‘Flora Fauna’ is the sound of a measured spreading of Billie Marten’s wings - of careful progress. She’s still really young: there’s more to come.

‘Life’s A Beach’’s lasting impact is its confrontation of depression and self-doubt: this is a record that will make you feel deeply as well as provide a soundtrack for your first post-lockdown festival.

In a world where musicians can feel pressured to release albums year after year, Maisie took her time with this one, resulting in an album that could well be timeless.

An impressive first outing, Spencer.’s skills as a producer and songwriter have never been more evident. Period.

As he says on opener ‘Good Morning’, Matt is here to help “you push your demons away”. And 13 beautifully-constructed ballads might just be the ticket.

It captures a band confident in their own identity, holding it as a badge of honour instead of something to be hidden.

These songs will inevitably end up stuck in their heads. In short, it’s bloody lovely.

‘Alpha Zulu’ is a fun record, on which the creators’ own enjoyment is audibly palpable.

‘Endure’ marks Special Interest’s debut for Rough Trade and manages to plant a foot in both worlds - the resolutely uncompromising punks of old, and a band capable of infiltrating at least the more alternative end of the radio - with gusto.

Ben Gregory has made a record quite mind-boggling in its scope and scale. Written following a stint in a psychiatric hospital, the explosion of ideas present across these eight tracks tally with an overactive brain trying to put itself back together - in the space of the seven-minute ‘deathbed hangover’ alone, moments of beauty and brutality jostle for space.

Like one imagines a night out curated by the Scissor Sister himself, cues shift from pure pop disco to ‘80s maximalism (the almost-instrumental ‘8 Ball’ makes like an extended 12” remix).

‘Bunny’, for the most part, justifies why Healey’s little black book is quite so heaving.

Perhaps best of all is how direct the whole thing is, typified by ‘Glass Eye’, on which the outfit’s uncompromising sound brings sonic clarity while sporadic backing vocals offer classic ‘90s boyband echoes. A solid record.

A record that perfectly proves how much strength is in vulnerability, it’s undeniably Hayley’s most powerful move yet.

There’s just enough on ‘Everything…’ to ingratiate fans both new and old.

Geese manage to add interesting new wrinkles to their sound, suggesting that, in time, the post-punk rulebook could yet be ripped up all over again.

Need to Feel Your Love is an album that not only shreds, but feels prescient, too.

Unusual yet distinctive, Aviary may alienate some but you can’t fault the depth of Julia’s grand vision for her work.

In a world of diminishing attention spans, he keeps it moving - most tracks don’t linger longer than 3 minutes, giving the whole thing an inherently vital quality, a record you can let wash over you just as well as getting the party lit.

‘Lament’ packs a truly heavy punch. There’s a crispness to the production that highlights every drum beat and crashing riff, providing the backdrop to Jeremy’s introspective lyrics.

An enticing way to stay true to their roots, while approaching things in a fresh manner, their fourth record might still play to their self-deprecating strengths, but it also proves that they’re secretly ambitious too.

In ‘Harry’s House’ lives a songwriter confident enough in both to start playing with convention.

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.

Save for a couple of filler tracks--especially the trashy, throwaway 'Staying Home'--I Hate Music is an earnestly constructed album of melodic alt-rock.

The jazz-imbued one-two of ‘Light As Grass’ and ‘Could You Help Me’ gives the record a rich introduction, while ‘Sail Away’ descends into a heady, dance-tinged mist; by the time the funky gratitude of ‘The Racket’ closes proceedings (“I won’t let you bring me down”), it’s hard not to be in awe of the scale of her growth and transformation in every sense of the word.

There’s a fine line between using a formula and sticking to it, and it’s the smart way in which Sheer Mag do the former that makes ‘Playing Favorites’ so enthralling.

It’s a record of personal growth in its most authentic form. It’s nice to finally hear the whole story.

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