Yellow brims with kindness and connection through its musical messages, reminding us refreshingly of what it is to be a human among humans.

Spiral is a more settled affair. Jaar and Harrington lean into rhythm and repetition more here, not willing to pull out the same number of jump scares just for the sake of it, a masterclass in the art of precision and withholding.

Wavves are no stranger to this smooth-to-rugged combination, and on Hideaway, the mix feels like a familiar cocktail recipe that mostly hits all the right notes.

Overall there's a great deal to love on this album, whether you're hiding from the world or belting out some catharsis at your next (socially-distanced) garden party.

Pink Noise is a John Hughes soundtrack just waiting for its film to be written and it’s a bold return from an artist with a point to prove.

It feels like a cathartic release, where she faces her fear of disasters head-on – through floods, tornadoes and burning cars – and she firmly places us within that world right alongside her.

Home Video is intimate, occasionally discomfiting, and, most of all, brave – the sound of an artist choosing to be at her most vulnerable, in front of a bigger following than she’s ever had before.

Boy from Michigan is an unhurried, loping listen; sprawling over 75 minutes with sumptuous synth and a ten-minute tirade on Trump’s America (The Only Baby). Sometimes the laconic style feels repetitive, but there are plenty of perfectly formed moments to bring the album back into focus.

Greentea Peng’s debut album Man Made captures a central paradox from the past year: the compulsion to turn inward, brought on by the psychological fallout from living through the pandemic, and the need to look outward at the inequalities that have been brought into sharp focus.

This record, like the band behind it, repeatedly and successfully refuses genrefication in its ambitiousness.

It’s a jubilant and sweet experience. The least conceptually bound Zauner has been, she moves confidently through a space befitting of the multi-hyphenate artist she has become.

With its main influences taken from the distant past, Medieval Femme has an inherently Gothic feel; its mystical sounds transporting the listener through the rich, vibrant history of Arabic music and culture.

Jumping between instrumentation and production styles, Flora Fauna feels a little disjointed at times, but overall this only serves to add to the feeling of rebirth.

If the range of CHAI's capabilities was ever in doubt, this album is the answer, offering unexpected turns and new ideas, incorporating them into their kaleidoscopic swirl of noise with aplomb.

This is the group’s masterwork to date, a thrillingly rich tapestry that combines passionate reflections on the meaning of black power, sharpened in particular by last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, with sonic love letters to black culture past and present.

It's sombre tracks like The Laughing Man where Clark carves deep into the family tree.

When Bright Green Field follows in the footsteps of their best track The Cleaner – supercharging the banal and mundane with vigour and purpose – it rips, mixing genres like straight-ahead indie-rock with funk and jazz, and exploring ambient and textural backdrops which make their now-home Warp apt.

Teenage Fanclub sound refreshed, renewed and remarkably like themselves as Endless Arcade reveals an old group with some new tricks sounding in rude health.

Although Flat White Moon is a serene glance into the past it unfortunately lacks the innovation that makes what inspired it so great, and would be much improved if we could hear Field Music’s individual voice alongside their musical heroes.

On G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END! Godspeed has created a perfect soundtrack for these strange times.

The band’s impressive interplay and energy make these songs wonderfully replayable, to the point where the lyrics feel melodic and singalong worthy.

Fir Wave should represent a clash of styles – between Peel’s 21st-century toolkit and Derbyshire’s early-70s equivalent – but instead, there’s a deep sense that the two women, generations apart, are in tandem.

Erez’s songwriting is clever, nuanced and often packed with wit. On KIDS she shows how far she's come in crafting her sound in just a few short years.

Despite its name, there’s nothing ambiguous about Tune-Yards’ return. They’re back with bombast and the permission to take a breather if it all gets too much.

These duets are, of course, not standards. The production is exceptionally murky – mostly collaborators move through the dark, uncertain world Stewart manifests with his Scott Walker-like crooning of glossolalia.

Arab Strap’s first studio album together since 2005’s The Last Romance is marked by a feeling of not quite-ness; everything’s there but it just doesn’t quite click into its potential at many points. A good half of the record treads in similar ground to opener and comeback single The Turning of Our Bones; drum machines, faintly angular guitar arpeggios and Moffat’s largely spoken dissection of middle age.

Ideas disintegrate before developing, awkwardly blending into the next, leading to occasionally aimless moments. At its best, though, it’s a riveting and subtle addition to an already impressive discography.

A well-crafted album.