An album of shifting, shimmering textures that is both a spaced out exploration and the perfect pop album.

It's a patchy but rich tapestry of sounds whose strange shape bewitches you.

Even with a debut album, their ascent has been so steep the opening salvo feels like a premature greatest hits.

Why Love Now truly comes to life when the band uses their punishing sound to explore the absurdity of modern masculinity.

Poignant, refined and still packed with relatable energy, the duo feel even more confident second time around.

With this second album, they’re still offering an exciting, engaging alternative to pure chart pop, and they do it so bloody well.

A record which triumphs whether you’re a Scot or not, casting a very golden glow on the culture and traditions of such a vibrant country.

These are pretty, sweet, gorgeously simple songs, some not fully formed, which have come, been and gone.

He hasn’t lost his knack for a great pop hook, as demonstrated by the bubbling synths and snappy 808s on ‘It’s Good To Be Back’. It certainly is.

‘Life’ provides a pure pop moment of the most joyous kind. Enlisting the Swedish icon to soundtrack a moment of dancefloor euphoria is in itself a masterstroke, but the track’s looped hook possesses the kind of earwormy immediacy that brings to mind Y2K staples ‘Lady (Hear Me Tonight)’ from French duo Modjo and Spiller’s Sophie Ellis-Bextor featuring ‘Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)’.

This is a seductive if not immediately obvious piece of work, her adventures into folky-jazz work well, never straying too far from pleasing familiarity into all-out experimentalism.

Though often an album of departures, ‘Try Harder’ works to find new ground to walk upon.

Foo Fighters are providing the map, it’s up to the audience to explore. Therein lies its beauty.

Peckham three-piece Little Cub make electronic music with a human heart, Dominic Gore’s observant lyrics adding depth to the analogue synth lines and snapping beats that propel them.

Sitting somewhere between say Beyoncé’s auteur-like use of collaborators on ‘Lemonade’ and how Grimes’ ‘Art Angels’ saw the contrary Canadian flex shimmering, glossy pop nous, ‘Caprisongs’ has twigs throwing out hooks left, right and centre.

Anagrams is the product of a musician fast maturing.

It’s all very here and now.

It’s a charming and defiant debut, and one that encapsulates the GIRLI mindset, heartbreaks and all.

Parker's vocals have taken a noticeably more prominent role, often duetting with herself rather than her husband.... Songs like 'Four Score' and 'Holy Ghost'--where Parker takes the lead--are buoyed by unashamedly gospel-inflected chorales. And it works, wonderfully.

Both playful and powerful in its delivery, ‘Kitchen Sink’ may be built around the challenges so many of us still face - and are angered by - on a near-daily basis, but it also offers a bit of light and - most importantly - liberating relief.

Hayden Thorpe is still feeling out the next leg of his musical journey, but has the distinct advantage of making every left turn he takes sound assured.

Not only are many of the tracks here vocal driven, there are some single-worthy hooks too.

‘Marriage’ is the sound of Deap Vally tapping back into what makes them tick, and lays the groundwork for their most exciting era yet.

Although initially self-released, Alvvays' lap of honour is about as road-tripping, beach-friendly and lazy day-appropriate as any album comes.

‘Beginners’ and ‘Radio Tokyo’ lead the way in the clout department, and increasingly, Hookworms sound like a band comfortable with being immediate as well as complex.

They’re not re-writing the rule book, but on ‘Chopper’ Kiwi Jr lift off towards becoming cult favourites.

It may not have the global appeal of his OF stable mate’s Channel Orange, but it is certainly his most accessible and enjoyable.

Just as the record threatens to get Too Much, as ‘How Do You Sleep Tonight’ wrings out its last notes, the crowning glory that is ‘Tonite’ kicks in.