Between analyzing her own recent past with the empathy and allowances of an emotional anthropologist and the lazy precision of the grooves, Woods pairs harmony with righteousness like the inextricable twins they are.

Though bleak on the surface, through Jonny, Pierce finds himself embracing the chaos of life, reclaiming his childhood years in a cathartic and self-soothing project that aptly marks fifteen years of The Drums.

Something To Give Each Other isn’t changing the game or reinventing the musical wheel, but ask yourself: does it need to? It’s exactly what it needs to be, and it's done so incredibly well.

CMAT succeeds in making each track individually compelling, while simultaneously excelling in exploring her more abstract side. Crazymad, For Me shows CMAT to be in a world of her own, one that’s way ahead of the pack.

Whereas many of Lost & Found’s tracks felt stripped to their bare bones, most of the tracks here feel built from the ground up.

A deeply personal, Earth-moving masterpiece exploring relationship tensions with the gravitas of an apocalypse and the simplicity of a melody passed down through generations.

While The Patience is less conceptually rounded, and instead, a directive of bottled emotion and frustrations inevitably concluding with an artistic clarity, Mick Jenkins proves his worth goes beyond a label deal. Even firing loose cannons he’s a lethal voice with plenty to say.

There’s a self-assuredness that runs throughout the project. Crisp and crystalline, the cohesiveness alone make Diamond’s latest re-imagining of pop pretty much perfect, but it's her attention to detail that elevates it even higher. Lyrically she goes deeper than before, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the album takes a dark turn – in fact its sound is bright and bold.

The album’s sprawl also allows the stunning space-funk title track to spread its wings for full lift-off unhurriedly over 9 minutes until total resistance-shattering hypnosis has been achieved. If this is their Silver, Say She She’s gold must be out of this world.

As a complete body of work, it’s eclectic and begins how it ends: inconclusively. But as an entry into Armand Hammer’s growing canon of mastery, Test Strips is their headiest and most impressive work thus far.

The muted “Eat You Like A Pill” and FKA-Twigs-esque “Bad Habit” find their home in the warm comfort of swirling, breezy electronics and echoey vocal performances – offering a balanced, well-rounded edge to the record.

It’s those little moments that best prove that Slow Pulp themselves have found that same type of sweetness, and with it they’ve delivered their best project thus far.

The powerful, FIFA-ready indie rock is good and often great, but these spare, vulnerable songs are the record’s most powerful. Bakar is becoming one of the most distinct personalities in UK pop, and the more of him he shows us, the better he becomes.

Nothing Lasts Forever, but Teenage Fanclub probably could if they so wished.

Its musical journey mirrors yeule’s life progression, pairing alternative rock with electronic glitch just as yeule couples their human self with their cyborg persona. This creates spectacular results, opening up to raw and honest emotion all while maintaining the mystery.

A clear and consistent exercise in true class from a band who clearly haven’t lost a step, they just took a few stray ones.

Bird Machine is a resonant final word from an enormously talented singer-songwriter. While Linkous clearly struggled with depression, his music often feels as if it’s soaked in light and infused with love, even as it evokes melancholy and apprehension.

Hynde sounds like she’s never left her glory days, and to assume anything less would be a disservice. Her voice is rich with age, thick with wisdom, perfect for listlessly reminiscing about smoky hotel rooms and other rockstar cliches of “her prime”.

Heaven is a brief, yet indulgent series of funk jams and sultry, lo-fi ballads, fit to make leaves age into Autumn based on atmosphere alone.

Alternately dreamily anxious and immaculately groovy it marks the stunning apex of an intensely satisfying record. Just don’t forget that what comes next will be different again.

From start to finish, CTRL os nothing less than outstanding - the late arrival of a very important artist.

Most albums would capsize under weight of a colossus like “Defeat”, a seamless combination of disembodied, sweet yet wounded underwater harmonies, drone-fueled introspection and outbreaks of mellow yet exuberant rhythmic mantras (which echo the Grateful Dead at their most joyously lively) that doesn’t waste a second despite its marathon 22-minute duration. However, the rest of Isn’t It Now? lives up to the outsized expectations created by its centrepiece.

It combines all of Doja’s past lives with some more heavy-hitting punchlines. It feels like a stark departure from her previous commercial efforts, while still showcasing some clear hits like “Paint The Town Red”, “Gun”, “Go Off”

Tension’s a knockout, and Kylie is this world’s gem.

On The King, Anjimile crafts a masterstroke folk album that binds differences through time for unparalleled emotional clarity.

There are some exciting ideas here, but the sophisticated and mature singles like “Spinnin” and “Home To Another One” act as red herrings for an album bogged down by an odd reframing of the past.

It contains both her gentlest, most fantastical production and her saddest, most miserable lyrics. The commendable combination, as well as the new musical directions, reestablishes her artistic identity the same way Bury Me at Makeout Creek and Be the Cowboy did.

In the end, what we have is a magnificent record, that looks likely to be sunk by the events surrounding it. Whether that happens remains to be seen, but what remains is a harsh disconnect, between the absolute joy of the record, and the crushing disappointment that surrounds it.