Here, she unfurls a sequence of eight originals bound together by a cascade of imagery drawn largely from nature, in particular the bird kingdom, “a lawless league of lonesome beauty” the singer yearns to join.

This is a record designed to penetrate cell-deep, with slow, unspooling tracks such as Holier, where beats don’t intrude, the music hanging as though in a space out of time.

Over 10 tracks, Heavy Heavy retains the band’s urgent energy – the yelps and driving drums of I Saw and sub-bass breakbeats of Shoot Me Down – but that vitality works in service to an overall, infectious optimism.

Perhaps this generous album’s biggest theme is the passage of time, and recognising distances travelled.

The band’s intoxicating, questing spirit throbs through the strongest suite of music Coombes has assembled in 20 years.

Pleasingly, it’s well worth the long wait, in large part because the realisation of these songs feels more expansive than her earlier, more pared-back work, with Mellotron, synths – even drums – appearing alongside the more familiar acoustic guitar.

So while this endeavour can’t help but be tinged with deep bittersweetness, Electronic Chronic really exudes the warmth of a band tinkering about in their studio.

The chill, sparse productions foreground Clavish’s economical delivery beautifully, as he flirts with imploring vulnerability and vicious querulousness without ever committing to either.

At their best, which is often on Gigi’s Recovery, the Murder Capital combine muscular drama and skeletal grace with a confidence that Radiohead would be proud of.

Though Bubblegum is brief, at seven songs, Biig Piig’s sound brims with poise and promise.

Best described as a punk with a keyboard and tunes to burn, Nomates has dug even deeper for Cacti, her songwriting broadening its reach. Her deadpan takedowns remain heroic.

Late Developers marks a real return to form, and is the band’s most rewarding album since 2006’s The Life Pursuit.

Strays adds heady organ grooves and hypnotic southern rock to her band’s considerable chops. ... And throughout, her mountain stream of a voice retains its country authority, even when she’s writing a pop tune.

As these elegant tracks play out, mourning what we’re doing to ourselves and each other, there is just the merest disappointment that the sound of these songs is not as overwhelming as those of this album’s magnificently echoey predecessor, Titanic Rising. But quietude becomes these themes.

This Is What I Mean is a bold album about showing vulnerability, and continues the erstwhile rapper’s overarching mission to transcend the roles allotted to him.

The album’s two mightiest bangers are already out: Pulse boasts the kind of bass and 808 combo that gets your rig banned from venues, and Accumulator layers elements on with the skill that comes from ratcheting up the pressure on ravers for 30 years. But there are more workouts here invoking everything from electro to the eeriness of Boards of Canada.

While the scattered poetics of Anna Mieke’s lyrics are indeed dreamlike, the mesmeric artistry of her second album, Theatre, means that Mieke’s images, her sense memories, start to feel like your own.

Black Girl Magic finds Dijon expanding her sound to incorporate a wider range of queer Black contributions to dancefloor culture, producing a 15-track masterclass in disco, new jack swing and soulful house.

A deft, warming album that grounds the listener while coaxing them to think bigger.

Noticeably more cheerful than on 2018’s heartbroken Ruins. ... Best of all, though, is Angel, a gorgeously upbeat lament to lost love (“I love you, even if you don’t love me”) that recalls Fleetwood Mac at their most radio-friendly.

The result is an exceptional album that centres joy and community, radiates positivity and youthful abandon, and could well be the one to cross over to the big league.

A sleek, enticing record that certifies Cakes Da Killa’s place at the forefront of this sound.

There is one salient, nailed-on fact about this enigmatic album, however. It’s how easily its most anthemic cuts will slot into those revved-up Arctic Monkey festival set lists.

Underpinning everything are the Watkinses themselves, especially the agile vocals of Sara, who outshines California art rockers Tune-Yards on a cover of their Hypnotized. But it’s not a competition, just a great night out with a ringside seat.

Like Michael Kiwanuka, Carner’s first two albums were occasionally terrific but his third is a masterpiece.

Despite beats, synths and a signature “old Taylor” shout (“Nice!”), this is a return to pop that’s content to remain relatively subdued. In this smudged, low-lit headspace, Swift’s perspectives carousel round like a zoetrope.

The Unthanks don’t falter on what is their first “proper” album in seven years, though the nine minutes of the Sandgate Dandling Song, a Victorian ballad about domestic violence, inclines to the ponderous. They are better when airborne, as on The Old News or Royal Blackbird, a Jacobite song given a lively violin arrangement.

These songs feel personal, intimate and urgent.