comparisons to Bruce Springsteen – on Hypersonic Missiles they’re entirely warranted, as much for the instrumentation as the lyricism and his vignettes of working-class struggle.

These dozen visceral tableaux of modern life are shot through with flashes of gallows humour and offhand absurdity that tempers the overall vision of a "newborn hell" peopled by "dumb Brits."

The only constants are Albarn’s drowsy presence, shuffling through songs as if shot in the neck with a tranquiliser dart, and the stout melodicism that makes …Strange Timez the finest Gorillaz album in a decade.

On All Fours is undoubtedly an intense listen, with its blistering harmonies and Pendlebury’s low murmur. They’re good for a sharp analogy, too.

Throughout this intensely poetic, introspective album, currents of guilt, regret and resolution battle in quiet turbulence, the group’s trademark harmonies and acoustic folk settings augmented with additional sonic strata.

Henry's stubbled delivery pitched somewhere between Randy Newman and Tom Waits as he negotiates the galumphing waltz "Strung" and the ramshackle cakewalk groove "Sticks & Stones", which best exemplifies the album's mythopoeic blues mode.

It’s all too controlled and unambitious; and just aping Dylan’s wheeze doesn’t make it any more intriguing.

It’s a wonderful album, and further proof that you’re never too old, if you’re good enough.

The songwriting is not quite as enigmatic as on that precursor project [case/lang/veirs]. ... The trio’s strengths lie mostly in the natural sweetness of their harmonies, a heartbreaking union of glowing melancholy underscoring the life lessons of songs such as “See You Around” and “Ain’t That Fine.”

I Am Easy to Find feels like an old friend you’re pleased to keep around--even if, had you been introduced today, you wonder if you’d have been compelled to make the effort.

Where previous albums had been bland landfill electro-pop rendered even more indistinguishable through her heavily autotuned vocals, Rainbow offers a range of approaches, from pop and R&B to country and funk, applied to material that brings greater depth to her characteristic sassy attitude.

Seven of the 15 tracks here have been drowned in producer Pharrell Williams’ bubblemint bounce – at points, it’s in danger of sounding more like his record than Grande’s.

Sweet Heart Sweet Light is infused with an uplifting lust for life.

The band have retained their brusque character but it’s less ponderous than before, with several tracks taken at an unfeasibly rapid tempo; while Ronson has brought production clarity and a punchy funk sensibility that transforms QOTSA’s trademark robot-rock rhythms into something much more dynamic and danceable.

It's an album packed with Wordsworthian sturm und drang.

Given time and careful attention, CAPRISONGS unfurls to reveal the richest and catchiest melodies twigs has written so far. Its mystique melts into you.

Twelve Nudes is Furman’s most urgent and cathartic record to date.

It's been a long time coming, and all the more welcome for it.

When it all comes together, with the sinuous, haunting grace of "Near Death Experience Experience" or the jaunty élan of "Danse Carribe", the results more than justify the sometimes obtuse methods.

The Coup [has a] breadth of musical settings, which range from indie guitar riffs to itchy techno pulses to a string quartet and French horns.

There are echoes of Pops Staples’s gentle, miasmic guitar in the folksy gospel stylings of “Peaceful Dream” and the cyclical twang carrying the Black Lives Matter anthem “Little Bit”, warning youngsters to be careful around cops; but elsewhere the influence of Sly & The Family Stone’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On is paramount.

Sound & Color brims with the confident ambition of a band discovering and exploring exactly what they’re capable of.

The album never regains ["Strong's"] scuttling momentum, lapsing into a boudoir-soul bubble-bath that, with too much immersion, leaves one’s interest wrinkling.

I was rendered wonderfully weightless by a journey that delivered whole galaxies of nuance in a universal context. Trust me: the force is strong in this one.

At its best, it’s tremendous stuff, with droll, sardonic portraits of lovers and losers punched along by grooves that sound variously like the Spencer Davis Group produced by Holland-Dozier-Holland (“Shake It Little Tina”), Stonesy raunch pitched midway between rock, funk, soul and country (“Me N Annie”), and sundry suggestions of Elton John, The Replacements and Calexico.

On Freedom Highway, Rhiannon Giddens animates black American history--notably, the arduous journey from slavery to civil rights--in songs which pair her strong, sonorous delivery with arrangements echoing pre-blues minstrel music.

Former Hüsker Dü drummer/songwriter Grant Hart exhibits huge ambition on The Argument.

Producer Ed Buller has given the band a bigger sound that works well on the rolling U2-esque riff to “Barriers”, but parts of the album still sag under expectations.

The results are frequently transformative, and always enjoyable.

Say Sue Me’s charming third outing shows the quartet exploring a broad range of sounds, but it most significantly ensures they’re not a band to sleep on.

The palette is tender, and the changes subtle: it’s like climbing a mountain, the same view altering by slight increments over the course of the ascent.

These are some of the most engaging songs he's written, with beguiling melodies wrapped around typically gnomic lyrics, and little undue instrumental indulgence.

On Noonday Dream, he expands the Cornish landscape that has impacted his previous work and brings in sounds and instruments that spark the imagination for places further afield, in the most exquisite way.

Throughout, Tweedy’s arrangements are the soul of discretion, employing the merest suggestions of rhythm and texture to show Staples’ iconic voice to best advantage.

American Head addresses something more universal – memories of childhood, adolescence and family, and their lifelong imprint on us – with an expansive sound that is equally accessible, tender and surreal.

There’s the same penchant for itchy, unusual beats from the likes of 4Tet and Fred; the same provocative, philosophical flow; and the same undertow of paranoid wariness.

Thematically and sonically, For Those That Wish to Exist feels limitless.

Emmaar is a typically impressive blend of the emotional and the political from Tinariwen.

Though not as powerful as Lamar’s own albums, it’s similarly diverse, with elements of boudoir R&B, sinister street creep and ebullient electro dancehall stippled with a variety of sonic detail, such as whistle and kalimba, reflecting the film’s African setting.

UGLY is a powerful and direct transmission from a brilliant, beleaguered brain.

Unfortunately, there’s not much pleasure here for the listener, manoeuvred into the position of reluctant psychoanalyst.

Instead of limiting themselves, Beach House are finally embracing all of their creative moments, which have inevitably challenged them to become better artists.

Songs finds John Fullbright more concerned with the act of writing than with illuminating a subject.

A true original, at his very best.

While this partner set doesn’t have quite the sustained quality of the preceding album released six months ago, it still affirms the value of spiking country music with a strong shot of rhythm & blues.