This new, untitled beast is another step to Rammstein finally being acknowledged as being the best heavy metal band in the world, and one of the best hard rock acts of all time.

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.

Bold, bizarre, brazen and beguiling, Madame X is Madonna living her Latin American Life. Brilliant.

Fans of either Calexico or Iron And Wine should be pleased with this full-length collaboration, which feels very much like a joining of two halves to make a larger, rather special whole.

The songs effortlessly speak to all classes, to all walks of life, from a songwriter who never sings down to his audience. As always, Richard Hawley is one of us.

It is pop music for the future – unpredictable, forceful, winsome and primal in equal measure. As long as Aurora is allowed to keep her eyes wide open, the sky really is the limit for this powerful creative force.

Renegade is lots of fun, even if it’sa few tracks short of its true potential.

Office Politics is, as with most Divine Comedy releases, a record with its finger firmly on the pulse of this zeitgeist.

While the aesthetic of Lust For Youth’s music may be dated on a surface level, good pop songcraft tends to become timeless once people have got used to it. And this self-titled album of theirs is full of this, tunes that work their way into the listener’s head and successfully strike a balance of being nostalgic without being derivative.

Plaid’s contemporaries from the early ’90s are in very different places now, with Aphex Twin incorporating styles footwork in his new releases and Autechre progressing further and further into uncharted terrain. This album, however, is from a duo mostly content to amble down memory lane.

An artist at the top of his game, with the newfound artistic freedom that Konnichiwa granted him but the energy of still having something to prove. It also confirms the 2010s grime revival as being more than a passing trend, and on this basis it’s stronger than ever.

This is a very carefully thought out new page to Hayden Thorpe’s career, yet the page has freshly written calligraphy on it. There is much to admire and much to relate to, in what is surely just the start of this particular Wild Beast’s solo migration.

The album sags in a way that his previous work never did (much like Michael Jackson’s Dangerous, which inspires its artwork). He remains an inventive and interesting producer, however, and there are significant patches of brilliance on Flamagra that make it a worthwhile listen.

This album, though not what anybody on the face of the Earth would call ‘fun’, is an absolute classic of modernist architecture. It’s certainly the best thing she’s ever done.

While The Mountain Goats will always remain an acquired taste, there’s a case to put that In League With Dragons is possibly one of their most accessible albums. The collaboration with Pallett is a smart one for sure, and Darnielle has refused to let age dull his edge or mischievous eye for lyrical detail.

Northampton’s Child has a brilliant trap-style beat which comes with one of Slowthai’s better performances, as if being more autobiographical implicitly encouraged him to find his own voice. But these moments are too few and far between to save a record that reveals the whirlwind of hype around Slowthai to be not much more than invisible garments on an arrogant emperor.

As ever with Diamandis, there’s some decent pop music here, but it seems like we’re still waiting for her to produce that genuine killer album, Diamonds or no Diamonds.

Reflect. Time. Loss. achieves its aim handsomely, with many a moment to stop the heart of its listener, in doing so adding another dimension to Maps as a musical outfit.

This sort of music is not intended for close listening, relying as it does on repetition and vibe. It does, however, deliver the sound that Com Truise is known for in abundance, and delivers it with a nuance that’s a cut above the other YouTube wannabes.

Proto is a very distinctive record, and its sound design is as astounding as we’ve come to expect from Herndon. It’s also deeply powerful, as its crystalline tones call to mind the ghost in the machine, and leaves the listener wondering what further symbiosis can be achieved.

The last few records have seen them experimenting successfully with dashes of vivid colour, spinning bass lines towards the dubby area of the spectrum and enjoying a laugh at theirs and others’ expense. Wheeltappers & Shunters continues the trend, with music of colour, mixing its cold shivers with moments of unexpected charm.

Some more cynical types may find this heart-on-sleeve approach too cloying, but the delivery and writing is so honest and heartfelt, it’s impossible not to be charmed. Carner is a genuine talent, and this second album demonstrates just why he’s so highly rated.

With its 16 tracks clocking in at 63 minutes, it’s the band’s longest album to date and, despite a smattering of classy highlights, it feels laboured and cumbersome. With that in mind, the album as a whole falls short of The National’s best work. Yet it is, in places, an admirable detour.

This all may be too intense and striking for some people (the last 70 seconds of closing track Magic Dealer are simply ambient noise), and those who were pulled in by the warm sound of Saddle Creek on the band’s first two albums may find this switch to 4AD to be too jarring. Yet, for most Big Thief fans, UFOF is a natural, welcome progression, and one that you likely won’t want to tear yourself away from.

The less charitable may call this record a collection of leftovers, in the manner of Radiohead‘s Amnesiac to Kid A. But Anoyo succeeds on its own terms too: the combination of sounds is still captivating, especially recommended for anyone who feels to this day that new age music was underrated.

There certainly seems a lot to unpack in Father Of The Bride, and at times there almost seems too much crammed into the album.

To date, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes have blended buzzing Stooges punk, thick Queens Of The Stone Age riffs and winking alternative rock into something resembling Arctic Monkeys circa Humbug, as seen through a funhouse mirror. All of these sounds are here on End Of Suffering, and more besides.

Social Cues is Cage The Elephant’s darkest and most personal album yet.