Guitars jangle, piano keys ripple like they've been recorded from a jaunty saloon session while vocals harmonise and lift the spirit of everything around.

The main difference between Stranger in the Alps and Punisher is simply maturation of her writing.

Marissa Nadler is the sort of folk album that you'll be returning to simply because it is so varied.

Those who weren't sold on Gillis' act before aren't going to change their minds, but his records are consistently great, and All Day is no exception.

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.

They’ve made the brave decision to remember what it’s like to feel and to breathe again, and it can all be heard in the stirring vibrations of Margolin’s words and voice.

There’s a depth and sensual nuance to the album that most of her contemporaries lack.

In The Earth Again holds the extremes of their sounds simultaneously. It allows Pedigo to channel his craft into something more sinister and evocative, while Chat Pile indulge in sample and tape manipulation, exploring a tenderness and depth of sincerity surpassing that of previous albums.

It is true you can very easily lose orientation amidst the billowing clouds and beatless productions (which makes the title Atlas seem ironic) but that only compels you to venture further, to learn the album’s unseeable contours.

We're treated with music that demonstrates a perfect niche between pop-accessibility and zany experimentation.

Girlpool have finally escaped the contours of twee indie rock with their fourth album. It’s not your typical evolution; this record has always existed for Girlpool — they just had to begin to find themselves first. Forgiveness is a riveting glimpse into that ongoing process.

This band are making aural marvels that are sporadic, reactive, and organic — disguised inexactness that will have listeners frozen in an undeveloped state, merely connecting on an emotional level that can hardly be rationalized.

It’s a busy record for sure, but it makes for an exhilarating listen front to back. At less than 40 minutes, it’s also one of the most compact rap albums of the year, running more like a singer-songwriter level of conciseness and less of an over-zealous rapper.

It has clearly come from a very damaged part of Angelakos' psyche, but Gossamer is a step up in sophistication and songcraft, and one of the year's stronger pop albums.

Her pen excels in etching out the intricate wonders of the emotional spectrum in a way that shows an advanced progression of both musical and emotional maturation. Three Dimensions Deep is a wonder, and I’m sure we’ll be pointing to this album when we look back to what point the world knew Mark was a star.

You may be wondering why you’d ever want to listen to an album that is so overrun with desperation, which is a somewhat valid concern. But there is an alchemy to what Spirit of the Beehive do in their unique sonic approach that makes their depressive messages not feel self-pitying, but genuinely human.

This album finds them going all-out in swashbuckling revelry for the most part, and it suits them better than anyone might have expected.

It feels akin to waking up, still groggy, and taking in the world before you. It’s surely a different world, now, with them gone. They’ve left us with all they had to offer.

Rainbows may well be the best thing Kweli has done since Quality.

Punk Authority sounds too accomplished to be the product of mere caprice.

Hive Mind is confident in finding a throughway and becomes as much a joy to listen to for its toy-box experimentation as it is for its head-nodding immediacy.

Hopefully none of the charm of Special Affections is lost in the process, and the record is seen as more of a building block on which to add, rather than an early turn at which some distance is required. As the former, it is a great start to which greater things are implied, anticipated, and, eventually, expected. No pressure.

The end result is a quieted, more suppressed record that steps delicately from one note to the next and shines even more of a spotlight on the twin vocal sentiments of longing and crumbled romance.

Heavy, Heavy never buckles. As a testament to the constant, psychological stresses of being an artist in the 2020s, it is bright, inventive, vulnerable, and rewarding. Pressure making diamonds and all that… maybe there’s something to it.

Oshin is undeniably a record tailored for driving around with some friends in the dead heat of summer, but the music also packs a range of raw emotions.

Since Savages have cultivated such a politicized aesthetic, it’s hard to divorce the concept behind the art from the art itself, but Silence Yourself delivers if you are willing to submit to its unflinching authority.

Even if Hard Light is more homogenous than Delaware, it retains the group’s interest in always finding a different tonality, skipping from one genre or influence to another and conceiving genuine hit material.

No doubt that momentum they’ve built up will take them to plenty of new places when they can get back to playing live next year; they set out to capture that feeling on record this time around, and they’ve succeeded, with an album that makes Hope Downs feel like a warmup. After all this travelling, they’ve finally arrived.

Double and triple albums naturally sprawl, yet there’s an unexpected compactness to PARANOÏA.

Don’t be surprised if you find your body moving to the pummelling aural assault you’re experiencing. You don’t have a choice in the matter now, so just enjoy your body’s movements. You see, the pain is in the struggle itself, so just let go and feel it. This music shows you that there is such freedom in letting go of control.

Yes, it’s a more mature album than those initial shots that audiences lost their minds and virginities to from 2004 to 2007. But it’s also a rich, passionate and clever album that, even if it ends up being underrated, deserves full attention and praise.

It’s one of the band’s biggest and best sounding records to date. The band doesn’t lack in sound traditionally, but Bayles’ production takes their grandest qualities and runs them through a meat grinder.

She soars above her previous albums My Name Is Safe in Your Mouth and Who the Power, delivering Internal Working Model just as she planned, with upped movement and rocking pulse, all while teaching us a constructive moral imperative in this new year.

Nocturne proves that Tatum is firmly at the centre of the Wild Nothing universe, and around him orbits his dreams, influences and abilities, which seem to stretch out infinitely.

It may have taken nearly 20 years since its resurrection, but Lawrie’s exploring new dimensions with his band that are far and wide; a subtle yet severe departure from its beginnings.

Though her debut album told us there’s virtue to having some miles on the soul, PRE PLEASURE kind of does the inverse: a more seasoned, matured artist letting the kid in herself win and giving herself permission to swing away at life.

My Head is an Animal is a highly impressive debut that's full of emotional lyrics, lush, diverse instrumentation, and a powerful and dynamic male/female vocals.

While Balsams was supremely confident, something special, The Cinder Grove reaches even further forward and inward at once, arriving on some far-flung shore that is entirely, supremely Johnson’s own.

It’s weathered, but in a beautiful way. An experience that only improves the more you nestle within its inviting, open corridors, it’s as memorable and kind-hearted as anything in Oldham’s catalogue.

Despite I Break Horses' songs being dense, the range of instrumentation that they use is slim, and therefore the use of these tools repeatedly is going to result in some expectedly less-inspired moments.

Iglooghost surveys beyond the sensory, straining to activate neurons in unexplored areas of the brain. As a result, elements that shouldn’t work somehow end up sounding cohesive, vibrant and new.

It's the broader story through which Undun gains its strength; through the musings and rants of Black Thought and Dice Raw (who, this time around, has near as large a presence as the group's leader).

The Scholars doesn’t reinvent Car Seat Headrest so much as it lays them bare.

The set might get a little long in the tooth, even in its individual parts, but on both parts Shackleton is treading fresh ground in a whole different solar system than the rest of dance music and all its various eccentrics.

Given their status, it wouldn't have been a surprise if Wasting Light had been a by-numbers affair for Foo Fighters.

SAULT force us to focus our attention instead on the music itself and the messages that come with it. More than writing simple protest songs, they are creating what is arguably some of the most life-affirming and confrontational music released in recent years – and all of it comes at a much-needed time.

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.

Wicked City proves that Jockstrap have no shortage of creativity, as these five tracks have more than enough ideas to fill a whole album. So, it’ll be fascinating to see how they do approach a full-length, which hopefully isn’t too far away.

One of the year’s most daring records, he signals his intent – this is an artist not merely requesting his seat at the table, but demanding it.

Summer has created a phenomenal album that is top-tier confessional R&B. Every painful angle of relationships is explored right to the bone and her blunt honesty is wrapped in boppy production and satisfying melodies. She may still be over it, but listeners will not be over this project for a long time to come.

While it isn’t horribly different from previous solo record Hundreds of Days, it does feel, overall, like her grasp on her tools is firmer, and her ideas feel a bit more refined and distilled here, like she’s reached a purer version of her vision.

You don’t get the sense that either over-rides the other in terms of input, and this project allows them to fully immerse themselves in the creation of sounds and musical structures that do not lean on the output of their other projects. There is a range of emotions and musical textures present on this album and it feels like quite a ride by the end.

Even when her words are sometimes obscured by the way she stretches and contorts them, she elicits a visceral reaction purely through her voice’s unsuspecting force and precise shapes.

It preserves the trio’s history while serving us a matured Moderat. MORE D4TA is their cathartic work of loneliness and intoxication, indulging in a museum of sounds.

It is a little short, some of the songs feel a bit undercooked, and occasionally her lyrics tiptoe over the line of poetic observation into eye-rolling territory — but it is her best and most genuinely surprising since Reprieve, as her last few albums have been pleasant but not exactly groundbreaking. But when an artist can so thoroughly show a new side of themselves this far into their career, that’s worth celebrating.

Songs seems to be the culmination of what The Telescopes have strived for over the last decade, and is an album that’s more truly shoegaze than the genre has seen in years.

RAM can oftentimes feel scattered, too ambitious, or too similar to the era it’s working from, but, in the end, it’s an album held together by that palpable reverence.

While much of Lindeman’s recent work spotlights her knack for lush arrangements and declarative statements, How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars accentuates her nuanced artistry, including her gift for vocal and sonic restraint and lyrical precision.

Women in Music Pt. III is by no means perfect, but its strengths assuredly outweigh the weaknesses. Haim feel completely in the moment here, and are working stronger than ever as a unit.

With Erickson’s arrangements augmenting his tales at every beat, they become immersive emotional explorations. Not every entry is gripping, and their mileage will depend on how much time you’re willing to settle in and let them wash over you, but overall it’s an impressively graceful skip into a new era for the songwriter.

Their debut was filled with promise and, on their third album, Nation Of Language have kept that promise.

There’s something ungraspable about their music: referential yet original, derivative yet prototypical, memorable yet oddly irretrievable. Ponderous yet transcendent. A listener is invited to encounter the assorted boundaries of their own preferences, biases, identity – to let those hard lines dissolve.

This is a damn good 10 track record, boasting noteworthy turns by its guests and laudable production, but for how long will it spin until the next one comes around? Curren$y has finally found the following he deserves; one can only hope he preserves his moment, rather than squander it.

There’s no sense of wallowing in misery here. She makes no effort to hide the ugliness of what we can be but also draws attention to the light we hold within.

An Argument With Myself is nothing short of spectacular at any length, crowning Lekman as one of today's most fascinating and gifted musicians.

These songs are probably Jurado's most ambitious portraits yet in terms of ideas and eclecticism.

There’s a confidence exhibited here that’s refreshing.

It may not be enough to convert those already opposed to Ashworth's minimalist sound, but for the uninitiated, A Shut-In's Prayer should provide a suitable introduction to one of the more interesting songwriters of our time.

When you’re known for crossing into multiple genres over the course of six albums, consistency is an easy thing to lose track of. Lonely People With Power however, proves Deafheaven are a group that stays the course and keep delivering that signature sound they’re known for.

Fittingly – and thankfully – she still resists playing into anyone’s hands, offering a statement that’s at once both delightfully palatable and explores new corners of her sound. What’s more, they’re clearly the corners that interest and excite her.

By linking up wuth the most expansive list of collaborators she’s tapped to date (BADBADNOTGOOD, Exaktly and Butcher Brown are among the producers), it also finds her weaving through arguably the most layered, fine musical backdrops she’s yet presented.

Overall, it’s a wild, violent, voracious record, and one of the group’s best.

The resulting album is at once a hodgepodge of ideas and a collection that is bound together by vintage synth tones NV and Deradoorian’s desire to explore the possibilities of their collaboration. It’s an entirely unpredictable but indefinably enlivening listening experience.

Thoroughly enjoyable from front to back, Heaven oozes confidence and polish.

Ghosts, Monolake's eighth record, is one of his most approachable and organic outings to date.

The band sounds invigorated, and the listening experience benefits hugely from that sense of direction and self-awareness.

They’ve released what is arguably their definitive record, they wouldn’t have any obligation to release anything else.

At its most transfixing, Recordings From the Åland Islands sounds like music that might naturally arise from the landscape itself. Tranquil, bleary, and languid; ambient and gorgeous, but full of detail that makes the experience feel personal to Chiu and Honer.

The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers is June’s strongest whole document so far; it has such a crystalline, atmospheric take on her favored genres that it seems to exist both within and without the confines of those styles. Her singular, moving, astral take on songwriting appears fully formed with this album, and it’s as exciting as anything to see a promising artist truly deliver.

Each track finds her motivation intact, with almost no trace of despair that isn’t equally met with perseverance. While it finds the singer consistently laid back, Gifted pushes forward constantly – displaying its creator’s unique resolve.

One thing that can’t be denied is that it opens up more with each listen, and if this isn’t a reason to keep returning to it again and again, then I don’t know what would be.

It’s anything but disappointing.

Lianne La Havas is a grower of an album, perhaps more than her first two records. It’s slow, patient, and deliberate in its pacing – almost to a fault. ... Most of all, though, it is a staggering showcase of La Havas as a singer.

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.

As good as Poppy’s previous work was, this is a whole new level.

Charm lives up to its title – not with slick, rehearsed pickup lines – but a joyous, unguarded ‘Oh god, I can’t believe I just caught myself thinking this’-type of sincerity.

There’s inevitably a Portishead vibe throughout, but it doesn’t hinder the sound of Ice Melt or reduce Crumb to imitator status – it simply compliments the ethereal sound they’re going for, and remarkably succeed at.

Since Incubus' comeback turned out to be a flop, there is certainly a large gap for another rock band to take up the mantle of the act who successfully straddles the artistic and commercial crowds, and with In The Mountain In The Cloud, Portugal. The Man have placed themselves right in it.

While Vertigo Days boasts a heap of guest musicians, none ever outshine The Notwist, something that can often happen on guest-heavy albums. Instead, this cast of characters from around the world does wonders for their sound and makes for an intriguing and rewarding listen every time.

Ask me what I think about it in a month and it may be one of my favorite albums of the year. For now, it is a strong debut that can prove difficult at times, but puts the singer on the map of future artists to watch.

It's big, open, cavernous, so much so that it feels like it could swallow you entirely, and so you let it because it's comforting, warm, and safe.

It’s a profoundly empathetic collection of songs that offers both gentle reminders and harsh overtures as to the effort it takes to sustain healthy mental and physical spaces in your life. Woods has given us unparalleled access to see how she responds to the things that have kept her up at night and to those things which evoke happiness in her world.

It's not quite a masterpiece, but its successes are both grand and numerous enough to suggest that the next time Chromatics come around, they'll likely be delivering one.

With Creature Marling has delivered something that has her own personal sound throughout, but still manages to explore both lighter and darker territory.

Sound Ancestors is a realisation of what the Madlib and Hebden are capable of in tandem. It’s bold, different, and takes the genre of instrumental hip hop to the next level.

Transfiguration Highway is their first for a label (Brooklyn’s Solitaire Recordings), and features a more filled-out lineup and higher production values, which allow his imagination to really shine. Long-time fans of Little Kid won’t be disappointed either, as the songs on Transfiguration Highway still have that intimate, homespun charm – they’re just a little more sturdy, is all.

93696 is neither for the faint of heart, nor is it for those without the time to fully immerse themselves in the work as a whole. This is rapturous, though undoubtedly challenging, music from a band constantly moving into territory that few others could even imagine, let alone realise.

Sunn O))) rewards repeat listens as there’s so much going on under the surface. It’s majestic, euphoric, but also clearly not for everybody. But then you should never really trust the majority, anyway.