Throughout, ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)’ feels like both a leap in musical maturity and a callback to vintage Japanese Breakfast.

It’s clear all three are being pushed beyond their usual creative comfort zones.

Streamlined and minimal but bursting with intelligence, humour and ideas, BODEGA are the real deal.

An overwhelmingly intimate record that makes you wonder just what Years & Years could be capable of next.

ENSWBL, Part 2 picks up the baton of its predecessor and sends it surging to the finish line, leaving Foals legions ahead of their competitors.

Unique, raw and totally joyous.

All in all, The Last Dinner Party have done it again - ‘From The Pyre’ is set to be on repeat well into the new year.


You wonder whether this might have been the record to elevate Sharon Van Etten to arena status in another era; it is that stylish, that confident.

Need to Feel Your Love is an album that not only shreds, but feels prescient, too.

It’s ambitious and uncompromising, in both structure and content; rather than spoonfeeding, Goat Girl demand more from their listeners and provide more in tandem.

‘Someday, Now’ is a departure but a truly successful one, full of sublime vocals and creative confidence.

The record feels more like opening a time capsule than self-congratulation; as if that 2011 statement locked a door we’re only now allowed to peek back into. Also crucially, many of the songs here were never even released as singles. ... The breadth and depth of how much they did while still keeping it (relatively) simple is so evident.

‘WOOF.’ is brilliant, dark, and downright batshit crazy.

A stellar record. ... Which is to say, it’s bangers, bops and top-notch observational lyrics at every turn.

The sheer breadth of sound is astonishing, yet easily pulled together by Lindsey’s distinctive wavering tones and lyrical impact.

On all the evidence here, The Big Moon have succeeded in unearthing the secret to a fire debut.

More than one kitchen sink has been proudly gafer-taped to their musical fun bus; every idea--however half-formed--integrated with complete confidence. Delivered with the swagger of someone who’s just half-inched Joseph’s Technicolor Dreamcoat, it works spectacularly.

Taking stock of the dizzying array of touchstones on this record, this also the sound of an auteur hellbent on short circuiting all convention. ... Dirty Computer might just be the record that finally elevates her to pop’s highest echelons

Sampha’s voice might be the most instantly recognizable piece of magic in his arsenal, but it’s his patience and craft that makes ‘LAHAI’ such a stunning experience.

Taylor’s rapturous explorations of womanhood are torn through the mundanity of growing older, the depressive nature of Groundhog Day-normality and the catharsis of splitting even further as age makes concrete her contradictions. Across this - her most concentrated and burning record - Taylor’s hardened Sheffield-isms float through the tearjerker soul of a thousand women.

This is a debut like few others. In fact, the only way we’ll ever get another record like Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit is if Barnett hits Groundhog Day. It’s beyond bonzer, mate.

Kendrick Lamar rose to the top with his last album, and on DAMN. he tries to rediscover himself while on this new perch, with spectacular results.

It’s still a work that’s defined by its own dynamism. Anyone following these guys from the start won’t have doubted their capabilities, but that doesn’t stop A Dream Outside from dwarfing expectations.

For those who missed the rabble-rousing of ‘Dogrel’ but liked the darkness of ‘A Hero’s Death’, this record splits the perfect difference, sealing it along the middle with the superglue of a band who now know exactly where they’re going. Truth be told, they’ve never been more at home.

The fact that Hayley Williams is an eloquent, evocative songwriter has never been in doubt, but with ‘EDAABP’ in all its sprawling scale, she proves just how far-reaching and all-encompassing her talents really are.

slowthai’s newest is the work of an artist clearly more excited than ever about what he himself can do now he’s booted his own doors wide open. ‘UGLY’ is a beautiful thing to behold.

Contagious and sarcastic, in-your-face and self-aware yet ultimately all about cutting loose, Wavves have offered up an album that proves themselves as leaders in the punk pack.

It’s clear that ‘Headlights’ is Alex G’s most streamlined body of work yet – the culmination of fifteen years of exploration, refined.