They haven’t completely ditched the relentless aggression--much of Paradise races past in an alluring blur of distortion and melody--but this is a welcome broadening of their palette.

There is some respite in the poppy, piano-assisted chorus of New Morning Comes, but no trite redemptive arc: this is a sensitive and subtle response to living with grief.

The subject matter, then, is unrelenting. But Anohni’s impassioned delivery succeeds in making ecstatic music out of it, carried along by propulsive soundbeds; music that is equal to the apocalypse.

Cynics will cry foul, that Beyoncé remains an entitled superstar, raging at a paper tiger. Those cynics will be ignoring one of this year’s finest albums.

Ultimately nothing here really out-pops last year’s dulcet hit, Hotline Bling, included as a bonus track. As ever, though, the detail--both lyrical and producerly--is pin-sharp.

An assured, ear-opening debut.

Ferg’s pungent wordplay powers this splendidly diverse and dynamic second album.

She is no innovator, but her vocals burn, her band is honky-tonk tough, and songs such as Hurtin’ on the Bottle (co-written with Caitlin Rose) tap straight into country tradition. A winner.

Black Flowers, one of several tracks rooted in nature, typifies his songwriting prowess, its cryptic lyrics twinned with a gorgeous melody that is both pristine and familiar.

Even the weaker moments are elevated by a raw vocal that growls with bubbling emotion. Love’s trials and tribulations never sounded so exquisite.

The word “immersive” is bandied about a lot, but Hecker’s work really is.

An odd attempt at dancehall on Ratchet Behaviour aside, Red Flag feels expertly judged.

This high-speed collision of apparent opposites works surprisingly well. Their second album is a relentless blur of ideas and rule-breaking.

Generally, these songs set out to strip away some of the artistry and leave Bird more exposed, and as the heart-swelling sentiments of the closing song Bellevue show, it suits him well.

The album sags a little in the middle, but what’s an epic without a few longueurs? The optimism of the title is well founded.

There’s depth here too--listen 10 times and you will still be discovering new things to enjoy: clever wordplay, a subtle melody. It’s a joy from start to finish.

This is a record full of brilliance and charm, but is front-loaded; the second half loses the soulful, melancholic quality of the first.

Second Love is a benchmark smashed and an affecting portrait of a millennial lost soul.

It feels like a simultaneous (re)introduction to Lynn’s career, and a summing up, and makes for a worthy companion piece to Cash’s American Recordings.

A collection whose understatement allows different facets of Lamar’s talent to shine.

It is both old news and a welcome opportunity to praise Letissier’s stylish, empathetic songs: bilingual, sexually fluid, influenced by R&B, hip-hop and glitchy digitals.

The default groove might be early 70s motorik--Tardis Cymbals is a typically beatific workout--but tracks Blowing My Nose Under Close Observation and Hi-Hats Bring the Hiss are proper dance music, while the Sonic Boom-enhanced Planetary Folklore is both spacey and creepy.

Antique pieces such as Cuco Sánchez’s Que manera de perder are wrung for their stately melodrama, while originals like La última vez and I Dreamed I Was Lola Beltrán take Tex-Mex into classy, modern terrain, steel guitars ringing alongside cantina strumming.

Traoré’s vocals remain smooth, agile and sometimes challenging.

My Wild West isn’t without its longueurs, however, the introspection of Together or Apart and Go For a Walk failing to make much impact, but overall this is a fine set of grownup pop songs.

While Bulat’s previous sound was lovely, always tasteful, mostly mournful, here she comes arrestingly alive, invigorated firstly by the roiling emotions and rich material of a raw breakup and secondly by warm, glowing production from My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, who brings out previously lurking pop and soul tendencies.

While he doesn’t know quite where his strengths lie yet, tracks such as Strange Things and Lonely Side of Her boast a ghostly, weathered quality that compensates for the odd hillbilly dud.

Every track on We Are King putters and glides by quite smoothly. It’s only gradually you notice how complex this dream state actually is.

Overall there’s an abundance of grade-A pop on offer--just keep a tissue handy.

What’s new, though, are the traces of Talking Heads-style funk and a wistfulness prompted by parenthood’s demands. “I’m sorry if I’m ever short with you,” sings David to his wife on the closer, Stay Awake, while the touching The Morning Is Waiting possesses a depth hitherto absent from their work.

Acoustic or not, the killer grooves remain (try Lover or the title track), though downbeat pieces like Hear the Rain Come may need warmer weather to appreciate.

Menace and rapture are beautifully balanced in Cross’s minimalist alt rock.

It’s a brave and successful reinvention.

Friedberger picks over love and relationships in ways that keep you guessing: strange flights of fancy are balanced by offbeat humour and there are startling moments of emotional directness that bring you up short.

The dark nights of the soul only get darker with time, and Night Thoughts proves an unexpectedly congenial companion volume.

Not to Disappear adds strong new strings to Daughter’s bow.

The Prelude finds T’s distinctive flow and trademark “yeuch” of disgust allied to uncommercial but excellent beats.

You have to assume Bowie is tackling myriad theatrical voices as Blackstar throws up one unsettling scenario after another, with little obvious connection other than unease and the outrageously good soundtrack in which they are set--weighty with percussion and genre fusions, saturated with instruments, bleak, and unexpectedly, towards the end, resolved.

Tough and uncompromising.

Call the Days, the track that heralded this brand new folk-inclined singer-songwriter’s extraordinarily assured debut, suggested an Antipodean Laura Marling, a talented 24-year-old with a preternatural ability to translate internal weather into chords and words.

Live albums often undersell their artist, but this proves an inviting, well-judged showcase.

The lack of any sort of beat only adds to the disorientation. And yet, played loudly enough, Kannon sounds astonishing: by turns eerie, hypnotic and thrilling.

As familiar as many of these tunes now are, Product still sounds disruptive, a sound pushing the limits of what constitutes pop and what is just an annoying noise you are inexplicably paying money for.

The real stars here are the Rajasthan Express’s six-piece brass section, who come into their own on the joyous Julus and Junun Brass. Elsewhere, the hypnotic Hu locks into an almighty groove, while the excellent title track is built atop a pleasingly complex rhythm.

There’s not much space to catch a breath over its 15 tracks, but for a pure adrenaline rush it works perfectly.

It’s not always the easiest of listens, but the boldness of her vision is compelling, especially on Discovery and the title track, where beauty and raw power interact.

There is only one misstep--the clumsy, Whitesnake-worthy lyrics to Dirty to the Bone are rooted a little too firmly in the 70s--but otherwise this is an excellent return.

All the nerding-out is secondary to the emotional pull exerted by these creeping, tickling and soaring tracks.

You could argue some of what made her unique has been ironed out, but there are too many singalong moments here to really notice.

It all makes for his most coherent effort yet.

This 21-track centenary tribute underscores what a fine songwriter he was.

The result is a lean, compact summary of the joys of Newsom, still an acquired taste to some, but to others, one of the undisputed greats working in our lifetime.

Powerful and affecting, this is as good as anything Gahan has done in the last 25 years.

Future’s eerily Auto-Tuned sing-song vocal style, suspended somewhere between Lil Wayne’s salacious croak and the spiritual suspended animation of a Gregorian chant, seems to energise him.... Drake is sounding as dynamic and engaged as at any time since 2009’s stellar So Far Gone.

Throughout, Grant is still angry, still purging, but with a heightened sense of mischief, both musical and lyrical.

The wheedling estuary vowels can get over-stretched (“What care I fer me goose fevver bed?” as Seven Gypsies has it) but there’s joy and mournfulness in originals like Me n Becky and By of River while standards like Hard Times of Old England and Bows of London emerge urgent and tragic.

Dodge and Burn bristles with clarity of riff, hook and tune and showcases the frankly ridiculous drumming ability of White himself.

An ambitious triumph.

Every production here feels leaner and more rubbery than the last, courtesy of the tight, two-person DIY production team of Peaches and Vice Cooler. To some ears, this approach might lack variety, but there are multiple ways to dice “barely there.”

It all makes for an unexpectedly coherent return.

There are simple and undeniably lovely moments here--the hymn-like opening to Today is especially beautiful--but these are heavily outnumbered by displays of muso virtuosity.

Honeymoon is arguably the most Lana Del Rey album Del Rey has yet produced.

The playing is, predictably, classy, but mostly it’s an album of surprises; it’s Dave’s porch and he’ll play what he chooses.

Hollow Meadows, written while Hawley was at home recovering from a slipped disc and a broken leg, finds the crooner at his most affecting and fragile.

Ones and Sixes is an ear-pricking listen, particularly on headphones.

Well-delivered and exhilaratingly fun.

Deradoorian’s world is as dreamy, hippyish and hipster as her album title suggests and it’s deliciously easy to get lost in it with her.

At first, newcomers to Yo La Tengo’s work might find the results irredeemably--even unconscionably--pleasant. Yet over this album’s full running time, there is something magnetically insidious about the way James McNew’s standup bass and Georgia Hubley’s percussion knit together material from sources as diverse as George Clinton and Hank Williams.

Summer is traditionally the season for unearthing treasures from the jazz archives, and this is a real prize.

Although still a little too in thrall to his influences, there’s enough personality here to set him apart.

Compton has replaced the abandoned Detox project with a surprisingly vivid soundtrack of frustration inspired by the forthcoming NWA biopic.

This diverse, engaging and immensely likable collection plays at least as well on headphones as on the dancefloor.

Georgia turns everyday emotions into exotic and enticing vignettes.

At times it’s reminiscent of Zach Condon’s band Beirut, but Haiku Salut never stay still for too long, nuzzling up to folk one minute and slow drum’n’bass the next.

The results might sound something like north California-based DJ/songwriter/producer/singer Seven Davis Jr’s diverse yet cohesive debut.

Into this fray step the Chemical Brothers, 90s dance music titans, with their eighth studio album, their most enjoyable in years.

The breezy Surreal Exposure is an unhurried delight, as is instrumental opener The Disney Afternoon. Throw in a couple of collaborations with Julia Holter, and you have an album that’s ideal for lazy summer afternoons.

The richness of Crain’s voice and the elegant simplicity of the musical arrangements bring drama to these stories. And the striking imagery of her lyrics finds beauty and pathos in the details of downtrodden lives.

Tied to the Moon is a captivating follow-up to her 2012 debut, Under Mountains, offering a richer, darker take on the soft folk of that record.

Beneath the swearing there’s a sharp sense of humour and even sharper powers of observation, Williamson’s freeform wordplay painting vivid pictures of an at times uncomfortably recognisable contemporary Britain.

The result is a set that is spare and intimate, its imperfections and unusual instruments (sitar, xylophone) ensuring that Perkins sounds like no one else alive.

This low-key treat finds space both for subcontinental rigour--classical Indian ragas are often categorised by times of day--and effortless prettiness.

Perpetual Motion People confirms Furman as no mere white male navel-gazer, but flammable phosphorus.

Newly recruited producer Jeff Tweedy brings fresh textures to a mix of bluesy rock, delicate acoustica and skirling electric folk, but mostly he stands back and lets a master do his stuff.

Densely layered and richly rewarding, Wildheart is further evidence that Miguel suits his outsider status.

As with their previous work, it transcends easy genre-pigeonholing, but imagine a Radiohead you can dance to and you’re getting close.

Coming Home is, perhaps, a healthy reiteration of the classic sounds of succour in a time of need; a principled and mellifluous nay-saying.

The harmonies on Woman of Secret Gold might call to mind Harriet Wheeler of the Sundays to some; the chimes and cello accompaniment on the closing title track leave you wanting more.

It’s Red Kite’s little touches (the sighs on The Mutineer; the nods to modernity on I Close My Eyes) that ensure it lingers in the memory.

The new record doesn’t really break any moulds but it is a masterpiece of texture.

A certain blank-faced cool remains a part of their appeal, but it’s combined with some terrific songwriting.

Apocalypse, Girl is at once plaintive, savagely ironic and disconcertingly funny.

Hey’s attempt at menace is overegged and the violence just sounds cartoonish--but the abundance of winning songs elsewhere makes such minor flaws forgivable.

In Colour is no mere sepia-tinted nostalgia trip.... it is also about the pleasure of being alone, enveloped in bass, in a sea of many; of refracting what can often be a superficial experience--London clubbing--into something more existential, more nuanced, more unified.

His ninth album as Thee Oh Sees has its fair share of songs that resemble long-lost Nuggets-era gems (Withered Hand and Rogue Planet are particularly bracing). But there is light and shade amid the trademark distortion.

Multi-Love is a squelchy, seductive update of UMO’s nagging groove, now with added whoa-factor.

Sprinter combines the raw energy of Torres’s 90s forebears with modern minimalism; the result is captivating.

It’s hardly a forward-looking album, but nonetheless highly enjoyable.