Come for the headlines, but stay for the below-the-bar thrills. ‘I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU’ is in turns earnest and surreal, confusing and pristine.

Jazmine Sullivan makes her Everest-like task look deceptively simple. A woman speaking her truth in poetic, soulful fashion, ‘Heaux Tales’ could be her defining chapter.

Represents some of Jack’s most entrancing to date. A complete 180 from ‘Jackman.’, it feels like a true passion project, while never being indulgent.

Her very personal, almost rapper-like approach to writing and melody is at its best on the LP’s most emotional cuts.

Utilizing much fuller and considerably more electronic arrangements this time around, the album is uplifting and hopeful, though no less poignant; the tender self-evaluation of "What I Have To Offer" providing one of many particularly sweet moments.

Freed from expectation, they can gleefully channel the melodic sheen of the Eighties without veering into needy bombast. There seems to be some tension at the heart of the band’s dynamic right now, but it has inspired a meticulous, strident and euphoric sounding record.

A fine album that balances its expansive and experimental edge with rich, emotional musicality.

Presenting a portfolio of some of the best ‘rawk’ songs 2017 has to offer, The Amazons have remained consistent and have begun to embed themselves into the rich tapestry of rock ‘n’ roll with a bolshy stadium sound. If it ain’t broke...

An intense, ingenious and utterly insane listen, Murder Of The Universe is another brilliant addition to King Gizzard's already stellar and ever-expanding discography.

While this might not be the most pivotal ‘sad pop’ record from someone who arguably coined the genre, it can stand toe-to-toe with the best of them and few albums have ever been as appropriately named as so sad so sexy.

A 23 track double album, the compositional sense at show on ‘Old Friends, New Friends’ is worthy of Satie or Sakamoto; opener ‘4:33 (a tribute to john cage)’ blushes with intimacy, while ‘Late’ and ‘Berduxa’ are blessed with a twilight pensiveness.

Making Time is a solid album, but it's elevated even further by the presence of closing track, 'Dedicated'.

Crafted to perfection, Silhouette is outstanding in its audible beauty.

‘The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We’ is Mitski at her most emotionally raw.

The result of her personal awakening is an album that is cathartic, tender and heartbreaking in equal measure.

Mad and all-consuming, this is music for disillusioned youth with enough wry wordplay to back it up. In all its angst and menace, you can't help but feel liberated.

Authentic, uplifting and instantly enriching, ‘The Big Decider’ was absolutely worth the wait.

Haunting, visceral, and often beautiful 'The Great Dismal' is a record well worth checking out.

It’s energetic, diverse, raw and full of the forward- thinking chemistry and cool that The Kills are notorious for.

the duo have created a record that captures the leap from breakout buzz to real influence, marking the moment a rising act becomes a shaping force.

The concept enhances the experience but ignorance of it doesn’t affect it as one of The Coral’s strengths has always been the powerful imagery their music creates.

The lyrics are as sharp and malevolent as they've been in ages.

Her self-imposed solitude during its gestation period (she apparently spent 10 days in complete silence at a Vipassana retreat while writing) has led to a very introspective work that somehow still feels relatable.

Martyn manages to strip through countless layers, to absorb numberless ideas without losing sight of his own identity. A fine return.

it’s evident enough that Franz Ferdinand are masters at crafting stylish, guitar-driven anthems. Right Thoughts affirms this expertise, and is a very danceable fourth LP.

By reshaping the packaging of her thoughts and anxieties, West hasn’t swapped her lyrics for carefree, blissed-out pop anthems about a wonderful life. ‘Heaven 2’ and its outlier single ‘Arrow’, along with its music video, show that even under high-energy pop rhythms, you can still find yourself dancing alone in a parking lot at night.

A remarkable talent, this is an album to cherish.

Sabbath have produced a muscular, urgent sounding record that does no disservice whatsoever to those early metal masterpieces.

Pure vaudeville, pure theatre--and pure Sparks.

‘Being’ is the most enjoyable album Maal has released to date.

Iridescence feels like Brockhampton have regrouped musically to create a great, if not perfect, representation and platform to build on.

Nothing Was The Same offers the listener a lot of what they’ve come to love (or loathe, indeed) about its maker, with the occasional flash of something a little more daring than might’ve been anticipated.

It again boasts a plethora of instruments and will likely remind fans why Belle and Sebastian are so great at what they do.

While the pace hardly fluctuates wildly, the constant twists and turns create an emotional collage that's stunning: expect to be left contemplative and euphoric in equal measure.

His wheelhouse has always been in conveying emotion, profound sincerity and of course his stellar storytelling, and ‘Look Up’ is the perfect showcase for him to do that.

There are echoes of Duran Duran, ABC and more here, but thankfully without the horribly cheap and nasty production values.

‘The Don Of Diamond Dreams’ is a glorious album that yields more and more with each listen. And listen you need to, because if you don’t you might miss something.

Little Red should rightly see Katy B cement her ascent to the stratosphere, joining the rest of dance music’s glitterati.

Earworm guitar licks and choir-like harmonies sprout unexpectedly from Goat Girl’s skeletal, unpredictable songs like wildflowers in landfill.

As a collection, Father of the Bride holds together remarkably well. This is not some grand tome where these indie vets try and break new sonic territory every track for better or worse. Here we see a bunch of thirty-somethings letting go of some past anxieties and leaning into newfound securities. It's a relaxed record happily borrowing from the modern American songbook, a little Fleetwood Mac here, a little Paul Simon there.

A testament to vehement artistry, ‘On Sunset’ finds Paul Weller refusing to let his fire dim.

As righteously indignant and vital as ever, ‘Come Ahead’ is another high in a career full of them.

A band whose early commercial ubiquity shouldn’t obscure the continued creative vitality of their work, Maximo Park open a fresh era with some of their finest work in a decade.

The music is bright and unconfined, making it the perfect album for catharsis.

'Big Time' is a focused record that contains stunning examples of vulnerability, almost too exposed to watch. Her ability to shed layers artistically and emotionally, over and over, leaves you excited to see where her next destination may be.

With ‘Layover’, V’s intentions were clear. He obviously had a distinct sound that he wanted to stick to, his vision clear inhabiting by his sense of self. The influence of jazz and R&B is evident and the execution is slick.

It’s when EOB dares to experiment that 'Earth' really lifts off. The erratic, rumbling distortion of 'Mass' is as eerie as the thought of space itself, where his sounds tell a greater story than words ever could.

‘Broken Algorithms’ is a sizeable misfire from its title onwards, thundering about with the ham-fisted bluster of much of their debut, ‘Generation Terrorists’. Its digital focus is at odds with an album besotted with faded analogue beauty.

The result is an album soaked in nostalgia and melancholy but retains the razor-sharp edge that make shame so brilliant.

A work of subtle evolution, it’s a record that rewards repeated listens, with patience allowing these fresh elements to rise to the surface on an album that underlines Bonobo’s role as one of UK electronic music’s most consistent, and pervasive voices.

Just like all the very best albums, I Tell A Fly is by turns thought provoking, musically challenging and genre defying but perhaps more importantly, it imbues a sense of uniqueness that suggests you can’t imagine anyone else making it.

Lovely tunes and scrupulous attention to detail make Resolve Poppy’s best album to date, equally suitable for quiet relaxation as well as a more conscious enjoyment.

‘2000’ is a distinctly Joey Bada$$ project, although it doesn’t necessarily tread entirely new conceptual grounds, the spaces it does occupy are well thought out and exceptional for a reason. This album is another brilliant example of why Joey Bada$$ is such a powerhouse in hip-hop.

Kali has created a lucid dreamscape where you can be whatever you want to be, self-venerated and free. Isolation is an escapist escapade of the highest order.

Future Islands’ fans will find plenty to love with this album, with some of the songs here already instant favourites and others feeling like some of the best, most fully realised of their career thus far.

After the cheap--but definitely magical--thrills of her debut, this is a slow-burning triumph.

A record that spirits the listener along at quite a pace, its already relatively concise thirty-five minutes stirring a melodic whirlwind.

It is a very enjoyable, incomparable album, with moments of extraordinary depth.

Both bold and filled with bravado, yet layered and emotional, YBN Cordae is able to convey his desires, hopes, and fears in an ambitious and well-thought out format. A strong debut from an artist who knows that he is capable of long-term success.

It succeeds in bringing a 90s aesthetic kicking and screaming in to the 21st century, shedding the nostalgia in favour of contemporary pop pomp, all delivered with Jim Adkins’ trademark optimism and heart-on-sleeve lyricism.

With Face Your Fear, Harding has given us a captivatingly concise project brimming with soulful and pensive reflection.

After a few listens you get the feeling Art Brut are generally excited to be recording together again. The time apart has done them the world of good, as the enthusiasm they exude is infectious. Argos’ vocals have aged well and now have a warming tone, but the snarky bite still remains.

‘Serpentina’ speaks to her craft, elevating her talents as a musician as she sheds through her layers and births a new and transformed performer.

This feels like an important record, one that opens up a conversation that has largely been excluded from the mainstream for much too long. Above all this, though, is the sheer marvel of the musicianship, the endless innovation, the continual improvisation that makes My East Is Your West such a surprising, and truly enjoyable listen.

Every Baroness album before this has featured huge shifts in style, this being the one where they take the best of each to create a propulsive, thrilling whole.

For the most part, too, it’s an absolute joy, an urbane, witty, extremely catchy selection of three minute ditties, superbly well-written and expertly arranged.

Emerging from the murk and into the new-found quiet of middle age, Feist’s Pleasure is a document of stark beauty that’s entirely and unequivocally her own.

From the cathartic harmonies of ‘Julia’s War’ to the raw romance of ‘Candle’, there is a gritty optimism charging through the album, hitting you right in the gut and demanding you pull back the veil on past dread and expose a new outlook of forward-thinking hopefulness.

While Lost & Found doesn’t feel like Jorja Smith’s magnum opus, it’s a brilliant first draft.

This is invigorating, wilful and wildly exuberant--and one senses an invitation to collaboration with David Byrne might be in the post.

A beguilingly atmospheric record, this new album from Red River Dialect seems to be in perpetual transition, coming close to but never quite achieving that sense of return.

The cartoon-ish vocals are still there, but Iglooghost isn’t trying to show off, or impress us, with his skills. Instead, he has created his most inventive, personal, and tender album to date.

A Humdrum Star feels like a step beyond the precious experiments of their opening records, a concise and complete statement that defies categorisation and reinforces the vitality of UK jazz at this moment.

It's as personal an album as he's ever written--more than just an amalgamation of the band's previous work, it is perhaps the purest distillation yet of everything that makes them who and what they are: rewarding, confusing, joyous, heartbreaking, immediate and profound, all in one.

The overstuffed nature of its production choices means that ‘God Save The Gun’ perhaps lacks some of the raw, impactful lucidity of the band’s debut, but it nonetheless overflows with singular, soaring and soulful energy.

It's hard-edged, it's proficient and most certainly smarter than the average band.

Refusing to take the easy route, ‘Sundial’ can at times be daunting, and the task of following the profound success of her earlier work isn’t an easy one. On repeated listens, however, the project breaks open as a singular work of Black American artistry.

If you’re looking for an album to brighten your day, come enter the world of CHAI.

Never subtle but always entertaining, ‘KHALED KHALED’ is a wild ride, a rollercoaster that clicks into gear just as the world begins to re-open.

A bold, tremulous feat, Sucker Punch will leave you floored.

Shea Butter Baby manages to meld contemporary R&B with other sounds like soul, funk, and blues, all while introducing us to the Ari Lennox of today – and the inspirations that guide her every move.

On ‘Brothers And Sisters’ he sounds like he feels comfortable being in his skin and writing uplifting music that doesn’t have a massive political message, though one is there. It doesn’t have a massively personal message, though it is there. Instead, he’s written an album for everyone.

‘Below A Massive Dark Land’ reinforces the gravitas of her songwriting. A beautiful record dominated by fading light and ominous shadows, it could well be your perfect Autumn soundtrack.

If you like your music heavy with feels, story and a tangible sense of nostalgia, this is for you. Oberst and Bridgers have created one of those rare collaborative albums that rank with the best efforts of the respective artists.

With Little Dark Age, the group have perfected the balancing act between the two, and have delivered a project that should please fans on both sides.

From the lyrical outpouring of questions and realisations, to the emotions encapsulated by these instrumental vignettes and thoughtful production, you get the sense that Maggie is at home here in this state of experimentation and consideration.

At times brilliantly cold and clinical, it feels like an album created for a man-made future but with Lovett's soulful croon adding the humanity, you'll feel every heartbeat.

The joyfully raucous Forth Wanderers bears testament to just how well the distance formula is working.

Ultimately The Impossible Kid is an album that will reinforce whatever preconceptions about Aesop Rock you already hold. However, it’s also worth noting that this is most probably the least cryptic and most honest of all his records.

It’s evident that with ‘Yummy’ that the band’s appetite for creating music remains unsated and it sees the band at their most creative and progressive, delivering an impressive and thought-provoking body of work that can easily be ranked as one of their best.

Sure, there’s a few lyrical clunkers on show, but taken as whole ‘E3 AF’ finds Dizzee Rascal navigating the perilous landscape of 2020 with remarkable assurance. Few other UK rappers can genuinely say they’re making some of their best work 20 years in the game.

'W' sees Boris fully exploring the lighter side of their sound. ... But the delicate beauty of these moments is magnified when Boris push themselves to the other extreme.

Before its release, Fetti had the potential to be one of the strongest hip-hop albums of the year due to the skilled people involved and it has no doubt fulfilled that promise.

A bold, impressive debut offering, it finds the songwriter’s perfectionist streak paying off.

Their sound hasn’t evolved but simply bettered itself, and as per usual, finds its way around an extensive (and slightly absurd) range of instruments.

Overall, aside from a lack of sonic variety from song to song, ‘Velvet’ is a strong showcase of a soundscape that is – pun intended – smooth as velvet.

It is an unequivocal triumph, standing boldly as their most diverse, beguiling and impressive release to date.

A sorrowful, yet captivating collection of songs, ensuring that Ms. Mitchell continues to snap at the heels of PJ Harvey in the female singer songwriter stakes.