While he shouldn’t have to answer all his critics, Bridges does so on ‘Good Thing’ with remarkable aplomb. If he was indeed once a rehash of the past, this time he can’t be tied to one specific time, past or present.

Many of the songs deal in wavy synths and trap beats, but a few tracks show an appetite for experimentation that reflects poorly on the rest of the album.

Coombes’ vocal, of course, gives the whole thing a nostalgic familiarity, but musically it’s an album that, for him, explores some fresh ground.

Trilling’s lyrics are the glue that holds together this powerful but vulnerable album.

Enjoyable, fiendishly moreish, while also somewhat disjointed, A Girl Cried Red is most rewarding for what it tells us about Princess Nokia, both as an artist and a person--showcasing an alternate side of an open yet abstruse enigma.

Musically, it’s a soothing sound--think Imogen Heap, Regina Spektor, Laura Marling and Tori Amos--that without attentive listening could be mistaken for a pleasant enough electronic-pop record. However, in Half Waif’s quest for some kind of calmness they’ve actually made an album that, inwardly, burns furiously.

This record isn’t a monument to His Royal Badness. It’s one of the greatest artists of our time carrying Prince’s baton into the new world.

While this second LP broadens their scope to take in baggy, shoegaze, jangle pop and even some ill-advised bits that sound like Travis.

Castle is not just cohesive--it feels like it’s been made to be consumed as one whole body of work. Each song segues into the next, giving barely a second to pause or hit shuffle.

At its best, the album is a selection of polished and inoffensive pop songs, but at its worst, it’s forgettable.

Grid of Points is a seemingly-unfinished bunch of loose ends that somehow appear complete when combined.

An album that’s packed with dry wit and choppy, off-kilter energy, but one that’s lyrically far better suited to a darker, post-#MeToo world.

Cole’s incisive, mic-dropping end to KOD reiterates his importance to the rap game in 2018 and, if you’re the speculating type, could even serve as a taster for an imminent full-length follow-up.

Throughout she offers up rich, swirling instrumentals and intricate musical landscapes, crunchy chord progressions and twinkling chromaticism complemented by her confident, warm vocals.

The comparatively featureless pessimism on the rest of the album makes for an oppressive and often dull listen. It’s a shame, because underneath it all, Lord Huron are making lusher and more varied sounds than ever.

Not so much leaping between time-signatures as entire time-zones, the gristly riffs and ambient metal meanderings of ‘Sonder’ strive for a kind of stoic, sombre enormity, but they clash badly with Tompkins’ often slick pop vocals.

It batters through good taste, though its reggae-lite template is musically forgettable.

At its best, the record builds on some of the weirder elements in Hot Chip, but at its worst spirals into self-indulgence.

At one point, Presley claims, he and Le Bon used the sound of a frog’s ribbit for an instrument. It’s here where Hippo Lite verges towards sounding like music that was only ever made for its makers, rather than an outside audience. In a quest to discover simple living free of consequence, Le Bon and Presley can, at times, get lost in their own little bubble.

Every sentiment on Novelist Guy is deeply felt.

With a Balearic pulse and horizontal attitude throughout, this record is ready-made sunshine--MDMAzing pretension-free fun for the masses. This is the album we need in these hard times, even if we don’t deserve it. Put this record on, dance until sunrise, gurn through Brexit and rave until war is over.

This “psychic reset” has reinvigorated Thomas, and even if the results are sometimes a bit messy, there’s no way you can call this record boring. Long live King Tuff II.

Tinashe and her fans were kept waiting a frustratingly long time for Joyride, but perhaps it was this extra time that gave her the opportunity to craft the album into the sensual, star-ridden offering she’s released.

There are many ways to find solace in the unstable world we live in, and The Lookout is Veirs’ quietly optimistic manifesto.

Lil Xan is by no means the worst thing to happen to hip-hop, nor does he symbolise its death. However, he isn’t very good either. Stretched to a full album’s worth of material, Xan’s music, like a certain branded prescription drug, quickly tires those with little tolerance.

The sheer scale, pop-pomp and balls on show here render their survival an absolute victory. Resistance may be futile, but the Manics continue to advance.

Occasionally, Geography grows monotonous, but derivative it is definitely not. There’s something undeniably unique about the tone of Tom’s voice--precise yet effortless--and his guitar skills are prodigious.

Mostly this album succeeds on attrition and attitude, much like ‘Bodak Yellow’ did.

As a pop product, the album performs its function--and it’s commendable of Minogue to experiment with a different sound. It’s just a shame to hear a pop queen like Kylie seeming to buy into tacky generic artifice because it happens to be in vogue.

The four piece’s debut album is a grubby, clattering thing that takes its lead from 1980s LA punk trailblazers like X and The Gun Club, who took traditional country music and fed it moonshine until it fell down in a ditch, then scraped the mud off its jeans, handed it a microphone and a broken electric guitar and made it walk through broken glass to sing in a grotty toilet venue bar over a broken PA system.

Miraculously, it feels in no way forced: it’s a joy to witness her glide into any genre and totally own it.

Yesterday Was Forever was a record paid for by fans, and made for the fans.

Sex & Food comes with a handful of missteps, like the forgettable ‘Not In Love Were Just High’ and ‘This Doomsday’ in the album’s final third. But by and large, it sees UMO pushing their sound impressively, bending the rule book as crudely as they can before the spine break

Stylistically, superficially, this forward propulsion sees him loop back to the start with six-track EP My Dear Melancholy,, which appears to sink back into the browbeaten R&B with which he made his Google-friendly name. This works--sporadically.

Cheery yet punk-as-fuck attitude is studded through their rattling second LP.

For the most part, though, you’ll need to look elsewhere for your protest music. This is escapist rap, as outlandish and oversized as a gaudy Spiderman comic--and, at times, just as much absurdist fun.

Really, this is a piece of work to dive into and consume whole.

The Voidz and Julian might not be the most predictable band to pin down, but there are at least some things that we’ve come to expect from them: whatever they do will be interesting, unusual and thought-provoking. On Virtue, they’ve hit the jackpot with a bonus ball--fun.

The result is a fourth album both back-to-basics in a Ramone-next-door sort of way, but with renewed purpose and attitude, and eyeing new paths of punk-rock progress.

Artfully curated references see her picking and choosing from the best.

Ultimately, it’s this blend of new-found maturity and crowd-pleasing choruses that transform Ezra’s second offering into the perfect progression from the sound of his debut.

That he’s produced such a full, lush sounding thing packed with personality and life is impressive--but not surprising.

Not one song feels out of place or undercooked.

A dazzling debut ready to win the world’s hearts.

Cocoa Sugar isn’t a filtered version of what came before. Instead, it cements their status as riled-up oddballs determined to reinvent the wheel.

Francis Trouble is a bright blast of radiant, prismatic indie rock. More surprisingly still, it’s Albert’s most fun record yet, hurtling along on his trademark zipping guitar lines.

Clocking in at 47 minutes (despite its 17-track length), Lil Boat 2 feels like a vast improvement from ‘Teenage Emotions’ simply as it doesn’t feel like an ordeal to listen to. What that does do, however, is narrow down your focus, which tends to land on Yachty’s predisposition for telling us just how rich he is now.

While the title track and ‘Belong’ also simmer with a caustic but expansive electro pulse, it’s not all dark and mechanical--there’s equally as much humanity and light. ‘Cold’ is a U2-worthy triumph, begging for fields of swaying arms and lighters aloft, while ‘Darkness At The Door’ is the closest Editors have and probably will ever come to an ‘80s power ballad--and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

It’s a David Byrne album. Which is to say: it’s melodic, goofy and very quirky.

This is easily their most expansive work yet--a continued exploration of the beauty in brutality.

A relentlessly positive record that acts as an inclusive antidote for our increasingly divisive times.

It often feels like an in-joke that we’re allowed in on.

The production trickery, paired with Allison’s lyrical nuances, make her songwriting, and this debut record, a dazzling and devastating triumph.

The 10 track Historian is far bigger, meatier beast than its predecessor. Recorded in Nashville, this is a rock’n’roll album with deep understanding of pop melody but layered up with bold lyrics which disarm you as much as they connect with you.

An engrossing, bleak and often warming set of exotica, vintage pop and childlike pizzazz.

‘Ain’t No Friend Of Mine’ is a brilliantly snotty two fingers up at the world. There’s no danger of finding the same fault in Street Safari, a record even more loveable than PATV’s first.

Dear Annie is a stunning odyssey through hip-hop, R&B, pop and beyond, one that will lend itself to both wintry nights in and blissed-out parties this summer.

While the nine-year break has seen the duo barely switch up their instrumentation--Warren Fischer is still blasting drum machines and moody synth underneath Spooner’s vocals--the band’s friend and new producer, R.E.M.‘s Michael Stipe, seems to have generally smoothed the scruffier side of the duo’s compositions.

There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but little to be ashamed of either.

Powerful, potent and bloody good for dancing to, In A Poem Unlimited might just be the soundtrack to the revolution.

Marvel soundtracks have a new gold standard, and it’s this.

After singing about so much Americana for the past decade, it seems that he’s now had to cross the Atlantic in search of fresh geography to mine.

MGMT’s return to pop is a much more welcome surprise.

Always Ascending is, everywhere you look, a record driven by vim, vigour and ideas, and plenty of Kapranos’ idiosyncratic way with a lyric.

The result is an intriguing, if disorientating, sprawl of sound.

What The Time Is Now lacks in coherency, it makes up for in sheer enthusiasm.

Every single song breaks new ground for Morris – even the simple title track, which admittedly could have been found down the back of Chris Martin’s sofa.

Despite the album’s title, Microshift represents not a minor step up but a gigantic stride. On an immediate level the songs sound much bigger, cleaner and more confident. Every component is crisper, from the sharpened hi-hat to MJ’s scrubbed-up vocals.

By recording the album with his live band, he frames his unmistakably husky countertenor with a set of warm, natural sounds that form a bedrock for the raw emotions on Blood rather than distracting from them.

The weird edges of Freedom’s Goblin are where your attention should be drawn to. Like the freeform jazz interlude ‘Talkin 3’ and ‘Prison’, which sounds like the frantic last squeals of a dying bee. It’s captivating stuff, honestly.

There’s definitely a nod to new Nashville here--however, we’re talking more Mumford & Sons if they started songwriting for Justin Bieber than the grit and guts of Waylon Jennings or the current king of classic country, Sturgill Simpson.

Migos are firing on all cylinders here, their new record a lush, chaotic patchwork that pops with primary colours. The fab three have done it again.

The overall lack of lyrics--the most repeated line on the 10-track record is a simple, wistful “oooh”--is only a positive, letting the listener get fully, deeply lost in the band’s fertile psychedelic world.

The future sound of 2012 is mating here with the current sound of Yates’ wine lodge, and quite possibly creating the sound of 2018.

They’re still genre-twisting, but their focus has shifted slightly from complexity to short, punchy riffs that recall some of the bands that producer Gil Norton has worked with previously: Pixies, Foo Fighters, The Distillers.

The trio are made up of Rakel Mjöll on lead vocals, Alice Go on guitar and Bella Podpadec on bass, and their glimmering punk-pop is the most exciting thing you’re going to hear this dreary January, and quite likely all 2018.

A collection of tangible emotional snapshots, brief but telling entries in a musical journal.

The musical landscape has changed since Fall Out Boy’s Warped Tour days in the mid-’00s, and so have they. As Mania shows, it’s probably for the best.

Tune-Yards might have taken a deep breath and a step back, allowing their infectious melodies some space, but their breathless skew-whiff eclecticism remains anything but safe.

Ruins might see the band playing it safe, but rarely are safety manuals this stunning.

Shopping’s sound is minimal, and almost every song kicks off with a Spaghetti Western guitar riff before being met by a steady beat and chanting vocals by various members.

Underworld might not reach every peak it aims for, but it tugs on the heartstrings in all the right ways.

A strong and surprisingly confident first impression.

The whole album is driven by that Nick Cave sense of foreboding menace, an outlaw spirit that would sit well on the Peaky Blinders soundtrack. But while there’s plenty of that classic BRMC ‘tude, and a vintage touch, they’re still full of ideas.

Debut album Songs Of Praise courses with venom and a lithe vigour that is all their own.

Charli’s second mixtape of the year isn’t just about proving she’s more than your average pop star, but about her settling into her role as innovator, celebrator, and curator supreme.

Not all of it works, but his renewed creative vigour is obvious and his sense of duty commendable.

Everything pushed to the limit, it becomes abundantly clear they’ve made an album that sounds as at home on the dust-stained subway as it does at the peak of the Empire State Building.

War & Leisure lacks the obvious identity that has marked out Miguel’s previous three albums, but that’s no fault. By comparison, this is 
a compelling collection of poptastic R&B tracks made to soundtrack your night out.

Overall, U2 have built a stadium rock cruise liner they’ve zero interest in rocking, and Experience is 50 minutes of very plain sailing indeed.

But, bar the turgid swamp blues of ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’, it’s Noel’s freewheeling solo freedom and return-to-mega-form song-writing that makes this amongst the albums of the year.

Utopia is where art, real life and deep experimentation intersects, and it’s utterly compelling.

The record isn’t weighed down by its ideas--it could just do with a filter, a producer with more sway, or even someone in the process to say: “Actually Jaden, mate--most trees are green.”

The album’s glossy production and lyrical vagueness mean these songs could just as easily be about relationships.

The 12-song album’s first five tracks are passable, if not actually quite enjoyable. Beyond this point, though, only the most hardened Moz fan should dare to venture. ‘The Girl From Tel Aviv Who Wouldn’t Kneel’ is an unbearable cha-cha-cha; ‘Who Will Protect Us From The Police?’ is lumpen electro; and least listenable track ‘Israel’ sees him deliver political polemic via the dubious medium of a piano ballad.

While Reputation packs heavy artillery that was almost entirely absent from ‘1989’, it’s actually a helluva ride.

Yung Lean still lacks quality control. The middle bulk of Stranger can feel like being suspended in ice, experiencing a never-ending comedown.

Phases is a deeply autumnal album, perfectly for listening to while strolling down dimly lit side streets with crisp leaves underfoot.