Secret Love may well capture the vapidity of the consumeristic life, but does it, in the process, dip into vapidity itself? Rather than critiquing or lampooning end-stage capitalism, Shaw in particular seems to have succumbed to its toxicities. Perhaps the album is best heard as a memento mori, a dying declaration – art, like everything else, drowning in the waters of mendacity.

Implosion not only delivers on this maxim but it might just be the heaviest thing Martin or Fiedler has ever done.

Given her focus on the internal world she’s created, Night CRIÚ arrives feeling something like an emergence. Indeed, the emotions on display are still furtive and inscrutably personal, yet the music here is the most tangible Woods has offered to date, the most vivid.

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.

The symbolism of this album, poetic and interconnected, is vital and immense, while the sonic background is (for the most part) disquieting and unnerving. More so than Haram and even the spectral Test Strips, Mercy captures a world that is slowly embracing the unbearable evil of switching channels that morph to dead static.

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.

Okay, they may never reach the heady heights of Between 10th and 11th again, but we should just be grateful that they still exist and are still looking to move their sound forward in ways that many of their ‘peers’ seem incapable of. It doesn’t always hit, but when it works it’s a glorious thing.

Even rapping alongside a ghost, Hav’s chemistry with P hasn’t lost a step and they feel as natural a pair as they ever did. Prodigy’s verses don’t feel awkwardly sandwiched in, instead naturally befitting each track, with each beat carefully curated to match his flow and tone.

While its predecessor certainly offered glimpses into her private life, nothing could prepare her most ardent fans for the completely unvarnished, beautiful, hot mess that is West End Girl.

They’ve expanded their scope: synths creep in, melodies swell, and the hooks land so big they feel like catharsis stumbled into, punchy like the loud headers on a brochure for a new treatment center — you know, the one that’ll finally do the trick this time.

This, their most fully formed and digestible album to date, might well mark their breaking point to larger audiences and wider acclaim.

From The Pyre isn’t quite the stunning continuation they hoped for, but with optimism, that ecstasy is still somewhere down the line.

As it stands, The BPM allows Parks to showcase what a massive talent for writing and composing she has, removed from any constraints or genre terminology. A daring statement of intellectual and rich dance music that demands attention.

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.