It demands your attention, but more importantly, it deserves it too. This is the sound of an artist in complete control, full of confidence and dazzling flair.

Brilliant – if overdue – debut album. ... Welcome to Alison Goldfrapp’s paradisiacal, tempting, thrilling vision of the sublime.

The Eel Pie Islanders' sees the band mature as songwriters, which should attract the mainstream attention that's so overdue them.

Charli starts and ends with hard disorienting club bangers, leaving the middle of the album space to expose her tenderness and vulnerability while still retaining her futuristic, unpredictable sound and penchant for an irresistible pop hook.

Despite its meticulous and grandiose instrumentalization, this record is Nandi Rose’s 'Camelot', a masterclass in her own interpersonal gut-wrench, where she has finally figured out how to build a wall of sound that compliments her breathtaking vibrato.

This mature, experienced point of view on the nation’s favorite pastime is bound to rock clubs this summer.

The twenty-track project, dedicated to his late mother, features Headie’s strongest, most reflective writing to date. Distance offers clarity, and the further he navigates away from his past life, the more vivid the pictures he paints of it.

Just as grand as one would expect from the German rockers, ‘Zeit’ is a disorienting, glorious dose of Neue Deutsche Härte. Thick with charisma and a sharp sense of theatricality, this is another certified classic.

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.

This is a slow-burning, deeply resonant collection with a stirring potency and the capacity to truly wow.

Soaring vocals and clean-cut production allow for an easy listen where listeners can grasp the feelings of the collective. This new release was needed, not just for the fans who have been dying to hear new music, but needed for the music community in general. The current climate is dark, moody, uncertain with the pandemic in mind, but this new album brings joy and happiness in a time where it is needed most.

Out of devastation, Loraine has pieced together an album to cherish.

C'mon is such a delight, simultaneously luscious in their orchestration and muted in their delivery. Beautiful.

A peerless left-field masterpiece.

The interplay between Young and Promise of the Real is great and dare I say, they somehow manage to out ‘Crazy Horse’ the actual Crazy Horse. This is a greatest hits selection worthy of Elliot Roberts’ 50-year friendship with Neil Young.

'Cruel Country' is neither ironic, nor frivolous: it’s a sprawling double-album that stands as one of Wilco’s best, an ever-moving meditation on the quest for connection in a country that’s often cruel but always worthy, in Tweedy’s eyes, of forgiveness.

‘Gold-Diggers Sound’ is an effortless and easy listen thanks to the high production value, Bridges’ velvety-smooth vocals, and the strength of his songwriting, it’s set to be one of the albums of the year.

The 13 smooth jams showcase Joy Crookes not only as a vocalist or candid writer but as the new face of British soul. While many artists chase nostalgia, Crookes offers a different way forward by disregarding the traditional boundaries of classicism.

Whilst lyrically, it is a portrayal of insecurity and pain, sonically it is a bright, glistening piece of pop magic that merges the quintessential style seen on The Japanese House’s three EPs with new points of exploration that only increases the excitement around this enigmatic superstar-in-waiting.

Some listeners may find fault in the looseness with which the mix is put together and the unexpected results that the track pairings create (see the transition from the heavy rhythms of ‘Nocturne’ to the Craig David-sounding vocal samples of ‘So It Seems’, or the unashamed ‘70s funk of ‘Vs’), yet it is in these very moments that Snaith’s creative bravery and vision come to the fore, subverting t

This is an album encompasses everything Klein has experienced so far. It is rich with texture and ideas. Let’s hope it doesn’t take her another lifetime to create something as singular and enjoyable as this.

Bonito Generation is likely to be the most fun album you’ll hear all year. The production is disarmingly joyous and, thanks to a predilection for early ‘90s dance, some of the tracks here are absolute bangers.

Porridge Radio have not only written the album of their careers but possibly of the year too. Their new project ‘Every Bad’ is full of the catchy songs that are overflowing with lo-fi ramshackle post-punk guitars and uplifting vocals.

This is a deeply original debut from a raw, ambitious band, one whose post-industrial urbane quality (check out this awesome video of them playing in an abandoned New York tunnel) provides it with a terrific sense of place and texture.

Pom Pom Squad seize these influences and DIY them to fit their own Gen-Z aesthetic. In other words, ‘Death Of A Cheerleader’ is a tour-de-force that toasts to all of our own Dumb Bitch Selves.

Art-rap that refuses to be hemmed in, ‘LP!’ excels by tapping in to the rapper’s undoubted verbal virtuosity, while augmenting it with blistering production. Another triumph from one of rap’s true creative visionaries.

A collection that is deeply reverential to the Americanised folk music form, and which also gratefully repays the debt that Rufus Wainwright owes it.

It’s a phenomenal record, undoubtedly one of the finest to be released this year – in its mood, kineticism, and an adorned darkness, ‘Untitled (Rise)’ captures something truly remarkable about this chaotic era.