It’s a statement packed with masses of future potential, and that’s all you can really ask for from a debut record.

Anagrams is the product of a musician fast maturing.

Across the record, Thrice conjure an atmospheric beauty but maintain a connection to the dirt beneath their feet.

They’re an easy punchline, in fairness--perennial whipping boys, probably deserving of a break at some point--but when they continue to churn out nonsensical self-parody, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ continued stratospheric success is nothing short of baffling.

Relatability abounds on Blisters In The Pit Of My Heart, perhaps not least on retail romance tale ‘Precarious (The Supermarket Song)’ where “I’m like an unexpected item in your bagging area” emerges as a contender for lyric of the year.

At an hour in length, though, and spewing at the seams with new sounds and concepts, Freetown Sound is more a vessel for Dev Hynes’ production prowess than Blood Orange’s flag in the sand.

Richer then than even the sum of its parts, The Bride is a beautiful, complex and often harrowing listening experience.

For Yoncalla the band finally recorded together. You can hear it. It’s the sound of a band in room.

The epitome of indie clichés, Drowners have done nothing to break their mould, and On Desire does little to appease the want for something more.

What’s unique about Pinegrove is how they compress uncertainty, doubt and fear without being overbearing.

Nodding strongly towards everything from Hall & Oates, to Justice, and Patrice Rushen, and flaunting all of Mount’s influences without a hint of irony, Summer ‘08’ is from start to finish, a back to basics, pure-pop odyssey.

Sleek, elegant but neck deep in gory realities, Conscious is a record that deals in the very best and worst of the world but instead of getting dragged down with the weight of these realisations, Broods climb high.

While unpredictability is certainly part of Deerhoof’s charm, and the aim of The Magic was to take listeners out of their comfort zone, the erratics can feel contrived and its off-kilter aesthetics too disparate for it to ever really take hold.

While there’s a certain amount of showmanship--he’s certainly still got skills--more often than not it sounds like he’s simply going through the motions.

The Gotobeds execute a formula of beer-drenched reckless abandon, tense odes to the unloved and loveless. The result is a smart, sharp record to soundtrack the end of the world (or maybe even just a hungover Sunday afternoon.)

As an experiment, No Grace could go further. But PAWS continue to have fuzz defining their every step.

Weaves is a whole lot of fun, from the deliciously raucous standout ‘One More’ to the delicate ‘Eagle’ via the whimsical ‘Coo Coo’ and the Pixies-ish ‘Two Oceans’.

The album is a cohesive combination of touching sentiment and purposeful release--it’s a big progression for a group keen to open new doors.

Let’s Eat Grandma clearly have the potential to merge fantasy and instant fix pop, but this debut is more a showcase of their peculiarities than anything else.

Puberty 2 leaves no stone unturned in its attempt to make grim tales seem even worse than you could possibly imagine. It’s a brutally tough shock to the system, one that will leave its trace for years to come.

It’s been four years since the band’s previous album ‘Rispah’. That period of self-reflection and resulting new energy is presented beautifully here, and despite the mantra of patience, is delivered with a sense of immediacy.

Haunting, intoxicating and crystal clear, the record is both sad it’s over and excited that things haven’t even begun.

These are tracks that could easily be ballads slipped into a Hot Chip record, but where there they’d be bolstered with synths and programmed beats, here they are stark and knowingly bold in their simplicity.

Tell Me If You Like To possesses the same breakneck speed spirit of their first steps. But it’s also a full-bodied beast, the sound of a band racing to the finish line to accept their prize.

Her most consistent album to date, and let-loose like never before, blimey it’s good to have her back.

There’s still plenty of room for Fear of Men to grow, but without outside influence, they’re already masters of a unique craft.

A luscious, rich selection of otherworldly tracks, disparate in nature but still oddly cohesive. And it’s as timeless as that dreamy world JK Rowlin

It flits from doomy death marches to frenetic, fuzzy psych rock freakouts like the fantastic ‘Choco Plumbing’, while indulging in some quirkier elements including a stomping cover of The Beatles ‘I Want To Tell You’ and a sweet, Casio keyboard run-through of American standard ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’.

Whilst they haven’t stumbled at the unshakeable hurdle of the difficult second album, the ‘Wow’ factor of their debut has since diminished. Thankfully, there’s enough youthful grit and promise on show here to suggest that that spectacular something is on the horizon.

At no point of this record are you left hoping for another Editors anthem or new Slowdive music--yes that would be wonderful, but we now have Minor Victories to savour. Hopefully they’re here to stay.

More a culmination of all that’s come before; a band confident in their own skin, their identity clearer than ever, their mission unchanged since those transatlantic tapes at the turn of the millennium.

The record’s finest moments relate to everyone’s lives, in one way or another. Whether it’s golden youth or present day regrets, there’s something to cling onto.

Flickering and darting across a vast sonic plane, the album is a worthwhile expedition and an interesting re-imagining of the past propelled into the future.

Future Present Past more than proves The Strokes are as important a band in 2016 as they’ve ever been.

While The Dream Is Over doesn’t quite match the ebullient nature of last year’s ‘Too’ or ‘V’, there’s still much to fall for.

This is an emotional juggernaut--an avalanche, in fact. Just when they look to have delivered their parting blow, in steps another moment that captures life’s ups and downs with perfection.

It presents itself as an almost impossible follow-up, but Goodness more than holds its weight, and shows its beauty in time.

This is an album polished enough to see your face in, and yet it’s probably--and this isn’t necessarily a criticism--the most disjointed Holy Fuck album to date.

Good Luck and Do Your Best is so far out there but at the same time feels right at home; making it one of Panda’s most thrilling pieces to date.

British Road Movies feels like a trip in the truest sense, and representative of that which Jackson herself has gone on: from leader of one of Britain’s most sorely missed bands, via eight years out of the game, to returning as one of its most intriguing new solo artists.

As far as Pantha du Prince standards go, those expecting bangers will find that this is a slower paced, subtler, more meticulously detailed album than ‘Black Noise’. Yet for every dark, dreary, wintery moment, there’s more than enough of luxurious, melodic techno bliss to make up for it.

The rich swells of optimism that characterised earlier cuts such as ‘Skipping Stones’ or ‘Lost Dreamers’ have been replaced with a yearning melancholy.

There’s so much going on here that it can be borderline overwhelming. It’s a record that’s enigmatic, a little deceptive in places, and thoroughly gripping throughout.

Coloring Book is exactly the kind of record necessary to elevate an artist from viable to visionary.

Moving beyond previous stand-out singles, Scheller also treads new paths, with varied results.

Throughout, they still manage to delve into the perfectly-formed vignettes and clear-cut imagery that litter their early efforts, but the striking instrumentation allows their lyrics--and more importantly, their stories--to hit that much harder, making Holy Ghost a truly brilliant full-length.

Oh No doesn’t quite signal a reinvention for Lanza, but a move towards one end of her capabilities, one which consistently brings excitement, energy and openings for new paths for her to head down.

Coupling a dexterity honed over countless live shows with a wry sense of humour, with Down In Heaven the band find their own slice of paradise, primed and ready for anyone else who wants it too.

Musically you always know where you stand--the sound of a Death Grips record is unmistakable--powerful, aggressive and confrontational. Which leads us on to Bottomless Pit--very much more of the same, while pushing their sound forward.

Beyond anything, A Moon Shaped Pool feels like the beginning of a new chapter--the first time these five have merged their own idiosyncrasies without compromising or crossing wires.

Their debut documented pure, unrelenting struggle. Ullages finds a way out. Mitchell remains a captivating frontman, but he’s an entirely different blend to the one we knew before.

With Alas Salvation, they’ve set a marker for every borderline-insane newcomer emerging in the next decade.

James’ voice remains the deserving centrepiece. Still fragile, but now sounding more confident than ever, those pipes sound warmer and thicker than ever before.

As If Apart follows the template of his similarly bucolic 2012 solo debut ‘Overgrown Path’, shrouding his loosely constructed songs in a shimmering lo-fi shroud that makes everything sound as if it was recorded on his front porch, which it almost certainly wasn’t.

Hopelessness is an exercise in provocation. It’s anti-apathy, determined to stir thought, even if that’s total disgust and dejection.

Collaborations here, there and everywhere, for the most part Kaytranada pulls the strings. But it is a work that threatens to find him in the shadows, leaving the spotlight to bigger names.

There are just a few too many of these aggressive, tumultuous ballads and the result is each one loses some of its power every time another crashes into being. Moments where LUH lose their way are compensated for by the flashes of brilliance littered throughout.

Fast forward several years, and we find Will, her first record since 2013’s ‘Nepenthe’ both taking her music further into more straightforward terrain while remaining doggedly, indelibly weird.

White Lung push themselves to every corner of the universe on Paradise, presenting a beautiful vision of 22nd Century pun

Yes, at times it does drag a little and--though clever and often charming--the content isn’t particularly inspiring.

Musically the album sees Eno experimenting with three-dimensional recording techniques, creating a sound that’s frequently panoramic and dislocating.

White Hot Moon is unassuming. It doesn’t start out or end with a defining statement but somewhere along the ride, the grind of day-to-day life is drowned out in a synthesis of reflection and fuzzy warmth.

In a year when the world’s biggest artists have put their necks on the line--Rihanna’s leave-me-alone, independent streak of ‘Anti’, Kanye West’s scatterbrained ever-changing doodle ‘The Life of Pablo’--Beyoncé can count herself as a risk-taker breaking new ground, up there with the bravest.

This is not the most cohesive body of work, granted, but oh man does it have some total bangers.

While Muncie Girls might tread relatively familiar musical territory on From Caplan to Belsize, it’s Hekt’s acerbic, no-frills lyricism that shines brightest.

Genres fall by the wayside as krautrock melts into a studied and dense electronica, and pulls either towards the tenseness of post-punk or the hazy surrealism of shoegaze.

Definitely an album of two halves, by the time you hit ‘Ferris Wheel’ and ‘Destroyer’ the record drifts off into Dylan-isms that while are nice enough, don’t carry the same idiosyncratic weight of ‘Singing Saw’ or ‘Drunk and On A Star’ that will some day carve out a classic from this hugely promising talent.

Asking familiar questions in downright bizarre ways, with a musical palette that continues to revel in awkwardness, slipperiness, and experimentation, Cate Le Bon is a dab hand at holding a warped mirror up to life, and reflecting things in unexpected ways by now.

There are moments that long for something that once was, but those moments are fleeting. In its own terms, PersonA is largely an impressive album but there’s still some way to go yet.

This isn’t the best or the bravest music of her career, but Harvey continues to pave new ground. This time, she takes that responsibility very literally, exploring new places and inviting listeners into her strange universe.

Yhis is a band tight enough and confident enough to know they can take anything, and anybody, on.

Loaded with more jingles than a sleigh at Christmas, Brilliant Sanity is synth pop at it’s most intentionally addictive.

It feels ecclesiastical, like hymns for the digital age.

Messy, complicated, capable of star turns, it’s clearly a record Gonzalez needed to get out of his system.

This album may declare itself a painting--and an intense one, at that--but there’s a much bigger picture to see here.

Yet again, Deftones have created a real beast of a record while still showing glimpses of its heart.

A tightrope walk between impulse and laser-point precision, Human Performance is Parquet Courts at their most knotted.

Silent Earthling is far from an reinvention: it’s simply Three Trapped Tigers adapting and tinkering with everything that made ‘Route One Or Die’ such an exciting debut, to end up here with a leaner, more focused, brilliant second album.

There are no answers, no solutions to any problems, and no gateway doors through escapism, but for half an hour the record shines a light through confusion, and just for a while, it doesn’t have to feel like such a loss to be lost.

All too often Welcome The Worms lacks the bite that’d make it Very Good Indeed

Super is confirmation of their position at the head of the pop pantheon with an album brimming with excitement and fizzing with energy.

It packs a ferocious punch without compromising subtlety, operating with coiled concealed restraint. With their offering, Mogwai prove once more that, after more than twenty years, they’re a constantly evolving beast of a band.

Ultimately, this is the strongest Bird has sounded in some time, but it’s not quite the monumental breakthrough that’s going to find him new fans.

Yeasayer’s album is a brilliant, breathless, great big bundle of weird. It’s also their most innovative record to date.

The Wilderness, though, is Explosions hitting autopilot when they enter uncharted airspace, rather than exploring the potentially limitless universe beyond.

Teen Suicide’s final act is nigh-on impossible to categorise or fully digest, and its nature and length makes it at the same time a difficult listen, but one that brings rewards of all different kinds across its running length.

Phoned-in and simplistic, it’s hard to decipher when one track ends and another begins.

Life-changing? Perhaps not. Life-affirming, on the other hand? You betcha.

As usual, it features some reliably masterful beat work and production, but, at the same time, falls somewhat short in becoming the grand defining statement that its creator was intending it to be.

If the songwriting on Hitch is, to coin an old music hack turn-of-phrase, ‘mature’, it’s also concise--in a good way.

On all fronts, this is a stirring return to form.

Placing air guitar and hairbrush karaoke moments alongside twirling, hands-on-heart emotion, with Stiff, White Denim place all their capabilities on show.

It’s a creative, deeply introspective record that makes up for in depth what it doesn’t quite reach in soaring heights.

The lack of time taken for ii to form itself--no weeks off to go back and reconsider minor changes, no reigning in the level of experimentation--gives the album the feel of a jam, but without falling into an undefinable mess.

Unusually consistent while still admirably varied, Chaosmosis is one of the early delights of the year.

With room for refinement this isn’t LFY’s crowning glory by any stretch, but it’s a purposeful record that shows a trio holding on to the makings of something quite special.

It’s comfortable, casual and--as is Iggy--a little bit weird at times. It’s catchy and has some great stories nestling in there--Post Pop Depression gets its hooks into you gradually with each listen.

HÆLOS are clearly intent on shunning tradition. With that in mind, this is a promising start.