The record holds a conciliatory anger at a civilisation that can’t save itself from itself. And through an exploration of war, bloodspill, loss and confusion Vera Sola has continued to tell her story, and invite us into her arresting world.

Their astutely crafted synth-pop cements their place as Pet Shop Boys’ spiritual successors.

With ‘Ad Astra’, Ash are reflective yet revitalised, offering a colourful, charismatic, and cosmic offering that’s truly out of this world.

This is what we have come to the expect from Eno’s ambient endeavours, and it remains as beguiling and original as ever.

While the opening moog throbs of ‘No-One’s Easy To Love’ and ‘Comeback Kid’ are initially distracting coming from an artist once known for her sparse compositions, they quickly blend in to become just another part of the atmospheric scenery that add colour to her widescreen laments.

An album of subtle transformation, there’s much to cherish here.

While nostalgia does play a prominent role in ‘After The Party’, the record manages to avoid getting bogged down in it thanks to its ability to keep one eye looking forward.

Maybe it’s the sentimental Beatle-maniac in us, but ‘Now And Then’ feels like something beautiful, something to cherish.

It’s a mature, delicately crafted, and wisely put-together project that speaks of love, growth and family.

Twenty years in, and Liars are no easier to comprehend – but that’s makes their version of the truth so compelling.

‘Under The Sun’ isn’t an album to play while doing something else. It might start off as this but eventually you are listening intently, lost in its dense fug of sound and delicate melodies.

They’re reborn, revitalised, and really rather good.

The criss-crossing sounds better than ever, and is everything you’d want from a FaltyDL opus.

An excellent debut record, it offers a tantalising glimpe of what lies ahead.

It’s a confident and powerful statement, and one that underlines his complete and utter dominance of the genre at this moment.

A quality accompaniment and memorial.

Amyl and the Sniffers is a thumping, screaming, wailing magnet for misfits, losers, and outcasts, a clarion call for rejects and mis-shapes that is also an obscenely, outrageously good time.

While it isn’t as immediate as ‘Everybody Down’ or as viscerally brutal as ‘Brand New Ancients’, there is a new maturity here. Tempest is baring her soul, and scars, for the world to see – she doesn’t need to rage to get her point across. There is a powerful understatement to this album that yields more secrets with every listen.

Hypersonic Missiles is packed with high octane hits, all of which translate into an impeccable record. Sam Fender’s debut is brave, confident and evocative.

Dodge and Burn is a sassy ball of madness coming at your ears at 120mph and, while it might not be the most together record these peeps have recorded, it succeeds due to its pure will to do so.

Finessed and unified, ‘Enigmatic Society’ is magnificent, a micro-masterpiece that refuses to be pigeonholed. Free-thinking yet direct, it’s a salute to collaborative art, and the geniuses behind it.

A captivating, at times unexplainable reaching of pained highs and battered lows.

An album which altogether represents a welcome change of direction.

Bold, colourful and eclectic, 'Have Some Faith' displays a vivid musical palette showcasing a band growing in scope and stature.

It’s little surprise that Bankrupt! is as meticulous, likeable, and danceable as its predecessors.

It’s an impressive record, albeit one that’s often difficult to get a foothold on.

‘Idlewild’ is undoubtedly the strongest album of their second arc, a release that in any just world would gain plaudits and laurels at every turn.

What ultimately makes Stuff Like That There such an appealing record is the obvious delight in performing these songs.

Marling has transcended the nu-folk movement and carved her own magnificent identity.

Neō Wax Bloom begs for multiple listens and, once you’ve digested every morsel, you’ll be wanting to visit Mamu more often.

Often lifted by angular, bug-eyed guitars, Mush can’t help but approach matters with considerable levity. Hyndman revels in the irony of American patriotism being the product of KGB-controlled algorithms on ‘Bots!’. His cutting and sarcastic remarks are telling of one nation’s innate habit of being easily led.

Shifting their past into their present, this intensifies retrospective beats with the primitive passion that’s always been at their core.

She continues to rise above our expectations. Producing a sound that would comfortably fit alongside the greats she once listened to on her Walkman.

The most impressive thing about In League With Dragons is that it’s the 17th Mountain Goats album, and Darnielle shows no signs of running on empty. This is an album that should excite existing fans of the band. ... It also works well as a gateway for new fans as the songs are catchy, the music is well balanced and when the band hit that sweet groove its glorious.

Shorn of expectation and match fit in the middle of a long tour, four friends found each other again.

Ecstatic Arrow is kind of the sonic equivalent of the Barbican Conservatory, with its juxtaposition of undulating concrete and myriad verdant plants from across the world. And if you’ve ever been there, you’ll know it’s a very pleasant space.

A record of incredible depth, ‘Alfredo 2’ is a celebration of the art, a platform of excellence.

The variations aren’t as wild, but that doesn’t mean you don’t notice them, the Glasgow zeitgeist keeping things moving as a supreme technician (ever the perfectionist, this final cut apparently took five takes).

On each listen Love What Survives is a record full of raw honesty, both musically and artistically, and is worth your undivided attention.

When you listen to the albums back-to-back you get a better idea of who Autechre are and how they see the world. Yes, it is a wonderful place full of natural beauty and hope, but it is also dank and skittering full of people who only care about their self- interest and petty squabbles. Both of which Autechre have captured in exquisite detail.

Inevitably there might be some that call The Heavy Heavy overtly nostalgic but when they are capable of producing such beautiful and layered tracks, it is hard not to be swept along by the band’s tightness and breadth.

Here, we hear hints of funk, jazz, Americana and folk--and before you know it, the album’s ingrained itself.

There is never any doubt in her authorial voice and ability to commandingly tell her own story, with all the tragedies and triumphs contained therein.

MAYHEM does, however, re-connect Lady Gaga with a sound – and approach – she deserves to own. With the world growing darker by the minute, one of the planet’s biggest stars is ready to unroot pop’s foundations once more – and we’re totally here for it.

Titanic Rising harnesses convention and refashions it into something singular. At once a document of this “wild time to be alive” and an escape from it, it’s often remarkably good.

While it may be hard to place genre-wise, it’s not hard to see its quality and sense of ambition.

Sad, contemplative and euphoric in equal measure, The Most Lamentable Tragedy is a true triumph.

A beautifully crafted, nuanced record, bursting to the brim with ideas and not afraid to test the listener with its expansive sound pallet.

It’s direct, unflinching and explicitly pop: rarely have Slow Club sounded this full, this bold.

A conceptual album which feels honest and authentic, ‘Drop Cherries’ showcases the best of her musical ability while being lyrically complex – it’s another strong record for Billie Marten to add to her repertoire.

‘Laurel Hell’ is a big album that demands to be known, full of indie-pop wonders and most of her most moving ballads yet.

A fabulous album, confirming St. Vincent's status as a deeply talented artist.

Yes, it’s also chaotic and messy, but also catchy. This is not an album, or band, to sleep on in 2026.

Done and dusted in 35 minutes, it’s tempting to view ‘Wuthering Heights’ as a studio palette cleanser, a means for Charli xcx to fully divest herself from the ‘Brat’ era. Yet the music itself so much more rewarding than that definition allows – at times gorgeous, at others deliberately grotesque, it offers a series of dark gothic fantasies that inhabit a transformative realm.

While it might not be as cohesive as some of his previous work, ‘Is It?’ is a beautiful reconciliation, revelling in making something from a place of struggle.

All dark atmospherics and empty space, Jaar’s spectral production for collaborative project Darkside creates the void where rhythm, and seemingly time, are allowed to infinitely float on.

From the zany club outings of his 2010 to 2011 releases with Night Slugs to the more restrained and conceptualised LPs of recent years, each record has been a milestone in the development of this most remarkable musician--his latest album being no exception.

Their demons finally overcome, Peggy Sue are now revelling in true resolute defiance.

It carries a deeply insidious atmosphere, never revealing what is coming round the corner before exploding into either a flurry of motion or into a whispering, ephemeral moment.

Vital, assured and moving, ‘I Beat Loneliness’ is full of magnetism and has an indomitable spirit that is full of fire that refuses to burn out, its intensity smoldering through every note and riff, relentless and alive with raw energy.

Whilst the premise of this album is for Ariana to purge all memories of her previous relationship whilst coming of age into her third decade, it’s highly unlikely we will be forgetting about ‘Eternal Sunshine’ any time soon.

Occasionally Jaga Jazzist paint themselves into a corner--the ending of the title track plucks an earlier riff out of nowhere and it feels a little like they took the easy way out--but Starfire is never anything less than thrilling.

At once a joyous, celebratory ode to motherhood, elsewhere finding quiet liberation and acceptance during life’s darkest moments, it’s clear, Meg Remy has delivered her most hopeful album yet.

Beautifully crafted, eccentric and disturbing, but essential pop all the same.

A fantastically consistent, perpetually illuminating full-length, it shows Nas to retain a hunger, and sheer fire that so many of his peers have lost. Recalling former glories while remaining fixed on the future, ‘The King’s Disease III’ underlines the rapper’s current creative streak.

Never boring, never dull, this is a glowing, fire-breathin’, thunder-clappin’ ghost train of a record.

It sees the Canadian doing what he does best--welding samples together obsessively, and wailing a lot over the top.

An unusual, beguiling collaboration, you hope it’s the first chapter in this duet, and not the last.

The magnificence of Lauryn Hill? The success of Sade? Tems is out there in a lane of her own.

The lyricism is what makes the album escalate from good to great.

Every track is excellent, ruthless, relentless.

The swagger comes in the form of knowing your strengths and for Stern, she's put all of them on display with Marnie Stern.

This album is a rich Norwegian delight.

A potent third record that retains a pop heart whilst wandering off into compelling new terrain. Her exploratory take on pop is gorgeous, redemptive, and full of life.

‘Forever Blue’ is a confident debut, one that carries the weight of experience beyond her years.

In carrying on from their debut and giving it a more personal feel, Folding Time tweaks into a malleable multi-purpose listen.

A bold first full album from a trio whose ambitions are clearly only getting bigger.

Equally fragile and resplendent in its execution, it's the kind of album that stays with you long after its haunting close.

A rich, rewarding, and extremely direct return, one worth observing on its own terms.

Overall, When I Get Home is a triumph, and is the kind of album you put on to reach your calming, safe place, when you get home at the end of a long day.

A brutally funny, scuzzy and lacking-in-seriousness affair, it truly is one of the most entertaining New York guitar albums of modern times.

Heavily weighty with fiery doom and gloom, Lauren Mayberry masters the art of colourfully abstract lyrics.

It is to the group’s credit that they manage to balance the disparate influences and styles with such panache. It is one of the band’s strongest to date and one fans will come back to time and time again.

In ‘Postindustrial Hometown Blues’ they tell their story, but it’s a universal one. The sense of joy in using lyrics to express emotions is palpable, as is their humour. The duo use their musicality, shifting between soul and blues, punk and passion.

While this may not be as perfectly realised as "Black City," it's still a beautiful, complex, weird and bold album.

A remarkable return to form by one of rap’s finest wordsmiths, it’s Pusha’s most focused and cohesive solo effort to date, and one of hip-hop’s strongest long-players of 2015.

While Jurado’s music has, on occasion, seemed a little slight, this is an endearingly ambitious, somewhat unexpected folk-rock triumph.

A powerfully affecting song cycle, ‘On Grace & Dignity’ peels back preconceptions, stabbing straight for the raw nerve.

‘Masquerade’ is a compelling, richly textured and beautifully crafted record that lands with real urgency and vitality.

Celebratory to the bone, the tenth Foo Fighters recording adventure is a bit like finding yourself on the best rollercoaster ride in town on a hot summer day, joyously terrifying in places, it ends well. Quite frankly, at this point in time, there is a strong need to connect with moments of such enjoyable intensity.

There’s no denying the worth of the latter sort, but the electrifying nature of the first cut comes as a bit of a tease, setting you up for a (albeit nicely ambient) fall.

Coldplay's electronic excursions may be more cerebral and less embroiled than those of Thom Yorke's continued influence on Radiohead, but their progress is to be applauded, for this is an excellent album with depths unexplainable within this word count.

A record of sheer beauty and one that finds London Grammar at the absolute top of their game.

There will be plenty of people who opt to be snobby about the fact that this record is so commercial, so polished and so brazen, but those people are all, to a man, idiots. If you can't love these songs, you are incapable of experiencing joy itself.

A distinctive, nigh-on unique listen, ‘Isn’t It Now?’ is a fine experimental broth for Autumn listens.

Therapy? have always exuded a commercial undercurrent and it's that ingredient that makes them compelling - equally now as then.

The album might be inspired by grey and harsh reality, but it doesn’t go the obvious route with slow-burn and somber-toned tracks. Instead, ‘Pure Luxury’ still remains anthemic and rave-worthy with its vibrant rhythms—the tracks just happen to have deep lyrics.

It is a coming-of-age record that evidences Abbie’s musical and personal growth and announces her as one of the country’s most exciting new indie pop songwriters.