Sometimes gloriously messy, sometimes just simply glorious, it is probably the most fun you'll have all year rhyming with harpists.

he 2 Bears have once again triumphed at what they do best, serving up a vibrant and joyous take on the music that has shaped them.

The Inevitable End accepts its own strengths and faults in one fatal blow, just like any last gasp should.

The first half of the album is a joy. The second half is even better.

Amid an existing height of musical Afrofuturism, ‘Sweet Justice’ is a crowning achievement - an assertion of self through distinct and precise perspective at the apex of a movement.

It’s the most eclectic punk record to emerge in ages, and even though it incorporates elements that might seem incongruous in a style that thrives off its simplicity, they’re carried off with enough class for it to sound intriguing rather than jarring. In fact, there’s a refreshing elegance about the whole thing.

There’s a diversity of stylistic approach and yet a singularity of vision that few artists are able to combine so early on.

Not the finished article, but as close as the (still) youthful band are likely to come at this stage.

‘Alpha Zulu’ is a fun record, on which the creators’ own enjoyment is audibly palpable.

Highly recommended.

While a very strong album What Do You Think About The Car? definitely is, it’s impossible to extricate it from the songwriter himself.

While ‘Yellow’ mixes it up nicely with freak-outs, group chants, P-funk and mellowing R&B, it is lyrically where the album wearies.

Tribes are simply proving that they have an ear for writing brit-poppy rock, and in summary, Baby is a complete belter.

‘MK 3.5’ is an often unwieldy and curiously warming project that sees both contributors embrace discomfort in their art.

‘The Kick’ doesn’t try to run or distract from feelings of loss and loneliness, instead it faces them head-on while celebrating the joy of being with others through it all.

An often whimsical, occasionally scattershot yet wryly self-aware collection of songs which run a musical gamut from Lana Del Rey’s Old Hollywood-channelling balladry to grunge pop – or more succinctly, much like a late noughties Tumblr given the same name.

‘Creature of Habit’ has some great moments, but they’re moments which suggest yet-still-untapped potential.

The most interesting element of his chosen samples is the way that more classical instruments and acoustic guitar strums are looped, while his vocals occasionally get the remix treatment and judder along.

It takes a while for Preoccupations to find their new groove on ‘Arrangements’. But, when they hit that stride in the latter half, it’s a terrific one.

Groove Denied captures the finer points of Stephen Malkmus’ craftsmanship in wildly esoteric and robotic form.

Everything they touch holding a vintage sheen of some kind, but it’s such a broad and masterful selection that there’s no sense of pastiche. The lyrics across the record let it down - they match the random patchwork of the sound, but take a step too far in the direction of gibberish for the most part.

Playful, weird and genuinely experimental, The S.L.P. is a ride worth getting on.

‘Sunshine Song’ and its repetitive refrain is just too sugary sweet, even with the whack of distortion added towards its close - but on the whole, ‘The Prize’ is a warm exploration of life’s intimacies that places female friendship at the centre of this pair’s universe.

Granted, even now it's difficult to assess his work wholly objectively given his recent, well-documented struggles, but strip away any unnecessary contextualisation and the record stands up proudly and defiantly on its own two feet.

IDER are back at what they do best, providing a glimmering sense of hope that we aren’t alone with our anxieties.

No, ‘Think Later’ doesn’t come close to reinventing the wheel (or pop), but it does drench itself within a pop maximalism full of fuel, energy and modernity.

Dude York are doing absolutely nothing new on Falling, but when they do it this well, the throwback is a welcome one.

This is eccentric indie pop with a slightly off-kilt flavour.

Vocals, sparse acoustic backings, gentle snare brushing, the occasional stab of a mellotron all create a very pristine listening experience.

A solid improvement from "All Our Kings Are Dead" but they will need to do more if they want to break into the big time.

What Duologue should be most proud of in Song & Dance is the variety and the consistently high quality.

There’s a sense of the trio reaching for a comfort blanket, turning back towards the intellectual pop that inspired them as youngsters in the ‘80s.

Stop analysing too far, and what you end up with is a genuine contender.

It’s still animated and dimensional, all existing under a warm ‘70s-to-’80s, folk-meets-synth-pop lens, which feels to be a natural direction for her sound to have taken

This eponymous debut is a well-rounded effort for a band that clearly has a knack for stadium-filling melodies and angst-ridden confessions. Anthemic in most parts and enjoyable in all, Various Cruelties deliver a debut that's moving and memorable.

While there are certainly no grand overarching themes designed to tie the whole album together, the collection has a coherent unity both musically and lyrically which more conceptually defined and led works would struggle to match.

Be Strong may not offer any invention or progression but as a collection of exuberant, joyful and uplifting dance music it is certainly the perfect record to light up those dark winter nights and look forward to the summer.

This record could well have been made 20 years ago, such is its timeless quality.

It's the perfect embodiment of their character delivered at an often frantically infectious pace.

All those who lapped up ‘Tracey Denim’ will be satisfied here. ‘The Twits’ may yet charm a few more besides.

It’s a rousing ending, and one of the few mesmerising moments on the album: it’s just a shame that the band don’t commit to one route or the other.

His voice is stunning, a far-reaching, emotive vibrato evoking Roy Orbison that keeps the often surface-level nature of his lyrics from reaching full saccharine.

This is a varied album that combines old and new musical styles without the fear of pastiche.

Purposefully lo-fi, it would be easy to dismiss as self-indulgent nostalgia, yet its quirky charms and understated directness more often than not outweigh its faults.

This may not be what we were expecting, and it may not be the Paramore that we’ve come to know and love. But, at the same time, here are a band still discovering who they are, and this album may stand as an important step on that path.

The experimentation is there, yes, but this sees Nova Twins pushing themselves even further, incorporating even more, and doing anything to see what will fit. While the record’s highlights - ‘Soprano’, ‘Glory’, ‘Sandman’, and ‘Hummingbird’ - are attention-grabbing shooting stars, some songs here feel less dynamic.

Spend any element of time with it and each passing play opens the album up, showing it off as the special, if often-understated record that it is.

In the wider picture, this may not make the impressive strides 'Visions' or Purity Ring's 'Shrines' did, but there's every chance Lesser Evil can find an audience to smother it in all the affection it deserves.

Miley’s commitment to new horizons can’t really be faulted, and ‘Something Beautiful’ does indeed add yet another string to the star’s already considerable musical bow.

Its meandering ways may endear or annoy in equal measure, but it’s hard to argue that there is a consistency or pure quality to see this album rank alongside its illustrious predecessor.

It’s only when he tries to amp it up that ‘Chew The Scenery’ falters; ‘Stuck’ might possess a standard freshers indie chorus, but when it aims for Oasis-level swagger, it meets closer to the Gallaghers’ recent solo endeavours than bucket-hatted air-punches. Similarly the euphoria of ‘Yeah!’ misses the mark. Still, there are more than a handful of stellar moments.

‘Friday Forever’ is a solid record with an intriguing concept that unravels fantastically under Russell’s loosened leash.

Machineries Of Joy isn’t [the truly vital album], but what it is is a touching, ambitious and inventive album, and one which stands head and shoulders above most

For the most part, ‘The World Is Not Good Enough’ is, yes, as wholly pleasant as its colourful, cute-adjacent cover would suggest.

Come LP3, maybe they’ll reinvent themselves as a more wholesome proposition; for now, ‘Welfare Jazz’ stands as a document of a band that are perhaps more in limbo than they might first appear.

Dead & Born & Grown is a record perfect for those long dark winter nights, an emotionally rich collection of songs that deserves to put Watford firmly on the musical map.

For all its ambition, however, it occasionally leans a little too heavily on the cliched conventions of certain genres, particularly pop and dance. ... Nonetheless, its ambition and creative concept can still be applauded, and there are some hidden gems to be found

Hot Motion’s only pitfall comes from frankly how safe it feels. Sure, it’s bigger and brighter than anything Temples have done before, but its whole aesthetic is still nestled deep in their sepia-tinted comfort zone. ... Nevertheless, it’s a solid statement that Temples are alive and kicking, drawing fresh inspo from the past without fading into it themselves.

There's an unabashed sweet sincerity to Dent May’s music that makes Warm Blanket a joy to listen to.

Where ‘Spirituals’ - which both marks a return from a four-year break and Santi’s first release as an independent artist - works best, is as reminder and introduction. The cut-and-paste, mixtape ethos that shone through in the first place is still there.

The Terror stares back at you like panicked faces underneath a frozen lake, visible, but distant. It’s giant metallic bugs filling an apocalyptic sky and blotting out a blood red sun.

Some of the extremes on the album feel awkward--the heavy metal too heavy, the loops of death overlooped, the calm too suddenly silent--but overall it is a deep, yawning collection of exciting musical experiments to dunk yourself into.

Khan's state of the world message might be slightly obscured, but there's an obvious feeling of hope and refreshing lack of restraint on this hugely enjoyable return.

This album, for a short time, will make you question your sanity and the world around you.

Toeing the fading line between R&B and inner-city soul, ‘AFTER DINNER, WE TALK ABOUT DREAMS’ is flecked with hints of pop greatness.

We’d never want CHAI to lose their pep, but there’s something pleasing about watching them grow into something new.

The only thing lacking is a greater presence of the crowd on the record that seems to be have mixed down, but it is the audible ecstasy of audience participation that truly makes a live album, though here the delicate simplicity and precise execution of the music more than makes up for it.

That MCII can jump from sound to sound isn’t a surprise; but at times it does make for a slightly schizophrenic listen.

A glorious mix of the human and machine where you don’t know what you’re going to get until it happens. It’s the best kind of surprise.

The fact that Vernon’s voice is so distinctive means it’s difficult to distinguish this from his Bon Iver work yet there’s more than enough shimmering beauty here to get excited about.

The Los Angeles singer-songwriter spinning tales of dark, often questionable situations in a barely-there whisper atop folkish instrumentation that owes similar debts to the city’s famed ‘70s scene and Elliott Smith. With yes, witty lyrical asides that jar smartly with his seemingly timeless sound.

Beneath the slightly grating kookiness, FEET's songwriting is genuinely exciting.

The universal themes and her way to create tales that draw you in, make for an album that’s more emotionally resonant than her debut.

It’s a joyful listen from start to finish; a playful, experimental, and carefully crafted debut, which is hopefully just the beginning of what Bullion has to offer.

While some of the stylistic variation here can feel disjointed at times, there’s plenty on offer to suggest a band on the rise, capable of rising even higher.

With Love is a flawed collection that is on a par with Zomby’s previous work but one that is minted in the producer’s unique persona.

It takes a certain wide-eyed energy to make cracking pop music, something Pale Waves definitely possess - and though ‘Who Am I?’ isn’t quite the bastion of empowerment it was intended to be, it has some glimmering moments.

Whilst this beast will satisfy the ravenous converted, skeptics are set to remain agnostic.

Charming, tender and admirably vulnerable, ‘Build A Problem’ is a profoundly freeing reflection on the struggles of youth, growth and identity.

Dignan Porch are slightly less effective at a less sprightly pace, veering too close to the point of collapse on 'And Are Now Not', but this is a fine exercise in pearly, bleary eyed acid pop.

It's full of wonderfully written lines, often intimate, sincere and grotesque, and sometimes weirdly anglophile.

It all has a vintage feel to it, too, with hints of Faces’ guitar strumming styles, but that’s combined with a more modern approach; here, Wolfhard could be a cousin of Alex G or MJ Lenderman, but with the energy of UK band C Turtle.

A refreshingly enjoyable album.

A decent album, then. Not a great one, but one that can still hold its own against any other indie rock album released this year. There’s life in these old veterans yet.

On the whole, the impact of their whip-smart offerings is striking, throughout the album’s staggering seventeen tracks, it does become easy to get a little lost.

It’s an album which sees the band taking new sounds and crafting songs in new ways. But this tightness and restraint is sometimes to the detriment of the songs.

On her hugely-anticipated third, there’s plenty of sun-drenched sonic optimism but not so much that’s all that radical.

Melancholic and joyful, it's both soft and harsh, but more impressive than any contradiction is the gorgeous use of timbre that takes over from the word go. A wonderfully simple, elegantly performed album that puts the importance of texture into perspective.

She has the ability to carve out some gorgeous pop songs, but seems to be trying to cover too many bases.

Although the remixes do not do the original songs on 'Gloss Drop' justice, 'Dross Glop' does give other artists their chance to interpret Battles' songs in their own way, from a rap twist with Shabazz Palaces to others going into even more experimental territory than the band themselves.

While better executed at certain points than others, the band’s varied selection of instrumental textures remains a defining feature; from the riff-driven frenzy of ‘Talking Radiance’ to the minimalist, piano-led touch of ‘Venus’, there’s an inharmonious harmony that pervades.

At the end of the day, what Matt Maltese does best is conjure kitchen sink dramedies. And with ‘Krystal’, his ability to do that is as strong as ever. The melodies feel more like accompaniments to the stories; a canvas on which to paint. But the wry yet heartbreaking lyrics that accompany it shows an artist who has grown. As enviably funny as ever, but this time a little more self-aware.

So we get the usual talk of death rides, mescalitoes and, erm, black pudding. But when the duo do click, it’s masterful.

‘Eels Time!’ is arguably a touch one-track, and more casual fans may pine for the sonic diversity of ‘Souljacker’. Those who love E at his most contemplative, though, will find plenty to like.

‘Flora Fauna’ is the sound of a measured spreading of Billie Marten’s wings - of careful progress. She’s still really young: there’s more to come.

An album that finds the prodigious artist enjoying himself yet again.

On the album’s most transcendental moments, its slow pace tires like the midsection of a dissertation, but nonetheless its beauty and melancholia is infectious.

Even the weakest Libs composition is a standard many British songwriters can only aspire to, to this day. If nothing else, it’s heartwarming that the story is still unfolding for the Likely Lads.