Liberty, her seventh album, feels like the record she’s been desperate to make for some time.

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.

This album could easily be written off as being derivative and stale, but when you spend more than 30 seconds thinking about it, you realise just how rare and unique this sound actually is in 2018.

Love Is Dead is not a terrible album and it certainly has its moments, but it’s not as engaging or interesting as its predecessors.

Daniel Lopatin’s eighth album as Oneohtrix Point Never finds him splitting the difference between the synth-based abstraction of his previous albums and a more visceral, abrasive style. While neither of these are bad templates to work from per se, the result is an album that doesn’t know what it wants to be.

Wide Awake is certainly not their best, but it is their most wide ranging and as such, it could just be one that splits the hardcore fanbase right down the middle.

If you love Snow Patrol, Wildness will please. But while it has moments that can be thoroughly enjoyed in increments, if you’re expecting developments--especially given the seven-year gap between released--then you’re out of luck.

Some may miss Taylor’s presence and powerhouse vocals, but Slow Club fans will still find plenty to enjoy--and the uninitiated will be able to hear a truly talented songwriter coming into his own at last.

V is laced more richly with sunshine: it’s the mellowest and brightest album Wooden Shjips have released to date.

Here Lies The Body might contain its fair share of matters of the flesh, but it’s also an album of depth, ideas and ambition that retains a highly personal feel. Moffat and Hubbert prove the collaborative Scottish spirit is in fine condition.

This adds up to a solid album that presents as an immediate difference to what went before, even if it does not roam too far from the grounds of its creator’s past. That certainly doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyed. Electric Light is a thoroughly immersive ride that shows James Bay has plenty of ideas brimming in that now hatless head.

If there is a critique to be made it is that the bass is sometimes a bit muddy, as the production can contain bass notes that clash with the lower notes of Lattimore’s harp. This is not an overwhelming flaw, however, as the mix is on the whole clear and pristine, and as the final piano and harp notes fade out at the end of On The Day You Saw The Dead Whale the lasting effect is one of calm contentment.

Clocking in at around 32 minutes, this is an album that tells the story of a 20 year journey in a staggeringly short amount of time, particularly for Dylan Carlson. It’s rare to request further exposition from this artist, but maybe it’s just the desire to bask in these wonderful tones and layers which mean that, as Reaching The Gulf reaches its conclusion, more is definitely required.

This is a highly accomplished and deeply felt third album to add to an already auspicious Gaz Coombes canon. He is on fine form at the moment, undoubtedly one of Britpop’s Strongest Men.

Tell Me How You Really Feel is a wonderfully curated record, which manages to be both cynical and whimsical at the same time. The depth of musical ambition and of poetic expression deserve a suitably large audience’s attention.

This may not be an album you’d revisit often, but we should be very glad that it, and its unique, maverick creator, exists.

At times it feels like an album with no real purpose other than to be heard and then forgotten. Few tracks jump out as being memorable. A more driven focus upon one element of their sound could have led to a far greater album, or could have at least tested the waters in terms of what they might achieve further down the line.

An intriguing and powerful release, Simian Mobile Disco prove with Murmurations that they are still as vital as ever.

When the Arctic Monkeys’ career comes to be reappraised, this album could be seen as an outlier, or the start of their next phase. It won’t be to everyone’s taste, but sometimes, dividing an audience is exactly what you need to do.

7 might have been a gamble for Beach House then, but they don’t appear to have lost anything. What remains to be seen is whether they stay on the same path of progress with their next record.

Minus boasts a melding of styles and influences, underlining that Blumberg is at his best when he’s most experimental. This is a recalibrating album that sets him up well for even more leftfield musical forays ahead.

As it is, New Material is now their fourth release. It may be the most consistent of the lot, but it isn’t the strongest. That accolade, for now, goes to their previous record purely because of the variety of textures and tones. But it’s exciting to see what comes next.

It’s their strongest album to date, and while Speedy Ortiz are probably never going to make that giant leap into the mainstream--they’ll always be a bit too abrasive and lo-fi for mass acceptance--Twerp Verse is the sound of a band standing on the verge of great things.

Perhaps inevitably for a first solo album, this is Mark Peters’ most personal work to date. It is the dissemination of music that has occupied his inner ear for decades, the soundtrack to countryside and habitats that have been a lasting part of his life. Because of that, Innerland has a deep set emotional significance and intimacy that carries beyond Peters and out to the listener.

For body and mind, then, this is a powerfully affecting release, one that cements Rival Consoles as one of the brightest jewels in the heavily studded Erased Tapes crown.

Clocking in at 41 minutes, Speak Your Mind is a slick, well-produced offering that delivers on Anne-Marie’s potential without overstaying its welcome, the best British pop debut in a while.

He delivers an LP of soulful songs with the help of songwriters who have also written for Ellie Goulding and Ed Sheeran. The result is a mixed bag.

The music here is, at times, superb--it’s just hard to imagine anything (except maybe Rose On Top Of The World or Killed Someone) finding a place in your permanent playlist. And a lot of it is just average, which is probably the worst thing you could say about a band as mercurial as this.