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 noteworthy that this latest record is on par with those two [Soundtracks for the Blind and The Seer] in quality, because it marks his largest leap forward in a long time. By imagining a future without himself, Michel Gira has opened up an eternity of possibilities. He’s let the light shine in – and that is deeply moving. He’s found peace.

Rentals is uniformly great, and each track boasts its share of both gorgeous instrumentation and lines that are alternately poetic and prosaic.

A tangled and glorious mess of aggressive glitches and clipped synths and stuttering beats and hints, shadows, and fragments of tunefulness.

Their identity is hard to peg, and its just this that allows the music to completely possess the forefront, that makes it such an engaging, entertaining, and, perhaps most significantly, fascinating listen.

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.

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.

1991 is, in this final form, equal to the early EP material of Slowdive in its nocturnal, hazy glory, with Greg Ackell and Paula Kelley exchanging lead roles. It is confident in its psychedelic, abstract explorations, aided by the immense, groovy rhythm section of Chris Roof and Steve Zimmerman.

It's a refinement of what he accomplished with Sugar, and is arguably the most consistently engaging album he's made since Copper Blue.

Cracker Island’s forgettable, milquetoast assembly line of tracks – though crisply and professionally engineered – proves that having it all shouldn’t always mean using it all.

Sweep It Into Space has all the ingredients for a pleasant listen, while doing little to separate itself from the rest of their discography.

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.

There is an efficiency to this album as a whole, a clear sense of purpose and direction which cannot be claimed for many of their albums, which tend to wander in a beautiful haze for however long it takes.

Leaving Atlanta is far from a perfect record - there is not anything approaching 'classic status' on it – but it is a very fine one, and certainly one of the best we will see in its genre this year.

Subtle complexity may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but that is yet another aspect of her music that is so impressive: unless paid close attention to, it will not appear to be all that complex. It will go down very smoothly regardless of the kind of lenses one views it through.

Narrative beauty and endless energy is abound, but you're going to have to play make believe to find out.

With Care, CLAMM continue to reconfigure their sources and refine their methods, offering their take on the current age, fractured as it is by pandemics, climate change, acute financial instabilities, and the rise of the autocratic impulse. They bemoan the human tragedy, but in so doing, experience a fleeting high.

In any case, Leave Home is no doubt one of the most gut-punched and brain-addled rock rock records to arrive in quite some time.

Its stark contrasts and melancholy work better on each spin, revealing artists who are wrestling with existential situations.

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

The material here is as strong as we've come to expect from this band, but its pleasures aren't nearly as surface-level as even Kid A's. The best way to judge The King of Limbs in the long run may simply be to hope someone spurs Radiohead on in this direction.

Arabia Mountain is energetic, fun, loose, and immediate. Everything the Black Lips should be.

The majority of Playing Robots Into Heaven is still very good, but the album is missing the skyscraping highs of past tracks like “The Wilhelm Scream” or “Retrograde”, and its cohesiveness is hampered by a few lesser songs that have slipped past the slackened quality control department.

It's the best album of its kind to come out this year and, perhaps even more significantly, Segall's best work to date.

Even though there are only three tracks here, and a total of approximately 12 minutes of music, Lout represents some of The Horrors’ most expressive, uninhibited, and memorable work – a potential indicator of what might be an entirely new trajectory for this band, including, perhaps, their best creations yet.

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

A sweet elegy to small group jazz, Sunday Morning Put-On almost demands you lay back and just let the standards do their thing. Without a doubt, they are in good, careful hands here.

Every track on The Universal Want has a warmth to it that is absent on most reunion albums.