It's a sparse, isolated and overlong affair that's more difficult to love than previous solo outings like the lush The Forester or the sweet Wild Dog. However, for an artist with the vision to take such on such a huge subject as the three-pronged relationship between one woman, her gods and her planet, even managing to squeeze it down to a mere 22 songs is achievement enough. That the album is spectacular, introspective and terrifying all in equal measures is just a bonus.

Apex Predator - Easy Meat retains the hyperactive energy and deadly pacing of its recent predecessors, and as a result, it gives their fans a diverse and devastating listening experience during what is a quintessential, zeitgeist-destroying grindcore album.

Metal, Meat & Bone manages to be both a hypnotic and focussed listen, despite its length. For all its otherworldliness this is certainly one of their most powerful efforts and, for my money, up there with early classics such as Meet The Residents or Third Reich ‘N’ Roll, other brilliant subversions of sacred cows and taboos.

McMahon examines masculinity, vulnerability and how cultural consumption converges with personal demons, and it has resulted in an album of immense integrity, defiance and beauty.

One of the finest debut albums this century. ... Bright Green Field is a brave and daring debut album that manages to mix experimental and avant-garde influences smack bang next to bouncy indie-disco post-punk motifs. I can’t get over how grand and great it is.

It's not often an album of such stature exceeds one's anticipations, but Honor is too astounding to not be revered.

Loom is a brave and raw document from the frontlines of grief, exhibiting the full range of its manifestations beyond sadness – its vacancy, rage and disorientation, delivered with a sweet disposition, enchanting you into a greater and richer awareness of what lies beneath, revealing deep beauty in the collision of exhilarating creativity and inevitable doom.

With the soundtrack to Les Revenants, they have created a work of aural tension; a masterclass in how implied threat is far more effective than a million scary monsters.

Melody's Echo Chamber is a glorious album. Its success lies in the balance between Prochet's ability to break out of the (supposed) shackles of her structured classical composition education, while still delivering a suite of songs that are coherent, eminently listenable and blend lightness with dark foreboding.

This is no retro throwback, Power Trip have poured their genuine, obsessive love of early thrash, but also Cro-Mags, Prong and Black Flag to create a boiling pot of modern metal mastery.

An important component to the Paraorchestra’s practice is melding analogue, digital, and assistive instruments. The results, as heard across these eight ambitious compositions, are completely spellbinding. ...

With her third album Dirty Computer, that she’s truly achieved a tour-de-force. ... There are times though where Monáe’s feminism feels disappointingly cis- and vagina-focused--I wish she’d taken the time to explore the politics of non-cis women and non-binary people a little more. But Dirty Computer succeeds at what it came to do--it’s here to make you think, and it’s here to make you dance. It is the most clearly delivered result of Monáe’s vision so far.

There are countless high points, memorable moments and addictive grooves on these two discs, and Haiti Direct is most certainly already a candidate for compilation of the year.

Just 16 exceptional tracks full of glowing wordplay, instinctively catchy intonation, and effortless genre whisking.

For all its conceptual maximalism, gen(r)e-splicing and densely irregular time layering, the compositions here are supremely considered pieces of continuously mutating gracefulness, spacious and expansive, stretched like a long fade-out into timelessness. Equally grounded and spaced out, on Seeing Through Sound Hassell has found an ideal balance of psychoacoustic and compositional values, the most sublime synthesis of tone magic and artistic craft.

Mission Of Burma are excellent, their new album is equally excellent, and an easy contender for best rock album of the year.

Innocence Is Kinky is a remarkable album, one which delves beneath the surface and returns with something both seductive and strange.

Vince Staples doesn’t care for being labelled a rapper, perhaps, but in just "being himself” he has created one of the finest exponents of the genre this year. Hip hop is punk, it’s poetry, but also it’s party music--Big Fish Theory is an outstanding album that potently shows all of these exquisite possibilities. What’s more is, Staples makes it seem like the easiest thing in the world.

The Hunter is an example of how to crossover without selling out--something Metallica never learned--and no matter how many copies it sells, this is the mainstream heavy rock album of the year.

Cave is always the first to give fulsome credit to his band, and they aim true here in the most explorative, coherent and well-realised Bad Seeds album in years.

MASSEDUCTION defies expectation, defies definition and defies the very idea that definition can exist. It’s an album detailing the mess of identity politics and power structures, and yet it hits serious cohesive highs. There is no cookie-cutter remedy, no rallying cry, just a baker’s dozen viewpoints of the chasm where we once thought order, power, and meaning lived.

It is the kind of album you can listen to 1000 times, and on every single play a new intricacy will be revealed. The mark of genius is that despite this it never feels overburdened or complex. It is, put simply, an extremely ace pop record.

Circle have reached many great heights over the last two decades, but this new album again attains a new zenith.

It's that mix of astral expensiveness and strict artistry that makes Thundercat's debut LP The Golden Age Of Apocalypse as grand and visionary as its title.

The sound of Psychic is meticulous and luscious.

Pearl Mystic is the best British psychedelic album since the 1990s; maybe more than that.

By rights no group should be peaking after 30 years of making music together, yet that is the situation in which Oxbow find themselves. Will they ever transcend Thin Black Duke? Such are the ideas and attention to detail on this record, only a fool would bet against them.

They Want My Soul is focused, tight and impeccably produced. The songwriting is crisp and tight, Daniel's ear for a catchy and upbeat riff have resurfaced.