The pedal steel guitar playing on the whole record is breathtaking.

Lovelorn, honest, poignant and emotional in the best way imaginable.

Schneider’s assessment of the impact of digital advances, while pessimistic, is not without nuance. ... Schneider is capable of breathtaking beauty as a writer – unafraid of exploring direct melodic communication and stirring arrangements. There is also plenty of subtlety and nuance in her writing, so this communicates honesty and sincerity more than earnestness.

Particularly impressive is that the music never feels incoherent or thrown together. The band always, somehow, emerge with a compelling and coherent voice, albeit a strange and often dark one.

International is the trio’s ideal signing off point. It is both uplifting and reflective, leaving the contrasting emotions of a lump in the throat and a smile on the face. Everything they’ve ever done, in a nutshell.

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.

Seeds is destined to grow and grow. Exhilarating stuff.

Highly accomplished, elegantly performed, wonderfully sung, this is an album by a master craftsman using his keen ear to create something beautiful. The man has never missed.

Such a musical melting pot can easily turn into something inaccessible and lifeless, but that’s never the case here. Skill, knowledge and passion clearly inform what this band do, but what comes across most strongly is a sense of joy, and that makes it difficult to feel anything other than wholly engaged as a listener.

In 1000 Forms Of Fear, we have what is probably Sia’s finest body of work.

The fact that he can produce an album like Bad As Me, with more energy, invention and sheer excitement that artists half his age stands as testimony that Tom Waits remains one of the true giants of music.

By the time the album’s 54 minutes have drawn to a close, you feel exhausted but in the best possible way.

Essex Honey is essentially a series of sketches, put out into the world before they could be framed. Yet therein lies its beauty, stemming from the bravery of Dev Hynes in sharing such bare thoughts and sadness with the world.

Aforger is one of 2016’s most impressive albums and will most likely be seen as key in years to come when looking at Douglas Dare’s development as an artist.

It’s an album that sums up Bowie as an artist--restless, audacious, constantly looking forward to the next new idea. January may only be a week old, but that ‘Best Of 2016’ list already has a slot filled.

This album of covers brims with intensely organic and engaging moments, breathing new life into songs that could've just hung out like tired old windbags.

Because you’re ready for The Things We Think We’re Missing. It’s yet another one of those albums you didn’t know how badly you needed.

Crack The Skye is a monolithic achievement from a band that never compromises in terms of vision or style. It's easily the best metal album of the last 10 years.

WIXIW is a wonder of an album of endless layers and contrasts to get caught up and lost in.

The Liberty Of Norton Folgate may just be the best thing they have ever recorded.

What is arguably Joanna Newsom’s most consistently outstanding record to date.

What is most startling... is the amount of emotional depth that Turner's injected into his songs here.

Their incongruence makes neither any less brilliant. So powerful is its imagery, and so timeless is its presentation, Lisbon is sure to join High Violet on any shortlist of the most memorable albums of 2010.

Transforming states and changing perspectives are once again the order of the day. Modern Kosmology marks another triumphant evolution.

We Were Made Of Prey is an intense, haunting listen – it may not be the place to come to if you want an album of singalong tunes, but the raw emotion that Joseph and Campbell can conjure up is something to behold.

This is as compelling and coherent a collection as they have ever made. It’s a record that you can delve deep into and really inhabit; everything’s in its right place.

It’s as good a debut as you could hope to hear, a fresh injection of pure brilliance and beauty to a genre that is creaking under the weight of mediocrity and a lack of adventurous inventiveness.

As an exercise in maintaining artistic form, it's an indisputable success.