If nothing on Everything Was Beautiful feels truly essential to anyone with the Spiritualized back catalogue, it’s also a glowing example of their aesthetic.

FLOTUS is most successful when it marries the influences from hip-hop productions with the pop-rock template that has essentially underpinned most of Lambchop’s previous work.

Seventeen Going Under is powerful, essential stuff, a coming of age album that speaks to the human experience in the here and now. Its creator is absolutely the real deal.

Holter is arguably at her best when exploring texture.

A truly superb comeback.

Utterly everyday yet utterly recognisable and distinctive, Celebration Rock is pounding, lithe and youthful.

It’s better than some actual Sonic Youth albums, and that alone makes it an essential listen. A thriller from the first second to the last.

Furling is a collection that rewards repeat listens to allow it to fully embed into the consciousness but once it does its soft, rarefied treasure has much to offer.

Badu remains a singular, refreshingly unpolished talent.

Athena announces a major talent in Sudan Archives. It’s original, exhilarating and unafraid to defy genre.

At times it relies too heavily on retro stylings, with a resulting sometimes rather one-dimensional sheen, meaning that the more serious messages the band are expressing can get lost in the mix. But as far as ’70s tailored rousing rock in 2017 goes, Sheer Mag’s work is best in class.

Highway To Heavenly is a triumphant return for a band whose values of tolerance, empathy and quiet determination, in the uncertain political landscape of 2026, seem more important and vital than ever.

It’s not depressing in the slightest – in fact, these beautifully austere, tender songs are life-affirming if anything – but like the final albums by Glenn Campbell and Warren Zevon, the knowledge that mortality is drawing close gives the album an extra weight.

Appreciate the storytelling of Strawberry Hotel without shuffling. It’s nearly a five-star experience, too, its facilities and furnishings impressing greatly – along with the conviction that Underworld are as good and as vital as ever.

Aviary is not a great album--it’s too much of an ordeal for that accolade, requiring multiple listens to even start to engage with meaningfully. But it is, in its own idiosyncratic way, a towering artistic accomplishment. Just be prepared for a hard slog scaling the summit.

Possibly Lekman’s best work to date here. The Swede’s unlikely side-hustle has inspired an album that looks at love in all its myriad forms, and does so quite brilliantly.

There’s no sudden rush or instantaneous hit, but that’s not the point. Its hazy, dreamlike and enveloping charms unfold anew with further layers of melancholic woozy, summery beauty each time, as you contemplate about contemplation. As it all forms into focus, and the dots connect, you’ll find that I’ve Been Trying To Tell You is yet another fine addition to Saint Etienne’s soundworld.

Patch The Sky is certainly a difficult listen but it’s not without a odd kind of sweetness--it’s full of grief and bleakness to be sure, but there’s also an exhilarating sense of catharsis to be had.

The Bible, like a lot of Lambchop albums, probably won’t be to everyone’s taste – some may find the constant electronic treatment of Wagner’s perfectly decent singing voice to be a bit grating, for example. Yet it’s the sound of a man ploughing his own furrow, and producing yet another unvarnished gem of a record.

It’s not a pretty world to live in all the time, but for a while the twilight tones are the perfect place to rest a broken or bruised heart, or just take some comfort from Marissa Nadler’s exquisite craft.

Despite the heavy topics, Gwenno brings a lightness of touch to everything on the album--her vocals are both light and breezy, and sometimes sound full of wonder, as if she can’t wait to explore this weird dysoptian future that she’s singing about.

The results as diverse as one would expect from such a multi-faceted pairing: chaotic, withdrawn, subtle, bombastic, promising and ominous all at the same time.

Whilst this may be its chief difficulty, and one that will undoubtedly deter and daunt some listeners, it is nevertheless good to have a band and an artist with this darkly poetic a vision back recording and performing once again.

Campbell’s ideals are distilled into a tight nine-track album in which influences are evoked, grafted onto fresh numbers and cut loose to scratch insistently at the listener’s ear.

Fast forward to 2011, and third album Looping State Of Mind is a markedly more complex development of his sound.

Harry’s House is a heavyweight pop release that feels understated and lightweight. It threatens to give everything about Styles away and strip back his starkest emotions, but leaves it still ever so slightly cloaked in mystery. We’re closer than ever before to truly understanding Styles the person, but he still keeps us ever so slightly at arm’s length. Styles, the artist, the pop auteur, though is far more clear.

This new musical approach has left Van Etten sounding refreshed. Whether this album marks the start of The Attachment Theory’s career or just a one-off, it’s a demonstration just how the camaraderie of a band can revitalize your sound.

Fucked Up have created a masterpiece that pushes boundaries, takes risks and delivers huge rewards.