Never a band to shy away from making their songs as huge as possible, their fourth record features some of their most monumental tracks to date.

This is a staggeringly powerful record. Continually evading easy descriptors, Dave pushes his art to higher levels.

What is disarming about ‘ICONOCLASTS’ then is this level of earnestness, von Hausswolff’s cutting self-exploration. Here, she doesn’t hide behind imposing aural architecture or bookish mythology (though, there’s still plenty of both). Instead, she wrestles with loss, faith, and love – mature, deeply universal themes that her earlier oeuvre sometimes obscured.

It isn’t entirely comprehensive, lacking the fabled Witmark demos (which have already been collated in the Bootleg Series). What ‘Through The Open Window, 1956-1963’ supplies, though, is wonderful curatorial nous, one that gives it a palpable narrative thrust. You’re pulled through time to the streets of New York in the early 60s, and behind each door lies tantalising secrets.

‘Love Chant’ takes time to sink in, but it grows on the listener with every return.

Passionate and reflective, ‘We Are Love’ captures a band rooted in experience and brimming with creative renewal.

‘Only Slightly Empty’ may not be the full glass, but it’s proof that White Reaper aren’t done pouring yet. And I’m sitting here ready to sip on whatever they are going to pour out next.

‘Describe’ offers a peek into life as a twenty-something, untangling the thorns of maintaining connections.

There is an urgency heard in each song that completes ‘WE WERE JUST HERE’, as if to grasp at a fleeting emotion before it fades away.

At just half an hour long, the record skips by in just enough time to take to the dancefloor, take a breath out the side door, and make it back to sweat your stuff to your favourite song.

A hard-hitting pop exposition, it frequently feels daring, while also providing an endless supply of hooks.

The glimpses at the making of the album and its various iterations will enthral fans, finally getting the fabled electric sessions. Ultimately, it proves that the album in its original guise in 1982 was a masterstroke, continuing to win new fans to this day and reinventing the home recording process.

‘Fatal Optimist’ is, despite the content matter, enticing on first listen and a record that yields further dividends with repeated ones. Here her voice has space to breathe in a way does not always on her preceding albums.

‘LOTTO’ is still a disorientating and mystical record—one that feels a little out of reach even after multiple listens—but it’s certainly one of the most compelling releases of the year, the kind of album you’ll feel drawn to return to again and again.

‘The BPM’ is Sudan Archives’ bravest album to date. Lyrically, she effortlessly sings about love, loss, redemption, mental health issues and, err, 1980s computer games. It’s refreshing to hear someone this comfortable in their own skin unburden themselves like this.

Aside from spotty traces of Parker’s genius, at no point does the album elicit any passion since there’s really nothing on there that makes you want to own a copy of it on vinyl or witness the tracklist live.

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.

While the slower tracks are perfunctory, it’s the moments where he stretches himself – vocally and musically – that elevate the album.

The vocal work throughout is astonishing. .... The Last Dinner Party are a rare and special band, and ‘From The Pyre’ proves it emphatically.

‘Some Like It Hot’ blurs the line between performance and vulnerability. bar italia’s lyrics explore identity and conflict, with the duality giving the album its undeniable pull.

Refusing to be hemmed in by their influences, there’s a real streak of inventive originality to The Cords’ songwriting, aligned to an effervescent innocence that feels totally right for the genre

‘Don’t Look Down’ is a bold, bruised, and beautifully messy project. It captures an artist still climbing, but refusing to ignore the vertigo.

Confident, strident guitar music, it’s a record that blends hugely effective songwriting with wicked production values, granting their work a crisp 90s-adjacent sheen that refuses to sacrifice their raw live endeavours.

Emotive and delicately intertwined with lush vocals and slices of upbeat moments (‘The Answer’), not for lack of trying, is a sensational project from dodie.

‘Belong’ has an easy-on-ear feel that is combined to a rich audio quality. But it’s more than just studio magic – Jay Som has rarely written with more confidence, rarely expressed herself with more bravery.

Often heavy in terms of lyrical context, in turn comes equal measures of humour: it’s difficult not to hark back to the tear away trousers with golden booty shorts underneath which Steen dons live onstage: ‘Cutthroat’ feels equally cheeky and to the point.

‘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.

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