Ridiculously ambitious--and often plain ridiculous--Tasmania dances its way to impending doom.

The highs occur when Weezer play it straight-ish.

People may have been wondering who Bain was when she first released music, but on her debut album she’s made damn sure you won’t forget her.

It’s definitely in need of a more brutal edit: the 18-song tracklist is a little bloated and some songs such as ‘Don’t Go Hungry’ (which features Labrinth doing his best Weeknd impression) are pretty forgettable. However, there are enough bangers on here to keep you hitting the replay button, with Giggs’ unique vocal delivery never anything but interesting. He sounds ready to reign for a long time yet.

Tongue-in-cheek humour is Pump’s biggest selling point, but many of the album’s 16 songs (most of which have a running time of just over two minutes) feel like little more than regurgitated punchlines or uninspired variations on themes already set up and adequately executed on the rapper’s early tracks.

Having stripped away the narrative cloak that shrouded the highlights of ‘Stillness In Wonderland’, she’s crafted a knockout record--and finally come true on her early promise. This is the best rap record of the year so far.

Father of 4 is a fine body of work that builds a convincing case that Offset is currently best-placed to be Migos’ break-out solo star: once again, the final act of a trilogy proves to be the finest.

Houghton’s control is masterful, not just in translating her thoughts and confusion so pristinely into cracking tunes, but this record is testament to just how undersung she is as a musician.

Strange Creatures is an audacious and gratifying return that makes you want to envelope yourself in its gloom.

Other People’s Lives has achieved a wonderful thing. It is both calm and collected, but wildly unhinged at its core, which bubbles away with insecurities and mysteries. Stats’ record belongs to Ed Seed and his band, but in reality, he’s telling all our stories just as much as his own.

While the talented singer’s debut album ‘Don’t Let the Kids Win’ was a sort of musical bildungsroman--the sometimes unsure steps of a new artist finding her path--the more assured follow-up is Crushing by name and brilliantly crushing by nature.

Sometimes a joke starts wearing thin, but goes on so long that it comes back around. And Eton Alive is a pretty great punchline. Not everything has to be escapist or explicitly political--sometimes you just want to hear people make gags about a world that you recognise. It’s cathartic, it’s entertaining. It says: you exist. Eton Alive makes Sleaford Mods funny again.

Pursuit of Momentary Happiness is excessive at times. From most other bands a swooning old-time ballad like ‘Encore’ and the slightly indulgent power-ballad ‘Words Fail Me’ would raise a big alarm. Somehow though, in Yak’s case they just about get away with it. Excess, after all, is how this record was created in the first place.

Lavigne has never been pop’s most sophisticated lyricist, but her plain-speaking style makes for compelling listening here. ... The album’s second half is generally happier and blander.

Ultimately, the record doesn’t feel wholly complete. By the final rotation of this imperfect kaleidoscope, there are inconsistencies that only highlight the fractures that underlie Ephyra. But Woman’s Hour have a knack for communicating this feeling so gracefully.

‘Trip The Mains’, perhaps Webb’s finest composition yet, appears to share its electrifying opening riff with Donna Summer’s disco classic ‘Hot Stuff’, before diving headfirst into a seismic chorus that’d shatter Blondie’s ‘Heart Of Glass’. Elsewhere, the haunting ‘Scream Whole’ begins as a soothing lullaby, before unravelling itself into a doomy slice of noir-pop. This momentum is intermittent though, disappointingly.

It could easily be a self-pitying album, one ready to dwell in the wreckage of incidents, but instead keeps picking up and moving on; providing a guide to how to keep on keeping on even when it feels like whatever you do is going to end in devastation.

AJ Tracey’s debut is perhaps the best of the current crop; twisted, vibrant and ever-shifting, but linked with that confident voice.

A remarkably intelligent and engrossing record for then, now, and the future.

[The] constant sense of melodrama robs the record of its potency, the impact of that pounding sonic template diminished through its constancy. The sense of doom is familiar, the sound of the band’s new record even more so.

Rather than being owned by their demons, The Twilight Sad have created an 11-track exorcism to master them. It’s a full-bodied and inescapable mood-piece, and a visceral account of their victory in the fight to exist. We should feel grateful to have them.

Rat Boy’s international profile might be growing, but he’s not ready to conquer the world just yet.

He’s a unique talent, no doubt, and has once again made a work on his terms. It’s at times an exasperating listen, but that’s kind of the point.

Though this record is as polished as anything they’ve done before, it somehow feels easier to break through the sheen, and get to the heart this time around.

The most promising debut of the year so far.

Gallipoli is almost always an intriguing listen. Soaking the sound they’ve spent over a decade cultivating in dazzling Italian sun, Beirut’s latest is a welcome summer holiday.

These 10 tracks contain a dark power, an atavistic pull. Give in to their bad romance.

As a solo artist who’s far eclipsed the output of his former epoch-defining band, no one can criticise Brown for trying. But he can definitely do better.

Highlight ‘Swamp And Bay’ offers a rare hook-laden respite with a country-ish radio jangle and scuzz-rock climax, but everything stays consistently true to the core of the record: a very human and honest partnership, in a universe all of their own.

Encore essentially mingles mellowed ska and reggae with funk disco, Latin hints and spoken-word pieces.

It’s their most mature and measured album, both lyrically and musically.

Effortless and fearless, Sunflower Bean’s latest is a breakneck showcase of the trio’s talent. With each tune a high-octane chunk of the bold, New York indie the band have honed, it’s a triumph.

It’s too long (16 tracks), musically all over the place (veering from Littlewoods advert pop-house to Smooth Radio schmaltz) and, above all, wants so hard to be liked that it sounds like an earnest school project. However: for its occasional tedium, it would take a hard heart indeed to reject this record.

Succeeds as a standalone work, regardless of its authors’ statuses in the indie-folk world.

Respectful enough to rouse any struggling family gathering but knowing enough to amuse those in on the joke, The Teal Album at once satirises the covers album and makes a decent stab at perfecting it.

Stuffed with fizzing hooks and brilliantly frank lyrics, Almost Free could be FIDLAR’s best record yet. A blistering collection of eclectic tunes threaded together by punks’ fearless riffs and unguarded admissions, which add even more weight to their sound, it’s a reminder of how much we’ve missed them. Welcome back, lads.

None of these 13 tracks break the three-minute mark, but each works an enormous amount of inventiveness into its brief running time.

The various dark and mechanical intermission tracks on the album make for the most experimental peaks and exciting signposts to the future, but nothing compares to ‘Nihilist Blues’, a robotic and apocalyptic blast of Eurodance featuring guest vocals and mad noises from art-pop icon Grimes.

There’s something to be said for creating music exclusively for the club or to be bumped in car stereos in the summer, but with a bland, out-dated musical architecture, The WIZRD doesn’t even offer that. I

Assume Form finds James Blake clear-headed and in focus like never before. The influence of his new partner (actor Jameela Jamil) can be felt throughout.

The record’s constant dive through history often comes at the cost of consistency and a solid sonic identity, though, for the most part feeling more like a scrapbook of ideas in transition than the work of such an established act.

Remind Me Tomorrow, then, serves not so much as a nudge, but a forceful and playful shove to remind listeners just how special Van Etten’s talent is on both a lyrical and musical level. Don’t call it a comeback, but it may well be her most intoxicating and impressive work to date.

With their crashing guitar riffs and vague, faux-poetic proclamations, Lost Under Heaven sound more like Imagine Dragons with a Goldsmiths degree.

On the intoxicating Heard It In A Past Life, Rogers sounds in love with art, nature and life itself.

Come the closing ‘Nocturne’, Bradford is wailing into a malfunctioning microphone like the late, great Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse phoning a wasted lullaby home with one unreliable bar of phone coverage, and ‘…Disappeared?’ becomes less Cox’s ‘High Violet’, more his ‘Low’. This is how you turn pop into art.

He’s the most successful former One Direction member with good reason, and this album is a high-water mark for the 25-year-old.

Evil Genius is a perfect distillation of his talent, and we’re unlikely to see him outdo it, but it also underlines his unique position as bonafide star and rap outsider. This may be the biggest he’s ever allowed to get.

Some of Skins is good, some of it is not good. Musically, the tone is, mostly, consistent and effective, and the album’s overall effect is that of a sickly, vivid insight into a troubled life. And there’s not much else to say about it.

The result is an album that dovetails beautifully from party anthems to vulnerable confessionals. The production is tight and cohesive even when songs like ‘Pay You Back’ and ‘Splash Warning’ feel unnecessary. Meek is angry but eloquent.

Dummy Boy is one of the most unlistenable rap records of this year. ... He’s delivered a bland project. Often, it’s as though he took what was in his drafts folder and released it as a “studio album.”

Some Rap Songs may be a brief exercise, but its ambition and the--largely successful--execution of its ideas demonstrate that the enigmatic Earl is as fascinating as ever.

On the evidence of this impressive and winningly authentic second album, Cara is increasingly unforgettable.

As the lovelorn ‘From Far Away’ floats by, desolate and broken, haunted by the ghosts of art-rock guitars and phantom electronics, it’s clear that Jeff Tweedy still isn’t comfortable on well-trodden roads and that Warm has moments that upend Americana as beautifully as ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’ did with US indie rock. One to let simmer.

Endlessly fun, stuffed full of brilliantly left-field production and ear-worm choruses.

A magpie pop masterpiece that could only be made right now and right here. And for every stupid joke you’ve heard about avocados and house prices and safe spaces and jazz hands, this is a piece of art that shows another side to a generation, one of achievement, wit and humanity in the most confusing of times.

He’s writing about his time in hospital (‘Hospital!), his new home (from ‘Good Morning Berlin’: “Hipsters with beards eating falafel / Wander these streets like herds of cattle”) and desire to remain relevant in his forties (the title track’s indie shuffle). Well, fine, but such navel-gazing offers us little reason to love his album.

LM5 is the culmination of the band’s growth over the past seven year. Yes it may sometimes musically miss the mark; but with its strong and relevant message it’s something of a milestone for the band.

Post-mainstream breakthrough, Oxnard is a deft dissection of the fallout, just as free-ranging and hopeful as you’d imagine.

There are standout moments--the aforementioned ‘Beloved’, the full-hearted chorus of lead single ‘Guiding Light’, the delicate tinkle of piano underpinned by a dog barking in the distance on ‘October Skies’--but you must sift through these sprawling 14 tracks to find them.

The heavier moments refuse to act as a sledegehammer of alt-rock pastiche, which this record could so easily have been. Instead, it’s a showcase of songcraft that’s allowed to breathe and reveal itself. Bring on volume two. The dream lives on.

Ruminations on a post-Brexit nation from a bunch of middle-aged musicians is, perhaps, less essential than it seems to deem itself, but there are probing thoughts and moments to make it worth sticking with.

More often than not Origins falls flat, with insipid choruses and melodramatic refrains. Big, bold and a little bit naff, this is another bread and butter album from a mindbogglingly huge group.

This is a brilliant--and brilliantly brutal--collection; pulsing dance music that, for all its heaviness and techno sensibilities, retains a glimmer of pop accessibility because it’s so well pieced together and just so much fucking fun. Viva The Prodigy.

The Lover Chanting EP is, admittedly, inoffensive and low-risk. However, it’s a solid enough attempt at breaking away from the ‘band that does collaborations’ tag.

The sombre project is blistered and broken in all the right ways. Peep’s legacy of making music that has no purpose other than making itself felt is the glue that holds this sprawling 13-track album together.

Even aside from the tragedy that frames its arrival, though, it stands up as Architects’ very best album. ... Architects have emerged more powerful than ever--building on Tom’s legacy, rather than riding on its coattails. It’s a wonder to behold.

Yes, this is still Muse, but here they’re trying to be something else--well, everything else. They are avatars in a ridiculous simulation of teenage nerdery, inviting you to steal away from the nightmare, and into an electric dream.

While Bought to Rot might not possess the focused tenacity of Against Me!’s latest record, ‘Shape Shift With Me’, it’s a varied, meandering album that roams freely across multiple genres.

It may not bother the charts in quite the same way as ‘Slide’ did, but it’s more than enough to remind us that we should dismiss Takeoff, the solo artist, at our peril.

Each idea is significantly different from the last and this latest album is an immersive look at the grizzly realities of millions.

Throughout Empress, an eight-track record billed somewhat mysteriously as a “project”, she states her worth over warm, ‘90s-influenced R&B sounds.

Boygenius’ lyrics are so strong, you could close your eyes and skip to any point of any song and find yourself being wowed in one way or another.

It’s a rare feat for an album to paint a picture that’s broad but intimate at the same time, but Folick has done it here. Her voice, songwriting and ascent are unstoppable; one would do best not to ignore her.

They’re not reinventing the wheel, but pulling the Harley out of the ditch.

Saturn is full of beautiful, intricately unique songs that could never be imitated.

Though the pain she’s exploring here is less immediate and stinging than the thwack of being screwed over, it’s explored just as expertly.

With a swelling back catalogue, it’s becoming increasingly clear what does and doesn’t work for Yachty’s solo output: skippable braggadocious freestyles? No. Endearing and experimental takes on hip-hop that demonstrate his more individualistic approach to being a major rap artist? Yes please.

Parcels have taken control of their destiny with a project that’s well-thought out and engaging from start-to-finish. It feels both timely and from a different era--a very rare feat.

'The Sound of Silence', the Simon & Garfunkel cover, is easily the best song on the record, despite Draiman singing his parts like he’s The Count from Sesame Street.

The follow up sees How To Dress Well stepping into a more experimental world. The results sounds a little like American ambient producer Grouper on a 5am nightbus, and suits Krell well.

By turns anthemic, experimental and boldly poptastic, Forever Neverland hits multiple grooves, proving she’s a fascinating, multifaceted musician in her own right. As an artist, she’s much more than someone to lean on.

If there’s a criticism of Broken Politics, it perhaps that the record doesn’t broadcast this voice often enough.

Ultimately, this is just a rock album that does exactly what it says on the tin. They are head-banging, pitch-altering rock songs that may not change the world right away, but they’ll give yer head a little wobble at the very least.

It’s only on the closing ‘Money Money’ that he sounds like any sort of rebel at all, upping the pace dramatically for a chunk of smoke-spewing Motörhead ‘battle rock’, railing against the seditious lure of materialism.

Sometimes, on Magick Songs, you may wish they would--there’s a little alienating insularity here, but it’s still inspiring to see the band follow their instincts.

Confident, relevant and full of gorgeous instrumentation, Ella Mai’s debut proves that she is more than worth the hype.

This is Tom Morello: Unfiltered, the work of a rap-rock renegade who answers to no-one, exploring new terrain well into the third decade of his career, an artist unwilling to rest on his legacy.

For all its fast-paced absurdness, Love Is Magic carves out quiet moments, too. These tiny, rare diamonds stud a world that can so often feel completely evil. It’s a balancing act that Grant ultimately pulls off.

Davidson’s Working Class Woman is smart, intriguing and deserves to be heralded as one of the year’s most inventive releases--Lord knows she’s worked hard enough for it.

Trench is the sound of a band ratcheting up the ambition without ever being pulled down by an undertow of pretentiousness. It’s more low-key than ‘Blurryface’, but ultimately more rewarding.

The band now merges genres confidently and coolly, creating carefree indie pop tracks, yet always reserving a seat for their rock band roots.

Overall though, A Star is Born is one of the best Hollywood soundtracks of recent years. Far from being Oscar bait, these are songs that could feasibly shine on their own--and ones that feel entirely believable.

This album is a quiet triumph, the understated work of an artist honouring herself and her creativity.

There’s almost something for everyone on Dose Your Dreams, and, thankfully, that eclectic aspect to Fucked Up’s most ambitious project yet means it leans more towards opus than hopeless.

It may not be the most exciting project to be released by the singer, but it’s complexity and composition make for a perfect power-down playlist.

The misogyny of Tha Carter V cheapens its moving moments.

This is not his finest hour nor his most groundbreaking, but just having him on the scene is enough--even if all he’s able to do is spread joy.

This is an enormously enjoyable album that doesn’t just deliver on its kitsch potential; it also makes you feel both moved and exhilarated.