With layer upon layer of vocal, groove, and percussion, Jaakko Eino Kalevi is a reminder that pop can be both for your head and your feet.

The group expand on the sorts of themes and sounds that have made them so distinct to the ear while incorporating new layers of heavier krautrock, as well as melodic folk to further engineer their trademark sound.

Woman’s Hour have created something truly special in these final throes.

There’s still those effortless signature guitars and plenty of light to counteract the shade, but overall Francis Trouble is a more risky counterpart to his earthbound sibling.

There’s a real energy emanating from mini-album ‘Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep’ that very much echoes the artist’s sentiment. A glorious trip through all facets of Mykki’s musical personality.

The musical accompaniment to the installation works perfectly as a concept album, where heady instrumentals and psychedelic pop nuggets are intertwined with swelling strings and a nursery rhyme story narrated by The Clash’s Mick Jones.

For all its unoriginality, Clarietta more than makes amends with the proficient psychedelia of its groove-based jams.

Ultimately, Kali’s intention to create a timeless album about love is met with expected ease.

It’s all teeth, blood and bones, spit, grease and sweat but it’s a snarling yet intelligent beast of an album that stalks the landscape of British music like the unstoppable monster it threatens, and with a certain bloodlust, deserves to be.

This is intelligent dance music (with no capital letters)--clever and warm, sophisticated and joy

While the emotions are big, the choruses are even bigger: ‘the good the bad the olga’ begs for a cathartic moshpit, while ‘pardee urgent care’ is a definitive phone-torches-in-the-air moment.

By the album’s end - thanks, in part, to the droning noise and scuffed beats on closer ‘Dream Dollar’ - there’s a definite sense of the walls closing in. Here the distance Kim Gordon has forged, both across the album and throughout her career, is falling away - and the gap between music and art seems smaller than ever.

By embracing all sides of his 50 years in the game, ‘Every Loser’ is Iggy throwing out the late-career rulebook and having a whole bunch of fun. Which is, of course, what made him so brilliant in the first place.

‘To Hell With It’ is a heady mix of ’00s genres and references that only seem to work together because it’s delivered with just the right amount of earnestness.

Swim Deep have written a youthful, entertaining debut that it’s hard to find fault with, and they graduate from B-Town with a first class degree.

Packed with powerful guitars and guttural vocals, the quartet may be over thirty years into their career, but they still know how to pack a devastating punch; with or without their original line-up.

While ‘Endless Rooms’ chronicles a darker period in RBCF’s time as a band, it’s an album that paves a sonically brighter and broader future ahead.

Packed with brilliance, ambition and warmth, SVIIB may be the full stop on the band’s work together, but it’s an album that will stand as the perfect goodbye.

The beautiful part about Bad Blood is that it is both entirely predictable yet completely disarming.

‘You Don’t Walk Away From Love’ is an iconic stomp, ‘Silverlined’ is custom-made for arms-around-shoulders festival singalongs, holding court with the best of the foursome’s anthems, while ‘Magnificent’ showcases Harry’s duality perfectly: at one moment, he’s both primed to take on the world, and doubting his every step.

Kin is a hypnotic album on its own merit and needs no elaborate campaign to stand out.

She writes and wears her heart on her sleeve, half-singing, half-sighing through her songs with wide-eyed candour, shining through such swoon-worthy dream- pop. At some point, you’ll wonder if it was Hatchie’s heartache and pain that was written about, or your own.

Just like love itself, it’s an album you will fall for despite (or even because of) its flaws and imperfections as much as the real moments of truth and beauty it provides.

Self-aware but undaunted, every moment sees the band pushing at the walls, daring to take it bigger, promising to make it more open.

For the most part this is a flawless, breathless lap around both pop and "underground" music. 'Devotion' is the sound of modern pop, modern love - and heartbreak.

Gone are the house influences that underpinned his 2016 debut, and in are scratchy demo-sounding guitars, crisp production and gorgeous flourishes of string arrangements. House still lives on in some of the beat arrangements, although it’s presented through more natural-sounding drums which, when stacked against the lo-fi instrumentals, births something fresh and inspired.

A profoundly human listen, which sees the band bow out proudly, for now at least.

There is intelligence and creativity on display here that other bands would do well to pay attention to.

They cast a loving spell over the listener with their optimistic, almost carefree attitude, providing a cosmic, upbeat antidote to chaotic times.

A record of warm and soaring pop-rock that still manages to both delight and intrigue, ‘Palomino’ is the sound of a duo still roaming new territory, but feeling more confident than ever.

Their more collaborative process has brought an album that, while rarely deviating from that Hot Chip sound, feels lighter and freer. Like a band finally feeling confident in their own skin, inviting us to find escape from whatever troubles us in their music.

There's no avoiding the fact 'Blunderbuss' is an album for those already long inducted into the church of Jack White.

A wonderful start.

A fun, full-of-heart pop record that’s 2018’s first big surprise.

‘Suddenly’ is a treat and continues Caribou's knack of releasing albums that are both accessible and explorative.

Despite being a headrush of industrial, electronic blasts, the follow up to debut ‘GOB’ packs a warm heart.

To write about topics this intimate is brave. For Camp Cope to do so with honesty and enchanting fury takes a lot of energy--and that is nothing short of valiant.

While there’s a constant sense of fun, there’s also always a consciousness about who, or what the Rolling Stones are.

British Road Movies feels like a trip in the truest sense, and representative of that which Jackson herself has gone on: from leader of one of Britain’s most sorely missed bands, via eight years out of the game, to returning as one of its most intriguing new solo artists.

A record that pushes each of its contributors to stamp their own mark, uniting them under the banner of heartbreak but leaving room for each vocalist to twist the blueprint to their own shape.

Filled with experimental electronic goodness but maintaining a graspable simplicity throughout, Sleep Of Reason is a gorgeous and rewarding listen.

It’s powerfully confronting, unashamedly angry, unrelenting and it’s long. Yet throughout, the band’s mastery guides the album. The ebb and flow, often squeezed into the running time of a single track, is as beautiful as it is disarming.

Sure, if you’re after something revolutionary, this one’s not for you; but ‘ONE MORE TIME…’ instead succeeds in its mission to reinvigorate the trio’s alchemy, and gives the band a much-needed chance to reflect and celebrate for at least one more time.

The result is a sharpening of Speedy Ortiz’s axe to grind. Succinct, wry, and in tune with its context, there’s plenty to unpick, here.

Rented World might not be quite the landmark that it’s predecessor was-- it’s unlikely to be a fixture of too many album of the year lists outside of the punk scene--but regardless of the accolades it may or may not win, it is evidence of a band who know exactly what they want to do, and have little trouble in achieving it.

This stylistic clusterfuck is likely to satisfy those who gobbled up Crack Cloud’s similarly ambitious shift to expansive instrumentation. And if you’re just downright confused by the whole preposterous thing, that’s probably just fine too.

This far into his career Mark Lanegan was unlikely to start making albums that are any less than engaging, but it’s still testament to his creativity and love of his art that ‘Phantom Radio’ is such a successful departure from bluesy rock and roll.

At 15 tracks long, he occasionally falters under the weight of his own abundance, but there are so many great sweets in the pick’n’mix bag that you don’t really mind the odd underwhelming chew.

Throughout, United Crushers teases with an array of complex stick-work and trickling synths. Everything suggests that Poliça have finally drawn straws and found something to stick with--and they definitely haven’t picked the shortest.

This whirlwind of self-discovery later in life plays out through individual tales of his romantic encounters, simultaneously juvenile and remarkably profound.

It’s a record in its creator’s image; curious, insightful, eclectic and - most of all--good fun, against the odds.

Tearing its way through nine songs of heady, humid, pop music in quick, effortless succession, La Roux is quickly establishing herself as a formidable force of pop, and it will be interesting to see where Elly Jackson goes from here.

[Tracer] is more expansive and impressive than their previous output.

‘A Bit of Previous’ remains an enjoyably sunny listen, even if one frequently inflected with melancholy.

Snarling, quick-witted one-liners are Girlpool’s absolute forte, along with a minimal, as-the-crow-flies approach to writing that wastes no time hitting on each vital melody.

A great advert for Australia’s most incendiary live band.

‘Weird Faith’ sees Diaz defiant, ready to let her guard down again, with the title essentially referring to her faith in love; her work here evokes the gut-wrenching melodies and storytelling prowess of American supergroup boygenius.

‘Anime, Trauma and Divorce’ is as wry as documents of desperate times get. Life may have given Open Mike Eagle some fresh citrus fruit, but this resulting record is some sweet, sweet lemonade.

Her tenth studio album might be written about Cat Power’s own journey, but it also doubles as an essential compass for finding your way through the dark.

To call ‘Topical Dancer’ pure fun feels to diminish the real sentiment behind the lyrics; to pigeonhole it as wholly political does down the infectiousness that runs through its core.

Mixed Emotions' has a track for every mood without ever sounding in the least bit forced or contrived... Finger clicking good.

Their most ambitious work to date, ‘Myself In The Way’ sees them enter a new world of expansive sound.

The only real criticism is that, in trying to present all of her sides, Nao hasn’t been ruthless enough in the cutting room. At eighteen tracks, For All We Know feels its length but, to be fair, it’s hard to suggest what to trim.

The most complete result of his vision he’s committed to record thus far.

As a body of work, it sounds eerie and complex while still remaining delicate and cohesive and it’s a bold and well-rounded debut.

You Can Do Better is a perfect execution of a well thought out plan.

An intelligent, stylish pop record.

She conveys a depth of emotional exploration in her lyrics that goes beyond even her previous work and sets Petal up as an affecting songwriter.

Multiple minute-long interludes flesh Wildflower out, feeling like breaks to an all-out, never-ending stage show. It needed to take something substantial to feel satisfied after those sixteen long years, and The Avalanches have gone beyond their calling.

Reptar have pieced emotions together, both euphoric and heartbreaking, to create a debut that, although perhaps too varied in places, is a great starting point for the quartet.

Patrick is found confronting familiar ideas of inner contentment alongside upbeat surface shine on this bittersweet work - full of charm and integrity

Some of these songs could have been picked out from different eras altogether, they’re from such distant worlds. But once this record finds its structure, its own voice beyond the ugly context, it’s hard to imagining it arriving in any other form.

The duo have well established their trademark sound, and sonically ‘Ceremony’ pushes this to new extremes - the synths are darker, the drums are heavier, the vocals more melancholic than anything fans would have previously heard from them, yet still catchy as hell.

‘Friend of a Friend’ is an oasis of normality on this album, providing a piano ballad that could easily be a Neil Young deep cut, but for the most part this album is exactly what a side project should be – all the ideas too weird to fit anywhere else.

Totalling eight songs and clocking in at just over 30 minutes, Two Parts Together feels surprisingly well-rounded and complete, with strange journeys taking place within each track, and enough crunch to keep things exciting right up to its thundering climax.

Richer then than even the sum of its parts, The Bride is a beautiful, complex and often harrowing listening experience.

The record is a first full effort bustling with ideas, characterised by the dual voices of Sean Armstrong and Jack Mellin. Sean’s voice is a tender, swaying one, while Jack packs more punch, and brings urgent stabs of guitar.

‘Written & Directed’ sees the quartet evolving into the rock outfit they’d always threatened to be.

As effortlessly rich as Wondrous Bughouse seems for the listener, it's evident this record took Powers to places he wishes he’d never been. Darkness has never sounded so gloriously technicolor.

A complete joy.

If the hype machine had previously inflated letlive's worth beyond their means then with this LP they are most certainly redressing that balance.

A record that’s equal parts sugar rush power-pop and low-end meandering.

With each track melting into each other, LUMP feels like a self-contained trip, giving no hints as to the future of the project outside this release, but holding plenty of wonder inside.

[Breakthrough] is so much more than the hectic pastiches of exoticism that The Gaslamp Killer is famous for. Meticulous arrangements, pace, narrative and emotional authenticity are prioritized over an all-out assault of catatonia-inducing madness to convey its message.

Walking Like We Do is expansive lyrically, thematically and sonically, touching on social inequality and frustration with the current political and societal climate.

They have managed to create an almost flawless punk album.

Bringing together two parallel creative paths, the result is an irresistible tautness that shapes their entire first full-length, angular lines competing with Trilling’s diary scribble writing; her vulnerable admissions bolstered by a serious punch.

On a record that outwardly calls for the end of us, there’s plenty to live for, even if it’s simply the subtle beauty of Nothing.

Their deep sea dive of a debut gradually evolves into a rich and colourful source of escape, like a coral reef excavation with the occasionally grizzly-toothed white shark thrown in for good measure.

With Loom, Fear of Men have created something more than mere fragments; a record which could engulf you if you give it chance; where sounds and textures merge together to create a beautifully bleak story.

Often doesn’t even sound like a record at all, and more like a live set.

It’s all effortlessly pulled together by Frances’ distinctive and enthralling vocals.

‘Printer’s Devil’ is the sound of a band who seem to have had a significant boost in their sonic confidence, even if Julia’s words are as fraught as ever.

They’re not boasting rock and roll’s supermodel aesthetic for sure, but it doesn’t mean a lot of people wont fall in love with that scruffy rock band next door.

It’s all executed with the same kind of effortless charm that’s characterised Malkmus’ entire career.

Deap Vally were always turned to eleven, Femejism has them reaching for twelve.

It’s already been a long journey for this band, but it feels like they’re only just beginning to take the right track.

The album suffers from a few rough patches, but Geese have freed themselves from all expectations, which is a rare feat for a second album, and worthy of praise.