With new voices, new avenues of exploration and new lyrical viewpoints, The National, alongside producer-director Mike Mills, once again show their ability to reinvent themselves to produce something that is more than just an album.

Rainbow is a muddled hotch-potch that offers little beyond the fact it heralds her return. It's great to have Kesha back--it really is--but let's hope the quality improves in future.

This isn’t mere voguish reinvention but a masterful insertion into the most indecipherable of back catalogues, and its reliably mutable, endlessly wandering creator.

While New View is not especially novel, it still has some fine songs at its core.

It won’t be for the faint-hearted, but if the primal throb of Neneh Cherry’s ‘Blank Project’ ensnared you in the early months of 2014--and it’s hard to imagine how it wouldn’t have--then there is similar pleasure to be found in the utterly absorbing company of Rhythm.

Complex, thought provoking and undeniably engaging.

A record that alternates between the playful and the emotive, ‘My Boy’ thrives on the songwriter’s restless creativity, while never truly settling into one sphere.

Villains is the kind of album that sits at the back of class openly smoking a cigarette but still manages to ace its exams at the end of the year.

Something that immediately grabs you about this record is the production, which easily elevates it above its more naive sounding predecessor; the sound of new label Wichita making good on their investment.

No two songs sound similar and, while Jonsi’s vocals confirm that this is, really, the artist on the album sleeve, it is far from more of the same.

Whilst it’s nice to hear a change of pace for twigs (and to, on occasion, genuinely hear her laugh), there’s not as much focus on experimentation and expression, which could disappoint some exacting fans.

Taking inspiration from Al Green, Barry White and D’Angelo, produced with her long-term friend and collaborator Micachu, Tirzah manages to create a warped ‘90s R&B record with a soulful core and enough electronic dissonance for the modern age.

An album that's completely beguiling.

Most bands master a sound, but there’s the distinct feeling here that TOTS are merely vessels for a force operating somewhere beyond our comprehension of what can, and does, qualify as pop music.

With lyrical viewpoints and musical references more diverse than ever, this set is his finest solo release to date.

On ‘Ignore Grief’ they’ve done it again as the album is the most powerful and uncompromising album they’ve ever released. It’s also one of their most playable. This is down to the dense music. Every time you listen you hear something new that gives the song a different context. This is the mark of a, and I use this word properly, class.

A wonderful, and truly enchanting experience, ‘In Limerence’ will no doubt rank of one of 2025’s most special achievements.

A record of curious indulgence, ‘The New Is Rising’ stands out through its bloody-minded singularities.

A cornucopia of ideas and influences, here, Andrew Bird has created a veritable treasure trove of a record, where to equal the bare sum of its parts is a momentous achievement.

Building shifting ambient electronic compositions, there's no easy way into his world and Replica is a brooding testament to patience and investment.

Poppy is ready to leave her mark upon the world again with this hook-focused album that favours front-to-back consistency over constant mayhem and it makes you wonder what’s next.

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

Although ‘Modus Vivendi’ has oodles of instant appeal, the minute the rule book is thrown out the window, Shake is at the top her game.

Dornik has come out of leftfield to release one of the best quality and most addictive pop records of recent times.

The execution doesn’t always match the scale of its creator’s ambition but ‘Gemini Rights’ is a time capsule of Lacy’s metier right now, and you get the sense he’s one or two masterstrokes away from a classic that will be distinctly his own.

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.

There’s a stunning candour to the lyrics, though it gets a little stodgy in the mid-section and, at 80+ minutes, is a little more verbiage than the typical album. Yet we’re dealing with an untypical songwriter, and the last two tracks are among the best he’s ever written.

As much as this collection of instruments can so often deliver the hair-raising tricks we expect, these pieces feel more resonant, more entrenched. The surface level thrills are there, but the impact lingers.