Converge have managed to once again best their only competition: themselves.

IDLES turn trauma and anger into affirming lessons on Joy As an Act of Resistance, crafting a cathartic masterpiece that wears its heart--broken, but still beating--on its sleeve.

Grimes has given us a complete record that's everything pop should be in 2015: utterly uncompromising, imaginative and, somehow, universally accessible.

It's a brilliant new benchmark in his already stellar discography, showcasing just how much of an artistic powerhouse he has become and a clear shift from the darkness that his music, even at its poppiest, once embodied.

This is a release worth snapping up on vinyl when it finally comes out.

That Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You's vast ecosystem can support this multitude of sounds and voices is astonishing. Even more so is the way its greens seem to become greener — its skies more full of stars, its waters clearer — the more time you spend with it. It's a universe all its own, clarified a bit more with every listen.

This is DIY revolution groove and as such, is an inspiration to those who wish to express outside the norms.

It's obvious for his fans he's making the music he's set out to create and when he's taken strategic measures to please the mainstream. But luckily for his avid listeners, K.R.I.T. almost entirely does the former here, upholding the funky, southern-psychedelic rap that his fans turn to him for.

Excitingly new yet classically evocative, You're Dead! is contemplative but never boring, an example of genre cross-pollination that transcends novelty and, occasionally, time and space as well.

Science Fiction is a flawed yet beguiling record that keeps you hooked without offering the emotional payoff that we've come to expect.

A flurry of emotion — joyful and pointed — and clattering noise blending into haunting sparseness, this is the record the Sadies have been working on capturing for their entire existence. Thankfully, and with bittersweet timing, they got it done when we most needed them to, making the best record that has ever been made by anyone. Ever.

Through songs now considered longtime favourites, and ones that will now find wider audiences, Homegrown is now free to stand as a more organic, lovelorn harvest of the personal turmoil that influenced Young's revered mid-'70s output.

A gorgeous double album. ... Full of love and appreciation for life, which makes more sense to him now than it maybe ever did, Callahan inimitably presents us with philosophical jokes and thoughtful observations on a record that is an adventurous stocktaking of his own life, set to tastefully arranged folk and an open spirit that welcomes us in.

It doesn’t just sound like wild west Americana — it feels that way, drawn from a life’s worth of experience and adoration of the genre. It’s the album that Segarra’s been building toward since they first picked up a guitar.

Have You In My Wilderness finds Holter narrowing her focus a little. In doing so, she gets the best of both worlds, showing off her ability to write warm and breezy pop music while maintaining the complexity, and perplexity, that made her so intriguing to begin with.

An LP so irresistibly danceable and irrefutably topical that it'll also leave generations of up-and-comers clamouring to team up with Janelle Monáe.

The Moritz Von Oswald Trio deliver their most impressive and spatially alluring album to date with Fetch.

A Hairshirt of Purpose is a remarkable, disorienting and rewarding listen that captures a band in their mature, creative prime.

In a discography as impressive as Lamar's, GNX stands as a major highlight, sitting comfortably in the upper echelon of a rarefied body of work.

The age-old saying goes if something isn't broken, don't fix it, but the re-release of Twin Fantasy shows that, seven years later, Car Seat Headrest are capable of re-contextualizing their work in ways that cement the faith that we have in them as revolutionary musicians.

It works wonderfully camping on a relaxed beach or in the most ostentatious concert venue, worthy of rigorous intellectual inspection yet just as easy to get high and chill to. ... It gives something wholly original to the culture in a way similar to what Will 'Quantic' Holland did when he launched the Quantic Soul Orchestra in 2003.

What's impressive is how well integrated these Agee-inspired tunes are with their more modern cousins.

With Blackstar, Bowie has made a record that fits comfortably within that legacy while reasserting himself as an artist that continuously makes challenging and rewarding music.

Still walking the high wire, with Something More Than Free, Jason Isbell continues his streak of genre-defining masterworks.

Twenty-two years later, My Bloody Valentine is still the band everyone's talking about, and although it may not necessarily build on Loveless, there's no audible reason m b v shouldn't be spoken of in the same hushed, venerating tones.

Big Thief are accepting the inherent beauty of life's invisible forces and their contemplation with the unknown has led them to a mindful state of raw, celestial power. U.F.O.F. is trembling with mystical energy and is truly one of the year's best records.

A fascinating, affecting statement from a musician firmly in control of her artistry.

Javelin finds Stevens at his most vulnerable, yes, but like Carrie & Lowell, he paradoxically hides behind a wall of references and metaphor (many of which I'm sure are biblical in nature, discreetly whizzing past my woefully secular ears). Now posited in plainer language than ever before, he makes its cipher even more challenging to crack. That's what makes these records so healing to their audiences, though: the universality.