Given that it documents a romantic life that’s apparently hurtling out of control, My Mind Makes Noises makes for a remarkably trim and measured collection of songs. Both hands are on the wheel, and this album will crank things up a gear for Pale Waves.

This time around, though, the band operates with a little more future-facing pride and compulsion. It’s a lesson on how to do it yourself, and do it well. Defiance never sounded so good.

Far from making vague allusions to the events prior to Iridescence, Brockhampton lay them bare, atop some of their most adventurous work to date.

Villagers fans will no doubt love this record, which has the capacity to obtain a new fanbase with O’Brien’s newly found sound.

On the evidence of Chris--a deft and bogglingly-intelligent record, which somehow sounds blissfully effortless too--she’s earned her own place in the pop icon history books.

While there’s a comforting familiarity that comes with all things Suede, it’s wonderfully shrouded on The Blue Hour by a very new, romantic and alluring strangeness. These are not hits to shake your bits to. Nor will these beats shake your meat. Rest assured, Suede remain the beautiful ones, but are just looking for beauty in ever more curious places.

Noname isn’t bringing us a romantic rags-to-riches story; here she acknowledges the pitfalls of fame (as well as the occasional perks) with whip-smart honesty. Just like ‘Telefone’, it’s flawless.

True Meanings tends to blend into a lilting mush over the course of 14 tracks that rarely stray from the beige end of the sonic palette.

This is, primarily, experiential music, meant to be enjoyed communally at their ear-splitting live shows.

Unlikely to sway anyone not already on board with Richard D. James’ weirdo-funk, Collapse is nevertheless a brilliant, warped addition to a canon like no other.

While their debut album favoured a shadowy and mystical aesthetic, For Ever makes for a far more personal affair.

Crutchfield’s vocals strain with emotion against the stripped-back instrumentation here often, the result feels like this is one of her most personal musical interpretations to date.

As the album’s title implies, this is transcendent stuff.

From the booming piano-tinged ‘Opener’, through to its more touching moments like ‘She’ & ‘Queens’, you’ll feel an overwhelming sense of love and light oozing out of every pore. This optimism and energy is endearing, and further proof that 2018 is proving to be a stunning year for the great dance LP.

It’s a moving and important work, and one that reminds us why MNEK is the pop star we need in 2018.

McCartney’s always been about inclusivity and openness, but this latest glimpse into his life feels like a particularly enlightening one.

There is great humanity to And Nothing Hurt, a collection of wistful, wounded observations, the work of a person wearied by the world, but no less in love with it for that. There is hope and joy and naivety here, even as Pierce sounds like he’s been kicked in the groin before recording another cracked vocal.

Take a deep breath, lay back and soak in the technicolour empire Maribou State have crafted on this album--you’ll feel at one with our world for it.

This is an album of extremes, but they’re all bridged by bold and fluid movements of an artist refusing to be either man, woman or victim--always the hunter.

If it’s your introduction to them, there’s likely just about enough to convince you to dig a little further. ... But if you’re a survivor of the ‘00s indie scene, there are no new tricks here that’ll stump you. The by-the-numbers feel of ‘Four Leaf Clover’ makes us feel like the unlucky ones, and ‘Tesco Disco’ should have been left in the reduced section.

This time round, there’s a more coherent theme to Lande’s songs. ... It’s all fascinating. Inspiring. Warm. Funny sometimes. All of it will make you feel better about the fragility of the mind.

Despite its delivery, Kamikaze is very resolutely an old-fashioned album: 45 minutes and 13 tracks long.

Everything about Joy As An Act Of Resistance is just so perfectly realised.

Here, Sivan has created an album that does away with any apology; instead it sees him seize happiness with both hands.

The album’s about accepting that joy often stands side by side with pain. No, it’s not a wild departure from its predecessors, though it’s no less powerful for that.

Marauder takes the punchy, warm sound of 2014 predecessor ‘El Pintor’ and folds in some much darker, more menacing flourishes.

Some may tire of Honne’s romantic lyricism, but it’s undeniably what they do best.

At times, Negro Swan crosses over from album and into a radio station from a world just outside ours; Dev Hynes has created a fabulous collection of cascading sounds.

They were always one of the most metal band of the alt.rock boom that emerged from their Seattle scene in the early 1990’s, but on Rainier Fog; there’s a beauty and an expanse--as well as a major chord or two--that sees the band evolving.

Go To School, feels less like a night on Broadway and more like being dragged along to an amateur performance at your local village hall. It’s charming and full of heart, but you’ll be grimacing all the way through it.

As it is, it’s good, but not as consistently great as we’ve come to expect from him.

It’s a pairing that, on paper, makes sense, given that Depper’s talents with a synthesiser leave Thank You for Today feeling like a more polished version of 2011’s ‘Codes & Keys’. Yet the wide-eyed freshness of that new songwriting pairing leaves things feeling a little too shiny.

Ariana’s core fanbase are bound to find an instant, sugar-rush of pleasure in this fascinating side-step from an artist who – until now – has made her name by stomping down the traditional pop path.

Musically, Acts Of Fear And Love is the most accomplished of Slaves’ three albums, switching things up and pulling off new sounds without losing sight of the band’s DNA.

Songs like ‘Backstroke’ and ‘Pirouette’ show flashes of experimental tendencies, but are bogged down by repetitive melodies that’ll briefly make you wonder why you even bothered moving out here in the first place.

This one was originally an art piece performed live at the Borscht Film Festival in Miami, with attendees absorbing the sound and images simultaneously. Divorced of that context, it belongs only in the sea.

While Be The Cowboy hears Mitski traverse new sounds, new voices, and the anxieties of growing older, it’s clear the wisdom was already there.

Lighting Matches is a record that makes Bedford sound like Hollywood. Whether he gets there on this record, time will tell. But there’s enough class and promise to at least meet his ambitions halfway. He knows what he’s doing.

Kane’s ante is upped, but Coup de Grace still isn’t quite the killer blow.

Unfortunately, in trying to take on all comers at once, there are parts of Queen that feel like an overreach. There is a better ten track effort hiding in Queen, but you get the impression Nicki kept tracks like ‘Miami’ to hedge her bets in a bid for streaming success. The Queen is back, but only just.

Whatever happens next, Shears has certainly delivered one of the year’s most welcome and infectious comeback albums.

While The 1975 don’t own radio-rock just yet, Rituals feels a little too much like Deaf Havana have lost sight of their own signature, while hammering at the heels of Healy’s.

This is the sound of a musician who has worked to forge an entire world, an empire, around himself--we can peer in, but from afar, guessing at his motives and life behind the velvet rope.

This album shows his growth as both an artist, and as aa person who’s had to deal with the most private aspects of their life being publicly dissected. It’s a stellar--if somewhat overlong--artistic statement.

Teatime Dub Encounters doesn’t pale in their shadow or smack of a vanity or side project. This is a whole new monster born of the friction from a restless need to create, the pure abandon to do whatever the fuck feels good, and the batshit brilliance from three mad scientists with so much still to prove. Others of their standing may choose the wallowing legacy of safety. These guys do not.

There are no dull moments, but if there’s even a brief drop in intensity, it should only be used to reflect on the energy you probably just felt.

Sutherland’s taken dancehall to the American mainstream, but, with Forever, he also transports us to a better world--where positivity reigns.

Sure, it’s worth making the effort if you’re already a Segall Stan or a White Fence mega fan, but beyond that? There’s little here to latch onto that’ll make your stay worthwhile.

Melding Motown melodies and pop chords for heartbreak and house party listeners alike, Hive Mind is a triumph.

If ‘Dust’ was Halo’s sprawling, lush, wildly diverse ‘Life of Pablo’, then the sparse, introverted ‘Raw Silk Uncut Wood’ is her ‘ye’, the sound of an artist regrouping to test new boundaries before she forges ahead once again.

There’s plenty of fun, filth and frills to go around with McHale’s latest venture.

Filthy, sexy, thoroughly debauched pop at its finest; Palo Santo feels like a magical album.

It’s a marvellous return to form for an act that possesses such unbridled creative energy. We’re glad they’ve been put to joyous use this time round.

Deafheaven’s brilliance has long been hung upon the pursuit of a truth, like documentarians before they hit the edit suite. These songs are filthy, dank, often devoid of light, but like a weed emerging from a pavement’s crack, there’s something resembling hope there. A suggestion that maybe there’s something more.

Two years ago, such a mis-match of styles usually resulted in dizzying chaos for the duo, here it’s inventive and enjoyable as they capture teenage life with devastating precision.

The star’s hubris is no more apparent than in its sheer breadth and lack of quality control. At 25 tracks in total, Scorpion is way too long--even by Drake’s own standards--and simply doesn’t need to be.

Stripped to the bare bones of her soul and the sentiment, her truth shines--and there’s a beauty in that. The only thing holding it back is a lack of risk, but there’s still so much comfort in the familiar.

20 years after the outlines of the band was first sketched by co-creator Jamie Hewlett, the band clearly still stands as a vivid creative outlet for Albarn. He’s managed to tap into the chaotic ethos so electrifying and unpredictable first time round, and reanimate the band’s fortunes in dazzling fashion.

It’s the sound of a band bolstering their already formidable palette. Free from the shackles of Reznor’s self-imposed trilogy of releases, the masters of melancholy sound rejuvenated, and ready for another 30-plus years as kings of the musical underworld.

Expectations isn’t flawless, but it’s a compelling re-introduction to an underrated artist--one capable of putting her own stamp on current pop sounds.

The album was written immediately after Brendon’s recent stint in the Broadway musical ‘Kinky Boots’, and while it’s fair to say he’s always had a flair for theatrics, the experience has injected these tracks with unprecedented levels of sass and drama. Urie is clearly still relishing the role of the sonic bachelor, and it shows. On Pray, it sounds like he’s having a total blast.

Gang Gang Dance’s sixth album, just like their previous work, emphasises how there’s a vast world beyond our closest surroundings.

Yes, there’s joy to be found in hearing a musician so unshackled from expectation and finding catharsis in the experience. But Boy Voyage lacks a running thread, centrepiece or concept to build itself around. It’s a wild, space-age trip that could do with a return ticket back to Earth.

Everything is Love may lack the immediate impact of Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s respective solo latest records, but it’s still interesting to see two of the biggest stars in the world relax. ... There’s nothing glitzy here; it all just works.

As the name suggests, Nothing Is Still is a fluid, complete piece of electronic music that sways from thoughtful down-tempo beats to swelling pieces of orchestral beauty. There are particular moments of beauty, though.

Liberation may lack the grand ambition and massive pop bangers of her glory days, but by the end, it’s hard to deny that she feels reasonably relevant and contemporary again.

Crossing boundaries of pop music and chasing transcendence, SOPHIE achieves the rare feat of making abstract, difficult electronic music that hits you straight in the heart.

Whilst stylistically Nasir may well have plenty of strong moments, its contradictions make it a difficult, problematic listen: it’s the silences on here which so often deafen.

Call The Comet is Marr’s most assured solo effort to date. Rather than wallow in the mire of the now, Marr has dreamt of a better tomorrow. In doing so, he’s built one for himself.

Bright, exciting and full of effortlessly intelligent songwriting, 1, 2, Kung Fu! is an absolute joy to listen to. Wickedly fun, and made to be played on festival stages this summer, it’s short glimpse into the musical landscape of Newington’s mind--and one that we’re pretty bloody glad he shared.

Throughout we’re treated to bold and buoyant basslines, slick vocal harmonies and vocalist Cristal Ramirez’s crisp delivery of deliciously millennial lyrics .

A seven-track album (it’s Kanye’s current obsession; both ‘ye’ and ‘Daytona’ ran to the same length) can hardly help but feel slight, though the brevity actually suits this collaborative record. It sounds, suitably, ghostly and supernatural.

At times joyful and at others surprisingly moving, Bad Contestant sets Maltese on the start of a path that marks him out as a true prodigious talent. This is the voice of a true original. The future, it seems, is schmaltz.

Smith’s made the grade on this serviceable first record Lost & Found, and the path to her becoming Britain’s next global export is looking pretty clear. If only it was made to feel less of a drag.

It’s a smart, self-aware and compellingly imperfect record with a pretty unique point of view.

This is how you really do summertime sadness.

They pick a traditional genre and do everything in their wicked power to leave it a broken, quivering wreck by the time they’re finished with it.

It’s a record riddled with questions, while refusing to offer answers. In remaining tight-lipped, this taciturn new aspect to Father John Misty might be his most genuinely sincere, and his most profound.

Nobody can deny this mini album flirts with brilliance, and feels like a pop cultural moment straight out the gate; we just wish there was a little more to it.

At times, it’s truly gorgeous; but at others: it’s bloody hard work.

Oftentimes, Davis dips his toes into this new realm of instrumentation, only to return to his heavy comfort blanket, twisted riffs drowning out any tentative experiments. You can’t help but wonder just how interesting Black Labyrinth could have been if he only dove a little deeper.

Yes, there are lows: the mawkish ‘Why’ is as sticky as treacle and slushy ballad ‘Perfectly Wrong’ is an unwanted lull as the penultimate track on the album, but these are in the minority. In general, Shawn Mendes is a bright and bold new direction for the 19-year-old singer, as he leaves behind sickly choruses for brazen, guitar-ridden anthems; he sounds all the better for it.

Over length of 12 tracks, the soul/G-funk stuff becomes a little one-note, while the Disney-fied material lacks the charm that makes Prass such an engaging, idiosyncratic performer.

Confidently expressing vulnerability over woozy nocturnal soundscapes to create comfort and intimacy in a lonely, quiet place, LoveLaws will be your fireside companion.

Love Is Dead manages to balance hopeful, utopian pop with a darker, gloomier undercurrent.

Thankfully, closer ‘Goodbye Blue Sky’ is a sumptuous country swoon capable of wiping clean the record’s hoarier moments, and we end embedded once more in LaMontagne’s misty mystique.

Sure, sometimes it verges into the sickly saccharine (‘Through It All’ nicks a piano line from Randy Newman and some Disney strings, and drops a sticky vocal line on top of them, and collab with American folk singer James Taylor ‘Change’ is a dreary cliché) but then there are the moments of pop brilliance.

It’s all accomplished and well-produced--as an introduction to these sounds, it’s absolutely on the money--but perhaps too scattershot to really gel.

Islands is as ferocious and catchy as ever. And while it’s undoubtedly a record of consolidation, a return to familiar home ground, it also gently scouts new territory.

Far from softening Parquet Courts’ edges, [producer Danger Mouse] has enhanced everything that makes the quartet great--sound, imagination, style. The Beastie Boys, Black Flag and Talking Heads are all here in spirit.

Tell Me How You Really Feel is Courtney Barnett at her angriest and most vulnerable, but being a drinker of details means she can also blow the beauty of life’s little things up to full-size.

There’s not much variation between the melodies of ‘Defender’ and ‘V Formation’--and the closing title track feels like a bit of an anticlimax--but the album’s nine tracks are mostly enveloping soundscapes. There’s a distinct journey through Murmurations, and you might get lost--in a good way--in the middle.

They may not have been perfect, but Plan B’s prior albums have never been disjointed. Heaven is. But, by his own admission, this is a songwriter in transition.

Though it boasts hard-hitting moments (see the supple uppercut of ‘Been A While’ and the dizzying double-jab of the JME-featuring ‘Call the Shots’), this sequel lacks the punch of its predecessor.

[Silverlined is] a glorious peak on an album that, save a couple of weaker links (‘Angel’ and ‘Just A Ride’) is hard to fault. Thank god Peace are back, and on breathtaking form.

Lost Friends is a set of pile-driving anthems that demands your undivided attention.

Though Singularity's 62-minutes can get extremely heavy--Hopkins fondly calls its gargantuan centrepiece ‘Everything Connected’ a “massive techno bastard” – it’s still a near-perfect trip, and one that confirms Hopkins’ status as one of the genre’s brightest talents.

There’s plenty more evidence here that Frank remains one of our most consistently punchy, stirring and chaff-free songwriters.