Pharoahe Monch crafts an LP that not only serves as a protest to the United States' handling of the conflicts in the Middle East, but stands alone as a more than competent hip-hop record.

Bar a few tracks that outstay their welcome, there is a lot to love about this album.

A solid and polished record, a beautiful collection – not one to outlast time, but to chronicle its passing nature, and the melancholy released from that realisation.

The "point," if there is such a thing with this kind of music, is that even during its most trepidatious or lonely nadirs, there is a beauty to experiencing love that overwhelms the heart. Windy & Carl seem to aim to replicate that overwhelming sensation through their music.

It’s Been Awful boasts some of Rashad’s most immediately gripping and memorable hooks to date.

New Decade comes across as bleak, but it’s deliberately restrained; its meditations cut through the real sentiments of our confusing years with the sincerity of a haiku. Especially amidst isolation and the uncertainties of modernity, we are reminded of the power of self-expression.

Ákadóttir has made her own museum here, and each of the songs on the album are monochrome statues that we the listener get to walk around and view, but we leave the building indifferent to any real history and experience they represent. It’s like Night at the Museum, but without any of the magic.

Tension II is a fun continuation of what has been Kylie’s renaissance since 2020’s Disco album. It is not wholly without flaws as stated above but still manages to solidify that Kylie will always be someone we just can’t get out of our heads.

Get Sunk is not a flawless affair – it sometimes still feels a little torn between emotional poignancy and comfortable adult defeatism, and some moments almost demand a more aggressive, forlorn brevity. But Berninger’s second solo effort is a rich and satisfying listen, evading the generic bland arrogance of The National’s low points.

Based loosely around a theme of karma and betrayal, it’s possible that the attempt to tie everything together lyrically came at expense elsewhere. The sequencing doesn’t help: following the Lykke Li-ish opener “Love And Other Drugs” and nuclear trap of “WUACV” (which stands for “woke up and chose violence”) comes a Barbie pink, seven-song sampler of other peoples’ sounds. We don’t get to see Maidza again until the three bangers crammed into the back half, which is very late.

Overall, Noble and Godlike in Ruin is a wonder.

This is obviously a band that, on some level, is trying to switch things up. But for next time, instead of testing the water, Explosions need to take the plunge.

Mark Reign of Terror down as a fairly successful, but ultimately transitional work.

Deerhoof vs. Evil is predictably unpredictable and a fun little experiment from a band seemingly incapable of recording a bad album, but it's hard to imagine returning to this years from now as often as their better work.

This time it feels more polished and detail-oriented than before.

This kind of high-emotion, omni-genre electronic music is becoming the measure of artists working without geographical or scene ties and Held is one of the best examples

Both fluid and ornate, this is a densely produced, subtly assured introduction to an artist who has the tools to grow into something more.

The limits of Vernon’s imagination and drive have yet to be truly tested, and based on the size of the sounds that he’s summoning here, the ceiling isn’t even in his sights yet.

Clark and Byrne are never fully on the same page. Instead they ricochet of each other, flying off on miniaturized tangents that never stray far from home.

The King is Dead is a few layers of vocal harmony away from being a Fleet Foxes record, which is fine, but the Decemberists are at their best when they sound like themselves.

A shining example of what hip-hop should always strive to be, at least to a devoted segment of rap nationalists untroubled by the anachronism of rejecting the clean synth lines of this century’s rap in favor of its dusty aesthetics of the early to mid ‘90s.

All Eternals Deck is as obvious in its quality as Darnielle is obvious in his earnestness.

It’s a surprising record, and another good example of what makes Mann such an indispensable songwriter, but it’s hard for most of these songs to stand alone – we’re left wondering what’s really going on between these melancholy ruminations.

New fans get a wonderful introduction to a fascinating discography, and existing fans get a project that will leave them both pleased and eagerly awaiting the next move of a star that can seemingly do it all.

Show Me How You Disappear may not hit the highs of her previous work as far as aesthetically pleasing noise, but it is a clear step-up for Medford’s songwriting talents. This may not suit everyone’s fancy, but for Medford it seems she’s finally found her footing.

Quite simply, Plumb is how pop music should sound.

Brilliantly sequenced and realised though it is, the album only just manages to keep the attention for its 54 minutes, meaning first-time listeners could be put off by the sparse arrangements and slow pace.

Two Saviors is quiet and understated, yet thoroughly enjoyable despite rarely moving out of second gear. It doesn’t need to.

While The Year of Hibernation doesn't rocket into the stratosphere so much, it's still an exemplary debut.

Mostly, the listener will leave Kiss Each Other Clean craving something lyrically to hold onto, to become affected beyond the immediate emotional stirs that the pure prettiness of songs like Godless Brother In Love.

if i could make it go quiet does a pretty great job of playing to Ulven’s strengths while also branching out. Her newer territory might take a moment to adjust to, and may not always entirely suit her, but so long as she keeps singing about the experiences and feelings that are her own, she will remain captivating and exciting.

With patience, Hummingbird's panorama comes into full view, and it is one full of arrestingly arranged set pieces and an impressive sense of economy.

Occasionally, the band goes for the jugular but winds up succumbing to melodrama instead. Standell-Preston, Austin Tufts, and Taylor Smith are still fantastic musicians, and can be really strong songwriters with weird and interesting ideas, but perhaps they would fare better if they boiled it down to the essentials next time, bask in their specific brand of minimalist rock, and shake off the excess.

Oh Holy Molar isn't quite poetry in motion, but not all poetry needs to be in such a state to be enjoyed.

Overall, while the album certainly has some parts that stunningly wash over you, it has many others that simply wash away.

Cheater finds Pom Poko stretching and redefining their own unique blend of mangled aesthetics and creating a ruptured post-punk-pop world that’ll leave you staggered and anxious for just one more song.

This is a great pop-rock album because it doesn't feel the need to be anything else.

Release definitely sees Pangaea staying ahead of the game, voyaging without hesitation into unchartered territories while keeping a foot in familiar UK bass strains.

While the warm emotionality and elegant melodicism of BREACH should earn her legions of fans, it’s the little snippets of hard-to-admit truth that are going to come to mean the most to people. It’s these moments that set her apart, and are as sure a sign as any that Fenne Lily is going to grow into an even more exciting and important artist in the years to come.

Taste of Love is one of TWICE’s most cohesive and dazzling albums thus far. It’s fun, mature and makes a great contribution to our current pop-sphere with its retro-sonic aesthetics and escapist feel.

No Taste basically checks all the boxes of what makes punk rock still a righteous, thrilling starting point for any young artist. It’s a record that frantically claws at the walls with concisely aimed fits of desperation, anger, scathing humor and gusto.

Public Storage might initially seem a bit oblique with its monochromatic, solemn moods, but like a faded family photograph, there’s a lot of subtle warmth to be found if you rummage through it long enough.

Another successful release from Khotin, an artist who, armed with just his laptop and a small home studio, has the ability to make you laugh, dance, reflect and space out all during the same album.

The narrative arc – so expertly disguised when the album started – yields a release with surprising character and soul.

Despite the diversity of collaborators, the album does have parts that sounds a tad samey and perhaps certain sections could have been left out. However, Stardust is a victory lap for Brown capped off with “All4U”, featuring a selection of perfectly atmospheric sounds programmed by Dariacore creator Jane Remover and a relentless onslaught of words from hip-hop’s UNCexpected innovator.

Still strong, but without precision, the cut isn’t as deep.

An aura of mystery and ambiguity hangs over Impersonator. The emotions and resulting thoughts are always present and felt, but their cause isn’t always clear.

The Shadow I Remember is a confusing exploration of Baldi’s hopes and dreams, which don’t materialize at all. There’s so much to unpack in his words, but he makes it hard to care about them.

It’s this ambivalence, when present – mock-empowerment or satirical glibness versus a dire knowing that the social divides are getting bigger – that fuels the album’s best takes.

It covers the span of all elements that represents the music of Bon Iver, both as the showcase of the span of Vernon’s songwriting and the actual ability of him and his band to do it justice in a live setting.

Some of it drags (looking at you, “You’ve Won This War”), and the lyrics, melodies, and sounds don’t always land. At times you can practically feel him straining for it all to Mean Something, but Butler remains a powerful and important voice in music, even when a particular album doesn’t fully succeed.

While it's an album prime for some excellent live renditions, it's the tendency to brood too much or even approach tedium at some points leaves further room for the development of this sound.

Her ethereal, purposefully-sloppily-overdubbed vocals haven't changed, but now they have a much stronger rhythmic backing.

Everything that made their self-titled debut forgettable has been brought back and laboriously run into the ground.

It’s not Blake’s most immediate album, and probably not his most consistent. But it might be one of his most honest, not because it says more, but because it leaves more unsaid.

Boris’ expansive approach acts as a foil to Uniform’s tense restrictions, and it really shouldn’t work as well as it does. And yet it does.

They deserve every bit of success this album brings them, simply because A Different Kind of Fix is one of the most accomplished albums of the year.

For the first time in awhile, however, the energies he has expended have converged into a proper piece of art.

It's worth giving Castlemania a few more chances, because beneath what feels like constant disharmony, is something quite refreshing.

Everything on 151a is mixed so that every sound is waiting to be heard. Every cherished moment is ready and waiting for you to hear it.

These 12 songs deal with death and loss – themes that have never felt so tangible for so many. Yet, Field Music pull off this balancing act for one simple reason: this was their very gift to begin with.

The height of popularity for this music may have come in the first half of the last decade when bands like fellow British trios Feeder and Muse were at their peak, but music this enjoyable never becomes unpopular, especially when it's done this well.

It's an album that ceaselessly overflows with love and a desire to reach out and relate, and it's this that makes such a heavy album so accessible and so resoundingly good.

Dirt Femme is a pop record and the compositions can be a little too close to something you’ve heard before. ... When she finds the right direction though, Tove Lo earns her place in the canon of the great Swedish pop song craftsmen.

Glasgow Eyes isn’t far off being a great record, but those drops in quality aren’t just blips, they’re chasms.

Many live records these days get a bad rap because of the stigma they carry (many reek of contractual obligation), but this is a respectable and enlightening release.

The songs he thinks up are somehow both resonate and impossible to anticipate--old and new at once.

Bully’s third album is nonetheless breezy, it’s unapologetic in its raggedness, and even if they aren’t exactly reinventing the wheel they still align perfectly with each other and support Bognanno wonderfully. Bully are still pushing the painful narrative begun on Feels Like, and SUGAREGG is a continuation of those themes in a way that works powerfully for them.

This newest effort is more interested in exploration than invention. Like following the development of a Miyazaki, there’s a sense of wonder to a fantastical realm, which harmonises in a dreamlike logic. Emotional archeology, for beginners and experts alike, it resides among the group’s five best efforts.

In the end Black Girl Magic accomplishes two very important goals of any record: reminding you Honey Dijon is an artist to watch, and being quite a fun listen.

Toledo has always been a lovably jaded ringleader, and Making A Door Less Open continues to dwell on his self-criticism and feelings of redundancy. What makes it a continuously compelling listen is how each song manages to use different sonic approaches to extract a new shade of his despondency.

What hurts The Don Of Diamond Dreams is how they get ahead of themselves with minimal regard to where they’re going.

The record is about opposition: it haunts but soothes, it repels while drawing you in. As you listen, this unbridled exploration of sound will become part of your own dialectic subconscious rather than a soundtrack on your dancefloor. You have to listen.

The results are just about as great as expected. Perhaps more than ever, the rapper paints the world of the faded, the dense and the spacey are a labyrinth for Curren$y's creation.

The strongest album of their career thus far.

Palberta5000 is a fragmented noise punk rock record that hypnotized itself into believing its pop music meant to be sung to the masses, and performed with the same kind of bluster. And really, it’s hard to imagine anything more awesome than that.

Granted, as they’ve smoothed out the rough edges a bit, some of the rugged immediacy has been lost, but they’ve more than make up for it in a newfound sense of lively rhythmic interaction.

Tarot Classics isn't remarkable, but it reminds you just how good Surfer Blood are when it comes to songwriting, just how much fun it is to listen to this band, even if they're getting a tad gloomier.

It's that care and attention that leaves the older songs sounding fresh and like they belong, the newer stuff sounding great and the album as a whole sounding cohesive and pretty awesome.

There is the obvious notable contrast between Roberts' blunt delivery and the lushly treated instrumentation. But there's a pillowy negative space between all the divergent aesthetics that creates a resounding heft and felt resonance.

The whole thing sort of pops into existence, an idea and a testament, and instead of resolving, wistfully swoons into silence, all a dream. But maybe that's what Lennox was going for.

It’s tempting as ever with Berninger’s work to let it do its slow burn thing, and while repeated listens are far from unrewarding or unpleasant, the depth doesn’t feel quite as vast as what we have come to expect. Still, there’s no doubting that Berninger fans new and old will welcome the album and embrace it too.

In the end, Sun And Shade proves far more complex than the label of psych-folk would indicate, to the point that its small flaws are easily forgivable.

Slow Pulp capture what shoegaze and dreampop do best: offering reassurance not that your decisions are right, but that questioning them is what life is about.

While their sound has come together quite well, its really Polachek's vocal abilities that leave the best impression.

Ryan Adams has delivered the goods right now and he appears to be more focused and in a better creative space than he has at any other point in his career.

SBTRKT's debut is an impeccably produced record that exemplifies an engaging mixture of soulful vocals and intricately layered electronics.

I Know What Love Isn't is more than a great pop album – it's the most singularly rewarding statement from one of the more uniquely gifted songwriting voices of the past decade.

While No Love Deep Web is not the masterpiece The Money Store undeniably is, it still manages to be both a substantial step forward and, even more importantly, a work not easily forgotten.

Shrines functions just fine as a collection of Purity Ring's work thus far, but it also functions as a singular, cohesive artistic statement, a capital-a Album, and that's much more rewarding.

IDLES are evolving and learning how to create change through a model most accepting. It’s 2020: let’s try the simplicity of hope and clichéd positivity for a change. Maybe this tight collection of high-octane nursery rhymes and simple chants will do the trick.

The album does offer some nice expansions on themes and compositional ideas from his debut. But, all in all, too much of Moondust for My Diamond gets lost in its own glittery haze.

At its worst, The Tunnel and the Clearing sounds akin to lovely if too-inoffensive loading screen music. At its best, it’s bewitching and intriguing. Overall, Schott still has much to give, and much to offer this particular genre of minimalistic abstract pop, but she may need to do more next time around to take her considerable skills even further.

It’s a great American psychedelic record that retains an outsider perspective. And in that, a decade of ambitious exploration has finally paid off.

At only eight tracks, Badlands is a short album, but it packs plenty of ideas into its brevity.

Katy B shows she's a vital voice to the smaller UK bass scene and her pop imbued form of garage has enough substance and personality to back her play for something bigger.

It is achingly beautiful and uncompromisingly hardcore. This might be too much to take, or too painful, or too frightening to you. But don’t worry: it is happening to everybody.

Even if Confess is a decidedly less personal affair than its predecessor, it's no less enjoyable. Twin Shadow has released another album of unpretentious, catchy synthpop, this time around with a bit of a hard rock edge thrown into the mix.