A skilled interpreter, Simpson’s bruised baritone murmur morphs to fit the contours of each song.

That’s what listening to Tension feels like: 100 per cent “Whheeeeeee!”

“Cold Little Heart” builds from piano and the merest shiver of strings to a Morricone-esque pitch of intensity, before Kiwanuka himself arrives five minutes in. It’s a big, powerful statement of intent that the rest of the album doesn’t quite live up to.

Save for three traditional songs, Strange Country comprises brilliantly-wrought original material haunted by themes of uncertainty, lassitude, jealousy and spite.

It’s a revelatory affair, bringing a fresh, raw focus to brilliant songs steeped in lust, death and loss with a blend of sly rockabilly and blues-tinged country-rock.

Roth fits Hunter like a glove, bringing out the warmth of his brass section and framing his raw voice in perfectly judged R&B arrangements that spark and bounce.

Overall, it’s a collection primarily concerned with the somatic rather than cerebral sides of Richard James’s music, overdosing somewhat on staccato, bouncing synth twangs and jittery drum’n’bass beats.

Truly, the album of a lifetime.

A record that captures nostalgia without devolving into anachronism or retrograde – a fine line that Nas is well-versed in toeing. As ever, Nas is his own lynchpin. Tracks including “Store Run” and “Moments” demonstrate the rapper’s gift as a lucid narrator of his own experience.

The British producer/singer, already a low-key presence on albums by Solange, Kanye and Frank Ocean, not only employs a fresh palette of sounds--from the harp-like pluckings of “Plastic 100ºC” to the beguiling Celtic-flavoured organ of “Timmy’s Prayer”--but also applies them to matters beyond romance: notably here, the process of bereavement.

A stunning celebration of Black, gay love. ... It is also a groundbreaking proclamation of personal acceptance.

Big Conspiracy is Hus’s second chance – an album that proves he’s just as essential a part of UK music today as he was three years ago.

It’s a masterful set, stuffed with brooding, industrial-synth beats.

Once I Was an Eagle is a work that demands to be taken as a whole, another reminder of the peculiar power of the album form, despite frequent premature declarations of its redundancy.

As a tribute, and a farewell, it could hardly be better.

Merritt’s refracted reminiscences frequently offer thoughtful and incisive insights into bigger issues, and with deceptive sleight of story.

The appetite for Washington’s old-school jazz utopia is a miracle in itself, renewed here.

It’s a mature mix of reflection and assertion--albeit corralled this time into just ten tracks--in which Weller’s musings on life, love and society are channelled through a diverse series of musical modes, most of them constantly seeking to seep into other styles.

Elwan (Elephants), perhaps their most powerful album since Amassakoul, confronts their situation head-on, in songs musing on the values of ancestry, unity and fellowship, driven by the infectiously hypnotic cyclical guitar grooves that wind like creepers around their poetic imagery.

It’s all delivered with welcoming warmth and humility, over impeccably buttoned-down soul-funk grooves.

Every Bad is a relinquishing of whatever it is that keeps us from baring our souls, and an unleashing of frustration at how, like children riding a carousel, we’re all just going round in circles.

Off Off On stakes out the Winchester-born, Paris-based Stables as one of the most original and musically gifted artists of today.

FKA Twigs emerges the high priestess of R&B's latest corruption, and the world will kneel at the altar.

With Stone Rollin', he broadens his outlook to take in various other R&B styles, without shifting more than a few years either way.

Musically progressive, it’s Shires most ambitious work to date; nasty, stomping Southern rock sits next to poppier fare and several moments of quiet introspection.

The result is a dark, steamy sound that comes crawling from the Louisiana swamp like a mean-tempered 'gator.

Throughout, Jones’s characteristic optimism holds true, in songs such as Binky Griptite’s latter-day civil rights anthem “Matter Of Time” (“It’s a matter of time before justice will come”) and especially Crispiano’s “Come And Be A Winner”, whose light country-soul stylings and rhythm guitar seem to channel Curtis Mayfield.

“Wanderlust” establishes the overall thematic impulse to live culturally beyond one’s means, but in practice this can lead to the preference for smarts over suitability that spoils a track like “A Dog’s Life”. But there are moments of greatness here and there.