The production on Good News is hardly subtle, and few of these beats would stand out on their own, but they’re effective at supporting her flows and keeping the energy going.

Their order within the EP works together to create a new mood, and the listener easily comprehends why Copycat Killer is worth attention after having experienced Punisher. These new versions are not worlds apart from the originals, but the value is in the very small things such as subtle melody changes and different track ordering – working beautifully with Moose’s orchestral talents.

PLUS is a more flagrantly weird collection of odds and ends, but perhaps a better microcosm of the flagrantly weird band that is Autechre.

Though it may be a bit brief or spare for some, Roxanne’s hand on her sound is tighter than ever. While it’s on, Because of a Flower gives us a glimpse into a very specific world of sound — aquatic, earthen, and airborne, all at once — and it is a treat to get lost in.

What works for Lambchop in the case of TRIP is the level of consistency in their sound that they were able to achieve through years of playing music together. However, it does not exactly bring the album together, because the tracks are thematically very different, and the band’s decision to apply the same approach to them contributes to the plainness of TRIP.

Throughout Fly Siifu’s, the duo offer nothing more than a chill rap record, which has highs and lows. It’s a fine record to put on in the background, but a slog to try to focus on, as so much of it blends together with hardly anything to standout in the end.

Three Mile Ditch is living proof that lightning does indeed strike the same place twice — and sometimes with a vengeance. Rumours of their death have been highly exaggerated, as The Wytches have never felt so alive.

Self Worth may not be the most well-rounded punk album of 2020, but it still manages to be hyper-focused in sound, expression, and energy.

Much like DeJ, this is an album that occupies its own space, music to get lost in your head to. It may rarely run and may struggle to fully break through for that very reason, but it does more than enough at its own, proud, steady pace.

Taylor takes that responsibility as a solo artist and runs with it, throwing everything and anything into the mix; there are the standard sounds you’d expect from him, but there’s also country, blues-based hard rock, punk and some rap-rock thrown in for good measure. And therein lies the issue with CMFT: rather than those disparate influences somehow mixing to become a whole, they’re left to stand on their own. The more you listen to CMFT, the more it comes across as ‘Corey Taylor does (insert genre here)’ rather than something cohesive.

Repeated listens, indeed, prove it to be a perfectly serviceable, enjoyable offering. But there’s always that nagging feeling, once the DJ has packed up the gear and the dancefloor empties, that there could have been something more.

There may only be 26 minutes of material in Book of Curses, but the amount of unsettling ideas and reflections of modern disenfranchisement are more than enough for it to leave its impact.

Extinction Level Event 2 is just too ambitious for its own good. Yet, for all the lazy sequels and cash-ins in a genre rife with them, it’s hard to fault Busta Rhymes for striving a bit too hard to go that extra mile.

Sour Cherry Bell is an album that has these clear influences, yet morphs itself into aural palettes that transcend such comparisons. A rich body of work, the lush layers of sound presented make for a rewarding experience again and again.

Nothing on Sleepless Night necessarily surprises, but nothing disappoints either. For a band with 15 studio albums (and counting), we unsurprisingly don’t discover anything new about them here, but this isn’t the point. We’re just glad to be in their company once again; this, one feels, will never change.

It’s the document of two beloved alt-metal worlds colliding to head-shuddering effect; a record of skull crushing intensity in places, with merciless riffs conjured up from the deepest abyss, which are counterpoised with quiet, ethereal dark-folk introspection – a mix that shouldn’t really work but absolutely does.

It has everything one could want from a shoegaze album in 2020, without sounding like their last album that much.

Grande’s immaculate outer shell both physically and artistically reframes her personal struggles through artifice, communicating relatability to her audience. Yet the lack of grit, grunge or goo keeps Positions distant from the listener, sitting far away, somewhere in the dark.

The album still comprises some truly enchanting touches that could only have come from him, and often they appear when working around a vocalist. These pop turns envision a world where radio hits have a bit more depth and experimentation, and if Lopatin’s output can continue to minutely steer mainstream music that way, then so much the better.

This EP is a fine stopgap between Morbid Stuff and their next full-length; nothing more, nothing less. The mixture of self-deprecation and unceasing anxiety remains. This Place Sucks Ass: it’s actually the whole world that sucks ass right now, and PUP know it.

Philadelphia brings grace and elegance to an era removed from spiritual insight. In that, it is deeply philosophical and absolutely necessary.

For 11 songs and 39 minutes, Tweedy creates a landscape of autumnal beauty and warm layers of guitars, which oscillate between experimental, almost distorted ambience and clear, saccharine folk melodies. There’s a few straight country tracks here, but for the most part, it’s minimalist genre-revisionism.

What we’re given is 10 songs in just under 34 minutes, one of Veirs’ most efficient and direct albums.

Letter To You may well Springsteen’s best work since 87’s Tunnel of Love. There are dips in quality in places on the record, but there is a general tone of a satisfied human who got out of the rundown places he always sang about to that bright future that was always over the horizon.

Where There Existed an Addiction to Blood seemed to take the listener down a spiral of harsh violence and vaguely interconnected moments of supernatural terror, Visions of Bodies Being Burned just feels lost.

This resilience against the facts of life wavers from song to song, giving us a divine spectrum of her fragile existence at the time of their creation. ... It’s in the final three tracks of songs where the membrane between songwriter and broken-hearted woman is at its thinnest, where Lenker renders her deep, soulful ache in the most poignant of ways.

At every turn acts of rebellion is deceptive. She preaches simplicity, reveling in the individual power within all of us, but the music layered and complex, full of bubbling and whirring elements behind every danceable beat.

By accepting the chaotic elements coexisting alongside our stark self-made structures – be it tangible, psychological or virtual – Karma & Desire might be the most honest form of pop music one can make at this moment.