‘Ongoing Dispute’ isn’t just the strongest material the band has released to date, but is filled with progress, lust and learning.

A record that allows itself space to shfit and evolve, ‘Home’ is both airy and immersed in strong roots. A Canadian in Los Angeles, Rhye is proof that ‘Home’ is where the heart is.

‘Cooler Returns’ displays a keen eye for observation – both grand and quaint – as its myriad of tracks cohere together through a bond of musical influences old and new to form an album that’s invitingly optimistic, while also displaying intricacy and craftiness in abundance.

It’s a brilliant pick me up, a dazzling set of songs that tap into our innermost impulses. A colourful way to remember those good times, and one that is perfectly prepared for our eventual return to the dance floor.

Daniel Knox is a storyteller who paints a picture with his colloquial descriptions and his deep, husky voice adds an authoritative presence in ‘Won’t You Take Me With You’.

Ashnikko uses cogent and wisecracking lyrics thrown in to a vat of saccharine pop, punk, rap and trap as her weapon of choice. She promotes her sex positive ideals with genuine laugh out loud humour as she explores the movement throughout the mixtape.

With minimal production and few moments of experimentation, the album is flawed and doesn’t add much to Zayn’s musicality, but it indicates that he’s achieved some sort of clarity on the direction he wants to take as a solo artist.

With this seventh album the band have managed to craft a hard hitting and forward thinking record that fuses more traditionalist elements of rock with sounds from genres currently dominating cultural conversation.

Khruangbin’s is extra special. It's not as reliant on electronics and is a treasure trove for those whose record collections happily travel the world and don't stick purely to English. Turn the lights down low, kick-back, and enjoy.

Jazmine Sullivan makes her Everest-like task look deceptively simple. A woman speaking her truth in poetic, soulful fashion, ‘Heaux Tales’ could be her defining chapter.

Each track feels like its own ecosystem, tackling its own demons and fighting with its own musical journey. It’s certainly an album created with plenty of thought and various concepts tackled within its 40-odd minutes, leaving a sweet aftertaste, and the urge for an immediate re-listen.

A raw snapshot perfectly designed to capture the ugliest sides of Britain, it’s obvious that the duo is happy to knock at our doors once again. There’s an ongoing need for this portrayal of relevant topics, and their sharpness and humour are as strong as ever.

Viagra Boys have a deep well of emotional intelligence hidden underneath their aggressively ignorant façade.

Devastating, but utterly beautiful.

An impressive debut album which will both enlighten and entertain.

‘Evermore’ wholly offers more conviction, without sacrificing the vulnerability that enamoured even her biggest critics earlier this year.

It’s energetic, diverse, raw and full of the forward- thinking chemistry and cool that The Kills are notorious for.

It’s an album that’s somehow halfway between DJ mix and a greatest hits compilation, and arguably the best of The Avalanches’ trio of releases thus far.

McCartney produces his most real, immersive, and innovative work, and roles a mellotron in for good measure.

It’s not clear if this is to be the last instalment of the man on the moon franchise, but what is clear is that Kid Cudi is back on track, and with this release, has made his best solo album to date.

‘What To Look For In Summer’ is an enchanting compendium of the bands live work and is an ideal accompaniment to spirit you away to those carefree summer days of enjoying live music.

It's no secret that remix albums are often tricky affairs, especially when meshed with beloved rock songs. Luckily everything off Pony's dark twin is enjoyable, if not essential sounding. Overall, it’s a fun curio worth exploring and saving a few of its more ambient moments.

You can hear the size of her thoughts and desires on this truly stunning record, this genuine opera. They are as big as the universe and everything in it.

Caro’s debut album certainly shines bright and is beautifully off-putting in everything it tries, from its lyrics to its musicality. The effects on you, however, will depend on your ability to be challenged by the music you listen to.

It doesn’t always succeed, at times feeling too shallow for it to be as impactful as Mendes intended it to be. But when it succeeds, there’s no flaw to be picked out and for that it’s worth a listen.

There’s a lingering feeling, though, that 2 Chainz hasn’t quite distilled exactly what to do with the opportunities being presented to him.

A rallying cry for alt-pop insurgency, at its over-sharing best ‘WEIRD!’ firmly places YUNGBLUD as a dazzling Catherine wheel of Top 40 deviancy.

It has moments of great assurance, where drums, strings, and vocals are heavily foregrounded, making it perhaps the most solid or opaque soundscape of the band’s entire career. ... And whilst it is doubtless an exciting prospect to finally hear the work in full and professionally produced, the elusive nature of this work has now dissipated.

Combative, empowering and unashamedly fun.

It’s a Greatest Hits album, not a B-Sides & Rarities collection. What it is is a relatively complete encapsulation (RIP ‘The Air Near My Fingers’) of everything that made people fall in love with this noisy drum and bass duo in the first place.

For the most part, it’s actually pretty entertaining.

No, it may not necessarily have many outside their core fanbase reaching endlessly for the replay button, but its therapeutic nonetheless as the band delivers what they’ve promised ; a personable, relatable collection of tracks that strip away their blinding shine as idols, replacing it with their warm glow of humanity.

Cyrus conveys a jaunting and heartening honesty throughout her lyrics as she reflects on love, guilt, addiction and the business of breaking hearts. In a year shrouded by isolation and starved of social interaction, where individuals have been forced to discover the unexpected joy of solitude, “Plastic hearts” might just be the soundtrack to through this journey as you embark on your very own Rocky-esque beast mode montage of shameless self-empowerment.

Life is about growth, and with this bold, brave project Loski matures as both an artist and a man.

Moose’s accompaniment soars, and subsidies, ensuring that this release doesn’t feel like a mere afterthought late in the release calendar. At a slight 12 minutes, it’s a brief coda to a strange year for the artist, but one fans will no doubt lap up.

‘Cyr’ is, of course, far too long and more pretentious than a Met Gala soiree, but the innate contradiction between the essence of The Smashing Pumpkins and the music they have decided to make does keep the listener engaged for much longer than it has any right to.

‘Good News’ is a triumph, and a late contender for Album Of The Year.

Accept no imitators; SALEM are back and are still capable of giving us the ultimate soundtrack to the end of the world as we know it.

When you listen to the albums back-to-back you get a better idea of who Autechre are and how they see the world. Yes, it is a wonderful place full of natural beauty and hope, but it is also dank and skittering full of people who only care about their self- interest and petty squabbles. Both of which Autechre have captured in exquisite detail.

Stunning debut mixtape ‘Send Them To Coventry’. The 15-track project is a musical kaleidoscope, fusing elements of afro-swing, dancehall, grime, and rap. Sonically, it speaks to the fluidity of Black sounds.

The sound of a band resurgent, ‘Night Network’ will have you falling in love with The Cribs all over again. Tapping into their core sounds and core values, it finds the band emerging from their legal troubles triumphant, relishing the vitality of being able to make music together, in the same room, at the same time.

It’s not a perfect album, though. The vocals effects on ‘Kick You When You’re Down’ are more than a little grating, while ‘No Man’s Land’ feels stodgy, at times even like a chore. That being said, there is quite simply no other group on the planet who can match AC/DC at their best.

‘Sell Sole II’ isn’t quite the breakout moment fans hoped for, but it is most definitely her strongest, most in-depth project to date.

Touches of R&B, the nostalgic beats and the impeccable harmonies that the four produce offer comfort with their familiarity and still manage to feel progressive with the 2020 take on these classic elements of an iconic music era. ... Near perfect pop production.

This open-ended offering brilliantly entices you to extrapolate meaning from it, to attach it to a time and space before letting it fully unfurl.

Whilst the Spacebomb country-psych-soul style was an unexpected move away from the pop- infused sounds that lingered in ‘Sweet Disarray’ and ‘Emerging Adulthood’, and not all fans will be best pleased by such a sound progression, the heartfelt and at times pitiful lyrics of his ‘Grand Plan’ is a humbling nod at the inevitability of growing up and branching out.

It’s a truly delightful experience that delights in its unexpected and uncompromising approach to positivity. The art work and overall feel of the compositions may speak to a chilly, typically Nordic solitude, while the music of this record is anything but. A late year treasure that shouldn't be overlooked, it is as timely as it is timeless, and as needed now as any musical work of the last year or so.

'Extinction Level Event 2' is often bloated and monotonous, making its one hour (plus!) run-time challenging to endure. What could be a colourful and important album is unequivocally tarnished by the tedious, repetitive, and needless opening seven tracks.

As an ode to the pleasures of the dancefloor, Kylie has delivered her most unashamedly fun record in almost a decade.

'Sour Cherry Bell' doesn’t quite come out of the blue in the same way as its predecessor. Even so, there is a sense that the artist has once again quietly stepped out from the shadows to deliver this, her second record - apt for someone whose music has an absorbing habit of unfurling before the listener into full bloom from seemingly nothing,

Sure, there’s a few lyrical clunkers on show, but taken as whole ‘E3 AF’ finds Dizzee Rascal navigating the perilous landscape of 2020 with remarkable assurance. Few other UK rappers can genuinely say they’re making some of their best work 20 years in the game.

Haunting, visceral, and often beautiful 'The Great Dismal' is a record well worth checking out.

Their heaviest record since ‘Suicide Silence’. Well, maybe their heaviest record since ‘There Is A Hell…’. OK, almost certainly their heaviest record since ‘Sempiternal’. This is not to say that going back to their brutal roots is a bad move. Sykes recently described heavy music as the band’s ‘bread and butter’, and there’s definitely a sense that BMTH are playing on home turf with ‘SURVIVAL HORROR’.

Boy Pablo has once again crafted a concise, beach-worthy, summer bedroom rock set of songs, perfect for any indie kids’ “at the beach” playlist.

Frusciante has managed to pay ode in a way which sounds original, yet adheres to the formula... all in all making for an impressive electronic album.

Major Lazer’s best songs have always acted as overstimulating sugar-rushes - but the formula that was once fresh and boundary-pushing for mainstream pop now sounds outdated.

For all of E’s melancholy brooding, ‘Earth to Dora’ still has a tender and vintage vibe. Although E seems to have adopted the role of a hapless romantic that is unlucky in love, this record is still strangely upbeat.

It is a personal, self-referential record, then, but one of the tenets of radio is the shared listening experience it provides, the sense of togetherness. It isn’t too much of a reach to say that listening to this album helps to process and make sense of these times and, especially, of the state of play of pop-adjacent electronic music.

While the album is pretty much removed from her usual major pop moments, it’s more refreshing that way, and there’s more of a connective-unit feel to Positions than much of her previous work. After all, Grande has always been an album artist, and this one is yet another to whistle home about.

In ‘Love Goes’ Sam Smith has produced a flawed but decent return that mirrors the introspection of this strange, difficult year.

An artist who scarcely slows, Andy Bell offers a fine blend of psych-pop, folk finger-picking, and home made electronics, all within the familiar confines of his shoegaze day job. More, please.

The rapper fails to assert creative delineation over this sprawling mesh of music. That said, ‘Featuring’ is peppered with career highs.

The crisp, contemporary production is a revelation with the finer details bursting out at every moment. It’s a stark contrast to the original demo, which sounded like they were playing in your neighbour’s flooded garage and hurriedly recording everything direct to tape before the C45 ran out.

The sparse palette - Lenker’s acoustic, incidental percussion, reassuring tape hiss - serves to isolate the quiet brilliance of the melodies, setting their winding, spontaneous beauty against angst that spans existential questioning and the nuts and bolts of severing ties with someone you care about.

Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, ‘Moral Panic’ perfectly shape-shifts into its new context in the midst of the current climate. The band achieve another phenomenal album which might have benefited from one or two fewer songs - but nevertheless demonstrates their dramatic range of capabilities with a spattering of radio hits.

The music is engaging, yet thought provoking. It sounds unlike his previous three releases, but there is a continuation of ideas throughout. It’s an album from an artist who doesn’t pander to trends and goes his own path.

‘Burden Of Proof’ pushes Benny The Butcher back to the forefront, and offers further evidence that Griselda is one of the most vital labels in North American hip-hop right now.

It’s been said that every era gets the monster they deserve. If this is the case then ‘Visions of Bodies Being Burned’ is everything wrong, and right, with the world distilled into 52- minutes of absurdist hip-hop. We’ve never had it so good!

A record that walks the streets of West Africa and West London with equal confidence, ‘Strange Timez’ offers respite from the dark clouds that swarm above 2020, a gateway into another realm.

‘Only For Dolphins’ is the sound of free-flowing sonic travel, and it’s depiction of Action Bronson in full flight underlines the conception that this is an MC who is back to his peak.

As a whole, ‘Letter To You’ is a wonderfully warm experience, perhaps Springsteen’s most human for some time.

Some fans may be disappointed by the more subdued nature of ‘Someone New’. Yet her ability to combine woozy guitars with killer synths and endlessly catchy melodies hasn’t disappeared, only softened and matured, as the title track, the brilliant ‘Pale’, and ‘Dog’ prove.

A beautifully crafted, nuanced record, bursting to the brim with ideas and not afraid to test the listener with its expansive sound pallet.

Remarkable. ... The 12-track project explores the collapse of a marriage, financial turmoil, anxiety, self-doubt and self-care. A lesser rapper might sink in the mire, but Open Mike has always been dope on the mic, and ‘Anime, Trauma and Divorce’ find him at his best.

‘SIGN’ is an album that doesn’t just get under your skin, but in your head. If you give it enough time it will own, you and you will feel better for it. Autechre have returned and the wait was definitely worth it.

It’s a phenomenal record, undoubtedly one of the finest to be released this year – in its mood, kineticism, and an adorned darkness, ‘Untitled (Rise)’ captures something truly remarkable about this chaotic era.

This impressive collection is a touching tribute to Petty’s enduring legacy and demonstrates his candour, artistry, and emotive storytelling. This is a real must have for any Tom Petty fan and paints an even more colourful picture of what has always been a masterpiece as well as unveiling an exciting treasure trove of musical gems which will inevitably become long-lasting Petty classics.

‘Fake It Flowers’ is a starting statement that runs on unmitigated confidence, a revealing, enthralling, enchanting debut record, one that finally finds beabadoobee throwing open the gates and letting the world into her life. It’s a joy to behold.

‘Renaissance’ sees Aluna cementing herself as one of the most exciting artists around with this iconic offering that will inspire dance records for years to come.

The instrumentation and guitar playing in particular can sometimes feel like a serenade, to encapsulate such place and time easily lends credit to the talent of this songwriter and all of a sudden, you are a sundowner too.

The best thing about the album, and there are a lot of good things to it, is just how simple it is. Nothing feels overthought, calculated, or insincere. The songs come across like gentle gusts of warming wind when you are out late without a coat.

‘April’ might not be as strong as 2016’s ‘Second Love’. The songs are solid but not quite as pristine as its predecessor. However, it’s understated melodies and melancholy laced lyrics still have the power to stop you in your tracks. This feels like third love.

Herring’s blessed baritone vocals teamed with their trademark bittersweet synth and hefty baselines will continue to make for decent, honest albums for as long as the four-piece please, but the introduction of a faster, lighter tempo in tracks like ‘The Painter’ and ‘Hit The Coast’ could mark the beginning of a much-needed dive into uncharted musical waters.

The twenty-track project, dedicated to his late mother, features Headie’s strongest, most reflective writing to date. Distance offers clarity, and the further he navigates away from his past life, the more vivid the pictures he paints of it.

‘Who Made The Sunshine?’ feels like a fresh slate for the Buffalo artist. Drawing on the weight of his experience to carve out fresh opportunity, it’s a record that – only at moments, mind you – contains some of his best work.

‘Savage Mode 2’ matches ruthless entertainment to phenomenal artistry, a collaboration that works on a number of levels. Once more exposing fresh layers to 21 Savage and Metro Boomin.

Their interpretation of Barrett Strong’s ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’ and the mysterious sounding ‘Fever’ brings a different dimension to these classic songs and breathes new life into these and other legendary songs.

We’d be looking at an even better record had it allowed the space required for her often unrecognised jaw-on-the-floor vocals, but as a whole Melanie C has drawn from a whirlwind year to make a jubilant album that understands where she is right now.

The vocals on the album are flawless, particularly for tracks such as ‘White Rooms And People’. ‘Outside’, is perhaps the quaintest offering on the album, but is immediately followed up by ‘Be My Guest’, an industrial offering that sends listeners into a frantic dervish.

The record is unmistakably Jónsi, especially with his ‘Hopelandic’ language making several appearances. ‘Shiver’ provides an enjoyable glimpse into Jónsi’s direction, but struggles to balance the tonal dichotomies of abrasive electronic freak-outs and blissful melancholia central to the album’s appeal.

‘Stay Alive’ has a sense of quiet intensity running across its 13 tracks, material that uses points of inspiration gathered across the previous two year international tour. There’s a real vitality to the work, from the bare bones recording style so evocative of Albini’s work through to Laura’s powerful, trenchant vocals, erupting out of the speakers.

Davidson has easily transitioned between dim clubs and big festivals and learned to balance her acerbic ‘existential pop’ with hard-nosed techno. Drawing on the former, ‘Renegade Breakdown’’s appeal is in some ways broader, but she also risks putting off some of the initiated. On the whole, it functions as a reminder of the virtues of going against the grain and not playing it safe.

There are thoughtful beats and thoughtful words here, complementing each other instead of overpowering one another.

‘What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down?’ isn’t without its flaws. Sitting very much in their own lane, the group prefer to finesse – rather than overhaul – their sound, and as a result it can sometimes veer into the predictable. That said, Public Enemy never once let the energy drop, their raw sense of purpose intact.

Essentially, it’s rock’n’roll at full pelt; Bob Mould doing what Bob Mould has always done best.

A must-listen for those who like their metal with depth and mystery.

A succinct, focussed return, ‘Phantom Birds’ makes a neat soundtrack to the final days of the English summer.

While not their best work, ‘Ultra Mono’ takes many leaps forward in terms of songwriting and tunecraft, while blowing a few kisses at their detractors. That’ll be mission accomplished.