For anyone who’s ever wondered what sort of album a hybrid of Joan Jett and Janet Jackson would make, the answer is right here.

Dense to the extreme, a thick fog of emotions that concedes nothing, this is as uncompromising and potentially definitive as a break-up album could ever be.

It’s an album that’s far less direct than her debut, and more thoughtful.

This isn’t a band going through the motions, it’s a band going through a violent and explosive rebirth, a return to form that’s almost unparalleled.

From rich biblical imagery and warped pastoral scenes (‘Cow Song’) to screeching, string-led tension (‘Highway Man’) and howling invocations (‘Circles’; ‘Mary’), its nine tracks somehow encode a considerable might without ever feeling heavy.

It doesn’t rest on what has come before, landing somewhere between the ‘80s new wave of their debut and mainstream pop, now with the self-expression of a far more confident songwriter.

The Philadelphia quartet’s appeal is built on an earnestness and an honesty that leaks from every sweat-channelling pore of The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us.

At times it’s a strange record. The rough tones don’t register as forcefully as the hooks on previous works. That said, it’s a rewarding listen, one that eventually embeds itself once given full attention.

It may not be entirely reinventing the rock wheel, but it’s certainly a more successful attempt at broadening their horizons.

Know It All isn’t perfect, but it’d be a challenge not to fall for even just some its charms.

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

The glue between ten ambitious tracks, she holds her own and sounds more relevant than ever.

Grown up, spotlessly polished and now with full-fledged circuitry, these pirates are machines now, making Teleman’s debut nothing short of electric.

Lazaretto is perhaps the most conventionally made of White’s back catalogue. And for an artist as brilliantly unconventional as he, could prove itself more of a test than any of its predecessors. A test passed with flying colours (or at least various shades of blue).

Their fourth album, Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action is a thumping beast full of deliberate, sudden movements and big melodies.

If ‘Football Money’ was a full-hearted paean to the likes of Pavement and Archers of Loaf, then ‘Cooler Returns’ is the sound of Kiwi Jr moving forwards, planting their own flag in the power-pop ground.

Never sitting still or dwelling on their influences for too long, the third incarnation of Cheatahs in 2015 have harnessed the hyperactivity of their release schedule, channelling it into a collection of tracks that houses some of their strongest moments to date.

Kill The One You Love is a record built around hope, and around finding the optimism in fatalism, and the inevitable freedom that comes with such a discovery. As such, it feels much less a debut, and far more an aphorism from the mouths of a band wise beyond their years.

[Pa Salieu] The Ghanaian-British rapper is one of a handful of guests here, each of whom allow Ibeyi to reflect the past and present simultaneously.

The jaunty, energetic hints of Britpop cast aside, this is Gaz Coombes the adult man, writing adult songs, and they’re really rather great.

Danger Mouse and Black Thought’s long-awaited album arrives as a tribute to a whole scene rather than just two artists.

With the world often seeming like a bleakly real episode of Black Mirror these days, Losing--a record that expresses the paralysing feeling of helpless that comes from watching it all unfold--is both timely and cathartic.

There must have been temptation to settle into a groove--gorgeous grooves, too--but by rebelling against themselves, Coyes and Dunis have been handed the ultimate lease of life.

Much like grief, ‘Evergreen’ has its highs and lows, but ultimately, it makes you feel less alone and like you’re going to be OK.

Not The Actual Events serves as an excellent primer for what is to come. But more importantly, and more pressingly, it asks more questions and takes more risks than any welcome back should. It’s not a postcard of a legendary past, its a battlecry for something truly epic to come.

Lemon Memory shows a band unencumbered by the constraints of genre or even their own musical history.

The immediacy of the comparably short and sharp first half (at least in track number alone) gives way to a sprawling crescendo of epics – not least the near-19 minute ‘Planet Desperation’; a track as camp as it is masterful, with more than a gentle nod to the 1960s and ‘70s.

Here, he does indeed examine music’s most ubiquitous theme - namely, the deeply personal yet universal anguish of matters of the heart - but elevates it such that even the most quotidian of details becomes filmic.