An album that plays true to who MUNA are: inquisitive, bright, and ever-defiant.

There is so much to unpack that it will reward plenty of listens and be on repeat on many stereos over the summer. This is musical joy captured in a record one of the group’s strongest works to date.

The result is an album which moves on from ‘Hex Dealer’ but still provides the exhilarating, electrifying, and quite frankly, mindblowing songs the New York-based quartet are so loved for.

‘IT’S BEEN AWFUL’ might be TDE’s most TDE-sounding project since ‘DAMN.’ and it’s thanks to Rashad and his team cleansing their palette to create something timeless.

Musgraves is gifted at letting the melodrama slip into something sensual and ‘Mexico Honey’, and its neon-lit innuendos, proves that her pen is still razor sharp. .... Her voice is as serene as ever and it rarely complicates her desire to embrace the undefined. If anything, it amplifies it through her day-glo incisiveness.

Where other emo bands might dramatise the horrors and wonders of death, American Football evokes its totality as a comfort, an ending whose completeness leaves nothing to fear. In the process, they’ve crafted another work of startling, very human beauty.

Dan Carey – Speedy Wunderground head honcho and producer of Fontaines D.C. amongst many others – helms the boards for this record, and sonically it feels richer, with more depth than its predecessors. .... That said, some of the cartoonish aspects of Kneecap’s past remain firmly fixed in place.

It’s one of their strongest of the 2020s and across their 25-year career.

What ‘Kehlani’s’ self-titled moment lacks in risk or originality, it makes up for in songs that explore the fullness of female/non-binary sexuality.

With his last album, ‘Stick Season’, Noah Kahan confirmed the reign of folk-pop in the current age, and with ‘The Great Divide’, he further proves that he’s not just a one-hit wonder.

Embracing simple yet infectious lyricism, impressive guitars and folksy harmonies, Starkey has created another unadulterated Americana album in ‘Long Long Road’, carving his name deeper into the hall of fame.

‘Forever Ends Someday’ is wonderful – a rich, emotionally vivid experience, an inspired statement from start to finish.

The Foo Fighters return in defiant fashion with an album that refuses to let up from start to finish.

Her new music sounds way more nuanced, as if Margaret has learned to work on another level of detail and to find deeper meaning in small, insignificant words. This brings her vocal comeback closer to the approach of another maestro of layered lyrics and sonics – Phoebe Bridgers.

ZAYN is a pop icon who sought retreat, and this record finds the UK-born singer finally re-engaging with the concept of being a main character once more. Yet it’s also highly subtle – the understated songwriting, the hushed, after-hours sonics give him space to lose himself.

Deep cuts remixed, ‘Nine Inch Noize’ is blend of studio and live, and it emerges as a transfixing, completely realised collaborative work.

“Mr Valentine won’t you be mine / Don’t be shy cos I’m sure you’re just my type”, she sings in the jovial boogie-belter ‘Mr. Valentine’, partly mimicking ’00s girl group pop. .... “Don’t you know who I am?” she exclaims with a touching and stoic delivery in the eponymous power ballad of almost Bondian scale.

It’s this ability to navigate the humour among heartbreak, that makes Lime Garden so endearing to listen to.

‘ADL’ feels samey at times. .... A rich seam for fans to explore, but ultimately this is a widescreen blockbuster that is big on stunning vistas, and short on plot.

Sonically richer but still rooted in vulnerability, ‘Cruel World’ expands Humberstone’s palette without losing what first defined her sound.

This album, though, is not a story of what might have been but never was; it is a picturesque view of what happens when a monumental level of care and attention is put into a project. It is a wonderfully constructed success.

With an expansive tone that ‘Vol. I’ lacks, this is an addictive, clever, and primal magnum opus that refuses tropes and easy predictions, going far beyond the niche of fiddly psychedelia Angine De Poitrine’s viral following came from.

While the sonic compositions across ‘Pain Will Polish Me’ all become familiar, as though riding a common wave, it is Weiss’ storytelling that shines through.

A work of dancefloor renewal, ‘Ambiguous Desire’ is explicit in its aims – to move your body, and move your soul.

With this 17-tracker, Joshua Idehen and Parment fashion a musical balm in an age of discontent.

At over an hour, it’s not casual listening. But SUNN O))) have always been about testing limits, pushing boundaries, (destroying speakers). That’s precisely why the album works and why the band have endured.

She creates movement with her lyricism, an intense wave of feeling that brings you in and out constantly.

A refreshing and undeniably strong record.

ELUCID’s rhymes themselves are equally dense and layered, yet also effortlessly impactful. .... This is ‘I Guess U Had To Be There’s most spell-binding quality; you just want to peer deeper and deeper into it, plunging head first into its many thrilling mysteries.

Concise and packed with intention, SLAYYYYTER’s new album is forceful and focussed.

A slimmed down project that is over before you feel it really hits its stride, it exists in an uneven nether space that continues Robyn’s legend in some ways and takes some of the shine off it in others.

Like it or not – I very much do – this is not an artist playing it safe. As on the last album, RAYE is unequivocally at her best when she leans contemporary, in production and subject matter.

In ‘Honora’, Flea has found a way to redefine his humble musical roots, far from a vanity project, it’s a deeply considered, richly textured body of work.

An thrilling new chapter for old fans and an engaging entry point for new ones. Just don’t make us wait another four years next time.

A powerful and truly wonderful return from The Twilight Sad.

It’s a scintillating experience, perhaps the moment where underscores fully out-strips her peers, and comes into her own.

Meshing 80s pop revival, conscious club classics that could slide into her diverse DJ sets, moodier and more alternative, experimental sonic paths, Avalon Emerson is embracing more of what she loves, more of the unknown and the joys of collaboration in the & the Charm project with ‘Written into Changes’.

A fun pop record that doesn’t skirt from difficult questions, ‘Girlfriend’ is a stellar return.

A project that feels current without sounding derivative. The fourteen tracks make for a more mature body of work – one that trades the glossy, slightly on-the-nose singles of ‘Butter’ or ‘Dynamite’ for something more layered.

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.

With downtempo, melodic and deep felt emotion coursing through it, this is an accomplished Late Night Tales debut that showcases music that, put simply, makes the soul feel good.

The result is electrifying, a thrilling homage to the city of their birth. Live it will be unforgettable.

‘Goldstar’ has all the ingredients needed to propel the six-piece outfit into the mainstream, whether they like it or not. Thrillingly weird and wonderful.

On ‘Irreversible,’ Brigitte Calls Me Baby has emerged with a maturity that encapsulates the timelessness they have been honing all along.

‘Only You Left’ is another fine record from the Manchester-based trio. It is worth the four-year wait, showing their evolution as a group in that time, building on existing sounds and incorporating an array of different genres while still feeling familiar.

For a 2026 experimental capitalist-critique, dedicate half an hour of your time to this album. You won’t regret it.

Blake’s lyrics often circle ideas rather than landing on them, leaving some songs feeling like emotional sketches. But that ambiguity is part of the album’s appeal. These songs feel lived-in and unresolved, the way real relationships often are.

Its deliberate rough edges give the album an intimate and resonant glimpse into Mackenzie-Barrow’s solo vision, and in trusting first takes and fragile moments, he reveals a voice that is not retreating from the noise but refining itself within it.

The electronic palette moves him in a fresh direction, and although some of the mid-section does congeal into one, the album’s overall arc is a successful embrace of personal, and above all sensual, evolution.

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.

The group tread the perfect line between evolution and honouring their trademark style.

Having made the record about themselves, surviving under external and internal pressure and marathoning against the grain, Maria BC has spoken for all of us.

Throughout, she retains this knack for delivering lethal lines with classic Mitski concision.

Grief, cross-cultural exploration, and musical experimentation coexist effortlessly, grounding the record and giving it both emotional resonance and sonic adventure. This is an album which proves Gorillaz can stretch their sound even further while remaining entirely in control.

It’s a staunchly creative gesture, defying the pressure of the outside world for a project which thrives on internal desires, and the power of autobiography at any cost.

Once again, by mixing pounding dance beats with a feminist essence through a punk lens, Peaches continues the legacy of her image as the antithesis of conservatism.

Collaborations with vocalists Serpentwithfeet, Elise Serenelle and India Carney bring elevated moments to an album of ambient piano which will have you drifting in thought.

It’s a smile-inducing, healing experience, one which reminds you of all the good-weird in the world, rather than the bad-weird, which so often seems to be winning in these strange, discombobulated days.

The solemnness of the title track reverberates throughout most of the other tracks on the ‘Prizefighter’ album. It easily wins the ‘prize’ as the best song on an especially spectacular album.

Unified and complex, ‘Octane’ bolsters the aspects that drove him to Billboard heights, while also teasing out fresh ideas.

The oscillation between moods is deafening, but effortless as Scott’s come-ons and teardowns are a poetic masterclass.

Solidifies the Salem, Massachusetts four-piece’s continued brilliance. These 10 tracks, which clock in at a tight 31 minutes, waste not a milli-second of that sharp runtime. Every moment is calculated with ruthless precision and designed for maximum emotional impact.

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.

The album is intense, emotional, energetic. It feels beautiful to be invited into Harle’s world and the way his mind works.

‘the apple tree under the sea’ isn’t just going to be one of the year’s best debuts, but one of the year’s best records, full stop.

‘The Fall-Off’ feels like his masterpiece, a classic right off the bat.

Despite being less hit-filled than previous works, ‘Piss In The Wind’ is potentially the most authentic Joji project to date, a scenic route through every facet of his sonic and auditory identity.

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.

‘Butterfly’ doesn’t just reaffirm the endeavour’s relevance; it raises the bar. It may only be February, but this already feels like a defining electronic record of the year.

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

By Storm have come up with an engrossing quasi-debut here, one that slots them firmly into the lineage of experimental rap acts of yore (the great, somewhat unsung Dälek deserve to be mentioned again), but also feels wholly modern.

With every track, she proves she’s an artist unafraid to test the edges of her sound – and to make them entirely her own.

Joyce Manor’s latest is a very likeable and highly-charged return from a proper contemporary cult band, one that boasts an admirable ability to tap into a resonant well of impassioned feelings, in spite of one or two slightly misjudged digressions.

The unabashed experimentalism can be jarring at times, but the project ultimately refuses to play it safe, carrying a quintessential European pop sensibility throughout.

An assured work framed engrossing ideas.

With the warm, organic production allowing his songs to reach their full potential, ‘For The First Time, Again’ deserves to be a slow-burn success.

It’s the sound of someone holding a mirror up to themselves, a probing, insightful, often revelatory song cycle that revels in risk-taking.

This album embodies the 1976 punk sound 50 years on and despite the years, Buzzcocks are still as strong as ever and I can’t wait to hear what they have next in their new era.

At the heart of ‘Wormslayer’ lies an undeniable truth – Kula Shaker’s creative fire has never burned brighter.

With as many albums in this century as in the last, ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah’ finds Cast building on the momentum of the previous two years with both confidence and quality.

It’s as though these songs have that uncanny ability to shut out the outside world and speak to no one but the listener. When you achieve that, you’re usually onto something special.

‘How Did I Get Here?’ finds its strength in cohesion, shaped by an artist confident enough to sit with complexity rather than rush toward resolution, and who understands that growth can be quiet, deliberate, and deeply personal.

They know how to tackle them [cover songs], so they still sound as vibrant and exciting as the original but add that something extra so they sound, and feel, like a Xiu Xiu song.

What a thrilling and implicitly optimistic experience it’ll provide. ‘Ferrum Sidereum’ is the sound of human brains (and souls) firing in a manner that no machine ever will.

‘STAY HERE 4 LIFE’ feels like his re-commitment to the art, a high point on an album laden with anthems – ‘NO TRESPASSING’ is sheer, filthy club music, while ‘AIR FORCE (BLACK DEMARCO)’ marries Mega Drive electronics to impetuous flows. There’s subtlety, too.

This is an album that doesn’t really need any artificial bluster to draw attention. The songs are more than good enough.

Madison has taken all the strengths of 2023’s Grammy nominated ‘Silence Between Songs’ to craft an impressive album full of vulnerability and powerhouse vocals.

‘What Happened To The Streets?’ provides more questions than answers, and beneath the brash moments leaves you wondering about the rapper’s longevity.

‘With Heaven On Top’ is comforting yet absorbing, timeless but timely, a space to escape in while still feeling challenged, and still feeling entertained. Whatever it is, Zach Bryan has cracked it.

The beauty of ‘Valentine’ lies in Courtney Marie Andrews’ unique ability to shift between multiple vocal textures. Her aching pain is felt in her vocals and unguarded lyricism, a looseness that gives the album its emotional weight.

Rather than escalating, it holds its ground, making it one of Sleaford Mods’ most coherent and controlled releases to date.

Older, wiser and more seasoned, ‘Selling A Vibe’ finds the brothers refreshingly thoughtful and assured. All achieved while sounding as rough, ready and brilliant as ever.

Can any record match up to a 20 year wait? Perhaps not, but when the dust settles fans will have one of Nas’ best rap performances, fuelled by one of the all-time great producers.

This more mainstream-friendly, luscious-yet-intimate sound is a huge gamble for Dry Cleaning, and they came through this stress test shining, delivering their best work so far.

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

In the wrong hands this kind of indie pop could become trainspotter-ish, or an exercise in technical skills and box-ticking – as it is, ‘Holo Boy’ is a wonderfully enjoyable cycle of straight-down-the-line songwriting.

There is no weak link in sight across 18 varied and often pulsating tracks that dance between darkness and light as Cave’s music so often does. It is a testament to his artistry and continued innovation.

Even without images, you can see the raw emotion etched on Gore’s face as he delivered the poignant torch song ‘Home’ or the energetic maelstrom of windmilling arms that Gahan kicks off toward the end of ‘Never Let Me Down’. .... The album concludes with four unreleased songs recorded during the ‘Memento Mori’ sessions. Quite why these tracks never made it to the final album is beyond this writer.