Comparisons with such late-career highlights as Johnny Cash’s American Recordings albums and Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker are inevitable, but Negative Capability really does belong in such exalted company.

This is arena-moulded rock-rave, rather than the unhinged, roofless futurism of their 90s albums, and it’s glorious, dumb fun.

There is nothing fly-by-night about Rita Ekwere, an artist in the classic mould – audibly from London, but gazing outwards. Empress feels hugely current.

Revisiting her childhood terror of nuclear war (“Protect and Survive” et al) is perhaps fighting yesterday’s battles; otherwise, a flawless outing.

It’s to Yorke’s credit that the sense of foreboding he conjures, whether in the discordant Volk or the more elegant Olga’s Destruction (Volk Tape), manages to be so evocative even without Guadagnino’s visuals.

Rather than try to top her peerless pop peaks, Robyn has instead uncovered a new warmth, and the effect, on the lofty, dark techno of Human Being and the trippy tempo dips of Baby Forgive Me--redolent of lost small hours and fleeting epiphanies during dancefloor marathons--is sweet indeed.

Across 80 sprawling minutes, Vile does lose his focus occasionally, most notably on the 10-minute title track, which fails to gain much in the way of traction, and the similarly unremarkable Cold Was the Wind. Still, this is an album to savour.

Marshall now has a manager, but Wanderer has that spooked strangeness of old. The grim reaper looms large. ... But there are tunes, too--pretty things like Horizon, which pays tribute to her family, while Marshall simultaneously eyes the exit.

It’s About Time is a masterly collection of relentlessly upbeat floor-fillers, even if the song titles--Boogie All Night, Dance With Me, Do You Wanna Party?--occasionally verge on self-parody.

While many of these 21 tracks (interludes abound) sound familiar--tunes like Pass the Knife share considerable bongwater with Cypress Hill’s 90s heyday--innovations do liven up the Hill’s central theme.

It’s an intensely intimate experience, appropriately voyeuristic and transgressive for a songwriter who wrote about both things so well. The versions of Prince’s better-known songs may disappoint some--Purple Rain is a meandering snippet--but what stays with you is the sense of talent, hardening to genius.

Here, as with Grimes, percussion is used as a weapon; none of the lyrics are clichéd top 40 pap. Unlike Grimes, however, Letissier has a bold, synthetic funk payload to commend her, and her lyrics are more obviously personal.

Weller sounds at ease with this more introspective material, the lush orchestration acting as a perfect foil to his voice.

The finest songs here land immediately and hum with urgency.

The melodies are simple but lovely, often spelled out on tumbling acoustic guitar, as on Like Water, before being taken up by the group. It’s wonderful to have them back.

Bloom is a bare-faced record, thrillingly honest and defiantly queer, proving Sivan is one of pop’s most essential voices.

What makes for a happy life is this album’s implied question, and as well as all the necessaries about love, Honne offer up idiosyncratic takes on cars (the Peugeot 306, no less) and shrinks.

Set over gorgeous production, and serving as a comforting reminder to black sheep and ugly ducklings everywhere that it pays to be true to one’s full self, Negro Swan is a dizzying triumph.

The title track and R.E.M. smush together her penchant for musical theatre and 90s R&B. Everytime bridges tight melodies with synths like a large elastic band being plucked, and God is a Woman feels almost tantric, with guitars and harmonies spaced between sweaty beats.

There are traces of White Chalk-era PJ Harvey, Low and Sufjan Stevens here and there, but At Weddings introduces a new and singular talent.

Remarkably, this 15th album might be their best.

Hive Mind--their mainstream-facing fourth outing--offers up another set of come-hither sounds whose confidence has taken another leap.

Throughout, Raymond takes this roiling, rhythmic traditional sound and stamps her own imprimatur on it.

The result is a fearless and powerful debut.

The production of Malcolm Catto, of London’s Heliocentrics, adds subtle, atmospheric touches, notably on the squelching dub of Land of Ra. Deep and inspirational.

Wedding ramshackle rant-punk to deadpan, slackerish tunes is a positively Jurassic move for a new band. But this five-piece nail the absurdity of contemporary life with that surprisingly evergreen formula.

Too bad Williams doesn’t sing on the plaintive Ballad of the Sad Young Men. Otherwise, this unexpected collaboration doesn’t miss a trick.

The star power of Alexander: an articulate, thoughtful frontman with depth as well as acting-out genes. Here, pop star after pop star (Britney, a little J Lo, the list goes on) is invoked on an album that sounds like a Spotify playlist.

It’s a radical evolution that keeps true to their idiosyncratic voice, and amounts to a textbook example of how to do weird pop well.

Things feel all the sweeter knowing how hard they fought to get here: through relationship troubles and against the systemic racism Jay alludes to throughout. It might lack urgency, but it’s an accomplished, glossy finale.

A conceptual double album exploring earth (reality) and heaven (idealisation), is perhaps unlikely to sway the old guard, but it pushes forward with a purposeful vitality that was at times missing from his debut album, The Epic.

There are echoes of If They Move, Kill ’Em-era Primal Scream given an industrial makeover and God Break Down the Door adds skittering rhythms to that template. The final two tracks are more sombre, particularly closer Over and Ou.

Call the Comet is a resounding success, the first of Marr’s three solo albums to feel properly crafted. The loose thread it follows is that, in turbulent times, even the simple act of picking up a guitar and making music is political.

With Liberation, Aguilera is at her most artistically emancipated since Stripped (2002).

An elegant, luminous album.

Soil has contributions from sound-makers as diverse as Katie Gately, digital hip-hop hand Clams Casino, and even Paul Epworth (Adele), taking Wise’s vision into glorious sonic HD.

Ebbing and flowing with daydreams and a glossy but gritty pulse, Lost & Found is quietly, confidently remarkable.

These aren’t vast nocturnal canvases, but immersive miniatures that repay close attention.

Fenfo’s most seductive marriages of ancient and modern have already come out: Nterini, the lead track, and the mesmeric Kokoro. Nonetheless, the depths of the tracklisting are a surprise.

Expectations are subverted, as when the opulence of the harpsichord is manipulated beyond recognition or a piercing shout infiltrates a rhythm. Since every composition holds this tension within its structure, it feels like an aesthetic choice rather than a gimmick. The more time you spend with Age Of, the more Lopatin’s instrumentations reveal depth.

A challenging yet satisfying listen.

Over two self-produced top 10 albums, Lauren Mayberry, Martin Doherty and Iain Cook, all graduates of alternative and post-rock bands, have refined a sound that keeps one foot in indie electronica, the other in modern radio pop and its heart in 80s synths.

As if to underline his status as one of indie rock’s great eccentrics, Malkmus makes a decent fist of orchestral pop on the frisky, staccato-like Brethren, and severs all ties with conventional songwriting, revealing an aptitude for space rock (Difficulties/Let Them Eat Vowels).

Wide Awake! might be too scattershot to appeal to a much wider audience, but it does cement Parquet Courts’ position as one of US indie’s more intriguing outliers.

It is full of indecipherable songs, swaddling the brutal clarity of the techno DJ-producer duo’s early singles in something unpredictable, off-kilter. Choral vocals make you feel everything from terrified to strangely soothed.

Once you ditch the notion that AM’s successor should rock like it, and give yourself up to rolling around in the psyche of one of our very greatest songwriters like an olive in a martini, then it’s a riveting and immersive listen--an album-bomb dropped without preceding singles, re-emphasising the importance of a cohesive work, rather than a shuffled, Spotified deconstruction.

It’s by no means a comfortable listen, but it is their most intriguing and fully rounded album to date.

It is a juicy, genre-crossing pop record ripe with the funk, which somehow combines Beyoncé’s Lemonade and St Vincent’s Masseduction with lashings of Lauryn Hill.

While Cerebral Hemispheres won’t win him new fans, it makes clear that, at 57, house’s great survivor still has much to give.

Grime is now a maturing genre, with room for a multiplicity of voices and subject matters. And in Novelist, grime now has an upstanding and versatile outlier.

Veirs’s 10th solo album is perhaps her most satisfying yet, the deceptively simple songs sketched out on acoustic guitar or piano (the lovely The Meadow is particularly minimalist) and subtly embellished by her band and producer husband, Tucker Martine.

With charged production that flits between old-school hip-hop, futuristic pop and even Latin, at 15 tracks it can feel diluted, but there’s no doubt cupcakKe is a potent MC on the rise.

I Don’t Run essentially continues where Leave Me Alone left off. The production values remain determinedly lo-fi, the playing still no-frills, the songs rarely rising above the ramshackle.

Staying true to idiosyncratic instinct has made Expectations feel more universal than a generic, play-it-safe debut. It might not be what you were expecting, but it’s just what your pop playlist needs.

LaVette, an intense, mesmerising presence throughout.

A seductive, original piece of work.

There is some slightly rote production: the Viva La Vida ripoff of Coping and the already passé tropical house of Missin’. But there’s still a masterly emotional range.

It feels just as estranged of pop’s traditional structures and strictures as they’ve always been. It feels exhilarating; it feels like freedom.

This third solo album--“nine feminist bangers”, Thorn has quipped, with an immaculately raised eyebrow--finds the singer up against electronic backings, drilling down into complex emotions. And some simpler ones.

Rare Birds is sprawling, rich and, by and large, a triumph, its cosmic mindset and focus on detail breathing drama into songs that in lesser hands might sound stale.

The years have added grain and intimacy to Baez’s magisterial voice, especially on songs centred on retrospection, regret and mortality.

Sonically this is, unsurprisingly, a masterful album: echoey, soulful and old-school. What’s more, it finally feels as if Black Milk’s rapping is catching up.

He brings to mind Roy Orbison or Richard Hawley, but then on songs such as Beautiful Dress and The Fire of Love Williams has a magnificent, fluttering, gender-fluid falsetto that recalls Anohni or Perfume Genius.

As hinted at by the release of its majestic and disquieting title track last autumn, Little Dark Age finds MGMT finally rediscovering their mojo. Irresistible pop hooks abound.

Furman’s songwriting is invigorated by a headlong rush of narrative, exploring episodic shifts of tone along the way.

Damned Devotion embraces the messy as well as the smooth, and the balance here is as perfect as Wasser’s ever likely to strike.

There’s a welcome economy to the songwriting and nothing outstays its welcome.

A bravura showcase.

No easy answers are found, but the new energy here suggests Honesty--the title of a standout techno’n’sax track--has set Tune-Yards free to keep asking.

Imbued with a melancholy warmth, The House is accomplished, jaded, romantic, and intricate in its straightforwardness. It’s synthpop you sink into, that you dance alone to--most of all, it’s synthpop that leaves you feeling nourished.

The Go! Team’s Semicircle may not be unbroken, but they’re definitely coming back around hard.

As the standout Yesterday attests, Full Closure and No Details is quietly impressive--a slow-burning fusion of defiance and heartache.

Beautifully packaged, it’s a world fan’s dream present.

This is an album full of what another killer track – Secret Life of Tigers – calls “serotonin overload!” – a flow-state that not even a perky reggae track featuring Ed Sheeran (Lifting You) can dim.

A lush, teak-panelled Nashville soul record.

The results are easy enough to digest, even if the process isn’t, with just enough repetition and structure to prevent attention drift.

An album that improves with each listen, with an accomplished, ornate warmth.

Pineapple Skies is the most obvious soaraway, feelgood hit, but very little on War & Leisure falls flat.

Its blend of historical drama, ballad ghosts and philosophical memoir is compelling, made as intimate as if it were in your own skull by Polwart’s warm, wise, attention-commanding voice.

Traditionalists might still wonder where all the nice steady beats have gone, why so little music here is anchored. The dominant message, though, is of limitlessness, of hope and, on Future Forever, of “a matriarchal dome” with “musical scaffolding”.

Musically it’s a fascinating, low-key meld of 70s funk, gospel choruses and wonky rock guitar. Build a Bridge swells with Prince-like melody, No Time for Crying is stark and serious, and Peaceful Dream a gospel singalong. Inspirational work.

A record replete with drama and succour that wrestles with the messy business of being alive.

Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted is a finely judged attack on Brexiters’ lies and their hidden agenda, while the mournful piano ballad Full English Brexit finds Bragg looking through the eyes of an elderly Leave voter.

Stranger is especially striking for its beautiful production, drifting with dark synth glossiness that can feel a little meandering and aimless but just about avoids self-indulgence.

Like its most recent predecessors, Reputation is a roman à clef that begs the listener to decode which kiss-and-tell relates to which A-list former beau.

A generous 21-track double mixtape, divided between grime (Days) and R&B raps (Nights). Both playlists have plenty of the wit, grit and authenticity that made them famous.

A generous 21-track double mixtape, divided between grime (Days) and R&B raps (Nights). Both playlists have plenty of the wit, grit and authenticity that made them famous, but 7 Days is the runaway winner.

Fever Ray’s first new music in eight years finds Karin Dreijer (she seems to have lost the Andersson) in fierce form.

Go High closes the album on a surprisingly experimental note. The big, syrupy ballads, meanwhile, accentuate Clarkson’s undeniably powerful voice, creating a comfort zone that feels genuine.

Omar brings an elegant touch to Herbie Hancock’s Butterfly, and snappy vitality to opener Rules. Robert Mitchell’s piano shines among a supporting trio, and Pine, whether in contemplation or post-bop flurry, shows why he’s still top dog.

All of this is delivered with upbeat charm and wry humour; pedal steel solos don’t so much sweeten these pills as dunk them in a vat of serotonin.

His second solo outing since quitting the Old Crow Medicine Show brings vivacity to some well-worn standards--The Cuckoo Bird, When My Baby Left Me, John Henry – thanks to a voice that’s young but weathered, strong but eerie, and comes backed by intricate banjo and guitar picking.

His 11th solo album doesn’t deviate wildly in tone from 2014’s Lullaby and ... the Ceaseless Roar. He’s backed once again by the Sensational Space Shifters, who artfully flesh out the rock and folk elements with splashes of bendir, oud and djembe.

Accessible but challenging, Masseduction thumbs its nose at genre while Clark’s choice of producer--Jack Antonoff (Taylor Swift, Lorde)--roots it firmly in pop; it is, after all, an attempt to jump Clark from cult act to mass seductress. It’s working.

By turns gritty and poetic, its words “scattered like teeth”, it’s also a real original.

These are unanchored R&B songs for unmoored times, with Kelela’s alluring vocals holding fast, front and centre.

Washington warmly traverses various themes (across both subject and music) and--via the wailing sax on Humility, the sleazy funk of Perspective, and the quasi-bossa nova of Integrity--it’s an enriching listen.

One of the most exciting, assured hip-hop releases of the year, on which Princess Nokia asserts her claim to the throne.