The upshot is an album that is one of the year’s most significant and polished pop performances. There’s not a wasted moment on Something To Give Each Other.

It’s a collection of 11 instantly likeable songs that, from the title onwards (a twist on a motto of the BBC) seem to touch on communication issues, growing old and lessons that life can teach you. Collins’ voice, despite his health issues over the years, is still as rich and distinctive as ever and suits these songs like the comfiest of jumpers.

This Is Happening suffers no shortage of really great songs. Each track is a well-executed study in the finer points of the long form, each thumping and building, wavering and shifting in the haze of its own self-contained ecosystem.

Bejar has relaxed his vocal delivery a little here, perhaps to better blend with the rich, shiny detail of his music.

Final track Modern Love Stories plays out with acoustic guitar and strings in tandem, emphasising the new textures that Once Twice Melody has introduced, perhaps not with universal success, but nevertheless there are moments here that rank alongside Beach House’s finest work.

At their best, they’re untouchably brilliant but on this outing they haven’t quite been able to maintain the elevated standard established early on over the course of the full album. Still, for fans of melodically charged guitar-pop there’s much to enjoy here.

The cover of In Waves may be black and white, but the music within proves every bit as colourful as his debut, with the added bonus of frequent dancefloor highs. What a thrill it all is.

In short, it’s no puzzle to see that there’s no revolution here, and little is opposite to what you’d expect. It does, however, prove their sky remains far from blackened.

There may be no words, but their music speaks volumes--and is consistently rewarding and charming.

In this urgent, dense, ambient, technical music Three Trapped Tigers have produced something that is very much their own.

There might be more anger, darkness and politics on this album but Giants Of All Sizes shows they are still fundamentally one of the best bands around at offering consolation and comfort when the surrounding turbulence threatens to get too much.

He is now firmly established as one of the UK’s finest songwriters, making an album that should be treasured through the dark winter months. Sadness Sets Me Free offers hope and light for what’s ahead, in spite of the political slurry we find ourselves wading through.

Weighing in at just 32 minutes, Treats can hardly be accused of outstaying its welcome. In fact, its brevity is its strength - too much aural pummelling could be too much. As it is, as soon as the album finishes, you'll want to put it on again straight away.

Blue Hearts finds him upping the ante yet again.

Kids See Ghosts overall is a good album, and leaves the listener with a much better impression than last week’s Ye and 2016’s Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’, though it can be a frustrating listen.

While catharsis never comes, there are glimpses of light coming through at the edges, and a sense of perfect order among the chaos.

It’s a vital record that’s a blast of clarity in a muddy, chaotic world.

There are flashes of those ’90s rave glory days, but at its core this is a record built for a very different kind of dancefloor. More than anything, it’s a celebration of resilience, and the sound of Mel C continuing to carve out her own identity.

For all its heavy themes, Forward Constant Motion is an exciting, energetic, surprisingly accessible listen.

Beneath the corny flamboyance and exaggerated phrasing lies an album of killer tunes that may be mannered to within an inch of its life, but are crammed full of wit and bravado.

Japanese Breakfast’s most satisfying album to date.

No Shape is awkward, full of weird sounds that shouldn’t fit together but do.

This is an album that seeks to explore a shifting in spiritual planes, and the music reflects this by twisting its source material into something entirely other.

Overall The Book Of Traps And Lessons is best with a healthy dose of thoughtfulness and nuance, and while it falters on the occasions when these are disregarded, this album is another example of why Tempest’s spoken-word works now routinely amplify well beyond her poetic beginnings.

The production on Sugar Mountain is not as polished as Live At Massey Hall, which was recorded three years later as Young's career trajectory was reaching superstar status. As a result the atmosphere is electrically intimate, making the listener feel like they are actually at the gig - the true marker of a great live album.

Closing track Happy Now even dares to pick up the pace and is a reminder how good Uchis can sound when she mixes things up a bit. A few more moments like this to break the homogeneity of Uchis’ songs next time around would be most welcome.

it. At times, this is probably easier to admire than to actually sit down and enjoy, but it’s an impressive achievement nonetheless.

Working best with eyes closed and a fertile imagination, Feels plays like a dreamscape of interconnected happenings, some coincidental, some intended, that's as dense as it is languid.

It Is What It Is sparkles with inventive songwriting, chunky production and pervasive good vibes, a worthwhile addition to any R&B or jazz fan’s collection.

Different Every Time succeeds, though, in illustrating just how versatile and original this creative spirit has been, and how he will no doubt cast a long shadow of influence in the future.

This enchanting and deeply felt piece of work marks Gwenno out once again as a unique artist with much to say.

Western Stars is, annoyingly, another fantastic album to add to your rotation. But then it is a Bruce Springsteen album. Of course it’s superb.

Yeezus is a divisive album, one that contains some of West’s most inspired samples, collaborations, and racial observations to date while at times being insufferably misogynistic and confoundingly lyrically lazy.

Wildheart is a beautiful album from one of the most exciting and talented artists in music right now.

The themes and ideas are the same [as Funeral For Justice], but the execution makes it into something original, and in this case essential. In fact, this is probably the most essential acoustic rock album of the past decade.

As with each album in the quartet’s canon, Re-Animator requires (and deserves) repeated listening. Once that is achieved then the dividends start to pay, and this darkly shaded album is revealed as a very different string to be added to the Everything Everything bow. The band continue to sound like nothing else around.

Countless Branches is just 27 minutes long, but it’s majestic. Its brevity allows the listener the chance to become immersed in Fay’s lyrical world of love, time and hope.

There are moments of sheer brilliance on Ga... and due to the band keeping things short and sweet (the album clocks in at about 36 minutes) those moments are rarely far apart.

Arcadia is the sound of Union Station effortlessly slipping back into what they do best. There may not be too many surprises, but sometimes all you need is the sound of old friends reuniting to perform some expertly played music.

Gibbons and Penderecki deserve enormous credit for their approach, which is at once determinedly studied but also gloriously instinctive, Gibbons getting to the very heart of the music and the way it is made with her whole heart.

This is an album to sit with, to take in, and to fully appreciate its subtle and quiet beauty. It may not be her commercial breakthrough--someone as esoteric as Pratt could be waiting a while for that--but it’s certainly her best album to date.

The result is surely one of the best pop albums of 2020, and is possibly Ware’s finest to date. A sensual delight, What’s Your Pleasure? is the ultimate in post-disco gratification.

Widescreen ambitions should never be criticised, and as Prelude To Ecstasy ends with Mirror, a Cheryl Cole torch song with Nick Cave intensity and Bond-theme bombast, you have to conclude that this album is big, and it is clever.

Takk does what Agaetis Byrjun did by burrowing into the consciousness and snuggling down to bed there, purring. Each listen brings out another mood, another thought. It's gorgeous.

It’s a record that sees Mikal Cronin finding his way as a songwriter in his own right.

Overall, this is a highly enjoyable work packed with infectious licks and proves to be an easy album to get along with from the get-go.

On The Worse Things Get, there’s not a weak song.

You Belong There is a genuinely transporting, multi-dimensional song cycle and a glimpse into a fascinating musical mind that demands repeated plays. It’s destined to appear on album of the year lists but its depth and sense of ambition will ensure its treasures last well beyond 2022.

It’s Olsen’s willingness to develop her sound that is really the most gratifying aspect of Burn Your Fire For No Witness, enticingly hinting at much more to come in the future.

May well be Tempest’s most enduring work to date.

Building on the innovations of previous album Immunity, it invests more emotionally and retains the primal physical stimulus behind Hopkins’ best music. He remains a wholly individual voice in a congested field, a single phrase played from his piano speaking volumes. And Singularity is his best album yet.

The music is plainly listenable, the progressions are often entertaining and the lyrics are intricate. For fans, the minor evolution and heavier sonic palette may whet their appetite, but for anyone in search of a new revolutionary energy in the realm of indie rock, steer clear of the throne room.

Taken on its own merits, this is life-enriching stuff.

Their best album to date.

A fine record.

Black To The Future is both musically and thematically bold and important. It is a major statement contextualising the present, aiming to better understand the past and, hopefully, providing a provocation for a better future.

The whole album is awash with reminders of not just how good The Breeders were, but how good The Breeders still are.

Yesterday’s Gone is one of the finest debuts you’ll hear for quite some time.

Contemplative and unstable, the record is a 12-track paean to the benevolent act of taking domestic solace in retreating. ... William Basinski is back within his element, and we should take all comfort in that.

Its cumulative impact is immense, the singer giving everything she has to the music. Limbs may not be an easy listen, but Keeley Forsyth makes it an essential one, singing from the depths of her very bones.

It’s probably the most accessible Soccer Mommy album to date.

It is neither their most immediate nor their warmest album, yet its provocations are effective, and become curious and complex in light of the melody and harmony that sits above them.

It’s an album that reveals its charms slowly.

It’s a beautiful, fitting send off to one of music’s finest lyricists and an excellent postscript to an incredible career.

Its author remains a restless creative spirit, but Paul Simon’s music feels as relevant now as it ever has done, his work reaching the very depths of the human soul.

The productions themselves are brilliant, to the extent that a track with a seemingly unsexy title of Statistical Modelling turns out to be a weapons grade banger. And therein lies the album’s brilliance, a set of contrary statements and expectations that are equally thrilling and alarming.

While Surrender was an album that immediately hit you, Don’t Forget Me takes a bit longer to work its magic. That does, though, bode well to her longevity as an artist. These songs have a timeless feel to them, and seem like ones we’ll be listening to for quite some time to come.

Young Fathers are exactly as their name suggests: firstly young, but more noteworthy, brutally honest father-figures who show the music world that, when you take musical and topical risks, you get noticed.

Early fans may mourn the lack of edge that this major label debut may have smoothed out, but everyone else best get their “Lizzo 2020” signs on the lawn.

It is a pleasure to report that the latest SFA opus is a joy from start to finish.

It’s a marvellously un-sobering boisterous beast of a record, and a sparkling début.

And such are the music's joyous highs, subtle thrills and rich and deep layers, they can undoubtedly be judged one of the most worthwhile and special bands currently at large.

Vince Staples is a worthy continuation of his oeuvre, and proof if it were needed that his paradox of youthful energy and world-weary cynicism remains as captivating as ever.

These songs have a level of depth, detail and ambition that show how Case does things emphatically on her own terms. This album reveals her to be at the peak of her powers, extending her already strong legacy in hugely satisfying fashion.

The whole of Entomology should open new ears and eyes to Josef K's thrilling, scraping, clattering greatness.

It’s a smart, attentive-demanding progression--within the song and throughout the album as a whole--that deftly captures various stages of love’s cycle. With added synths.

For those that are willing to kiss goodbye to the guitars and join Parker on his latest detour, you’re likely to get swept away by the dreaminess of Currents. It’s just a shame that the undeniable majesty of opener Let It Happen sees the album peak at a high it can never hope to reach for the remainder of its existence.

Liars have not only been reborn creatively, they’ve emerged with by far the most accessible album of the band’s illustrious career to date.

Hadestown may have gained her success through her successful harnessing of external inspiration but by turning attention inwards on this occasion she’s delivered one of the quietly outstanding albums of the year.

At best, it sounds like an honest re-fashioning of comfortable old sounds. At worst, it sounds like a forgotten Christine McVie solo album.

Yes, Heavy Ghost is weird, but Stith's melodies are simple and wonderful, making his experimentation easy to follow and, with his enchanting choral throughout, it's easy to get lost in every song--or even engulfed into a new fantastical land that you may never want to escape from.

Jacklin has an uncanny knack for documenting her generation’s anxieties and issues, and wrapping them up in songs you’ll be humming for weeks. She is quite the talent, and going by Pre Pleasure, she’ll be around for quite some time to come.

Halfway through a song like Blouse (think Our House by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young but resolutely uncatchy) this reviewer begins to yearn for the Clairo that worked with Danny L Harle and Mura Masa, though Sling is an album that at least works on its own terms.

The more collaborative approach this time around has led to a more fleshed-out sound than his early, more minimal work, but it still contains the usual Oldham magic.

Packed with oodles of overdrive and a dissociated, ambient feel, Sour Cherry Bell is another enjoyable release from an artist who is rapidly reaching the top of the dream-pop scene.

His is a rare talent, demanding to be heard.

The Instrumentals album is naturally a looser, less magnified affair, consisting of collages of the exploratory, freeform acoustic guitar improvisations that each day of the recording sessions would begin with. They showcase a different side to her creative process, but it’s undoubtedly on Songs where the emotional impact is located.

Suddenly finds Snaith in his element, writing beautifully endearing tunes and setting them to multi-layered production in a way only he can, and the results are spectacular.

Only the slightly lightweight nonsensical The Ram-A-Lama-Ding-Dong Song fails to land (thankfully, Zimmerman’s opening request of “does anyone have a kazoo” is met with a negative) but otherwise this will serve as a fine introduction to Zimmerman’s music.

Electric finds Pet Shop Boys more daring and accomplished than most pop stars half their age.

There is a epic scale to many of these tracks, and there is also an underlying and undeniable sense of violence. Yet curiously Aurora is also one of Frost’s most accessible and positive sounding records, and one of his most metallic and industrial efforts to date.

Amid all this existential and transcendental pondering, there’s the sense that Vampire Weekend have re-imagined themselves as the sort of band who could be doing this well into their 30s.

eternal sunshine also represents a triumphant return to form, sophisticated pop music complementing her distinctive voice beautifully.

Heaven is a tantalising glimpse at just how brilliantly amazing Rebecca can be when she wants to be.

For a debut album, this is remarkable stuff and hints at even better things to come.

It makes for a wonderfully life affirming record, capable of humour, joy and reflection. Every home should have one.

The message might be shorter this time around, but it is just as pointed and effective.

Despite their faults, The Black Keys do have something to offer the world in terms of reliable, entertaining garage rock. Just don't expect innovation.