Opener “Between the Fingers the Drops of Tomorrow’s Dawn” foreshadows what is to come: rites of passage, intense spells of grief and acceptance, and stretches of mystical visions that seem so familiar yet so strange. It is during these epic tracks where the sounds from instruments you have never heard all combine to create something that feels perennial, enormous, and truly unique.

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.

Raymond’s new album, Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark, continues the streak of her showcasing her mastery of the guitar. .... And sometimes the music can be very dense, an onslaught of playing that is much a display of jaw-dropping dexterity as it is a wall of sound that envelops you.

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.

Should, in hindsight, this turn out as a selection of ‘on the road’-composed pieces, which were quickly released to make way for a more daring and bold work, I would not at all be surprised. But until then, this is an album that Swiftologists will hotly debate as to what just happened here.

If Scarlet was the firestorm, Vie is the afterglow: still flickering, still restless, but finally willing to show the cracks that make the light come through.

The result is a project that frequently sweeps the listener into a trance, ruptures that trance, and then reestablishes it.

At the end of the day, The Coldest Profession is a charming, low-stakes little jamboree.

The song ["Gary's II] highlights everything that makes Bleeds one of the most evocative albums of the year: violent, sympathetic, ominous.

Somewhat of a companion piece to The Cure’s Songs of a Lost World, Antidepressants will not only be a new favourite of Suede fans, but also open a new audience up to them.

What Cardi delivers here is not a flawless masterpiece, nor is it meant to be. Instead, it is messy, ambitious, sprawling, an album that mirrors the contradictions of its maker.

Undeniably their most vulnerable and exposed album to date, Tomorrow We Escape sees Ho99o9 infuse an ethereal, melancholy softness into a sound they’d already established and mastered.

Songs For Other People’s Weddings is a hefty undertaking like any full concept record of this sort should be, but it’s also equally charming and delightful all the way through.

Allbarone is the next destination for Dury as an experimental artist; he’s successfully been able to capture something new with his twist on hyperpop. The result is an intriguing effort that catapults him into the future realms of pop.

What makes this record work isn’t just its ambition — it’s how cohesive it is. Every image returns. Every metaphor resounds.

Possibly, other songs and a different order might have made Double Infinity more cohesive, or logical. But then this would have removed its strange, slightly alien aura of zero gravity geometry.

Therein lies Gush’s greatest strength. An album pulling in opposite directions musically and thematically could easily have proven misguided, trying and obtuse, yet under Smith’s guidance, it proves an intriguing, tantalizing, and surprising natural fit.

It’s messy, it’s funny, it’s occasionally shallow, but it’s also thrilling, because it dares to treat those qualities as virtues. Carpenter knows the heartbreak is real, but the laughter is what keeps you alive long enough to sing about it.

At only 42 minutes, its greatest quality comes in the desire to put the album on constant repeat.

In the opening track “Weapon”, Njoku’s story takes off intriguingly with him weaponizing himself, his spirit and his music. The track builds up to a strong finish with rich, cinematic sounds that pull you in.

The consistently solid instrumental writing often is bogged down by the above-mentioned production choices, veering into cheesy territory emblematic of bygone eras of heavy music.

The result is a testament to what can be achieved by committing yourself to your dreams and desires, and it should see Nourished By Time handsomely rewarded with growing notoriety and admiration.

This may not be a step upwards, but it is a step forward in the overall right direction.

It’s been three years since The Forever Story, and JID’s returned with something more precise, more obsessive, and possibly more brilliant than anything he’s touched before.

Many of these songs have been performed live for years, their demos leaked online and lyrics widely dissected. However, they borrow the tone of the lurid Perverts, presenting a more confident and less artificial vision than Preacher’s Daughter.

They’re at their most eclectic, striving for a “greatest aspects” project. The set highlights the band’s multifacetedness, offering moments of transcendent rage, but also feels cumulatively scattered, lacking an emotional axis or sense of sonic continuity.

While the album is a little front-heavy, later gems such as “Texas Weather” provide a feel-good, windows-down sound, soaring towards the end of the LP – despite describing surreal scenes involving power lines swaying like snakes and a friend being arrested for murder.

Neighborhood Gods is a potent, enticing, and, yes, elusive project.