Rodriguez has turned heartbreak into a glorious 30 minutes of club-ready electro-smashes. ‘I’m Your Empress Of’ is nothing short of breathtaking.

The Cribs’ best album in 11 years.

Opulence is the perfect playground for Zauner’s spiky sensibilities, an allegorical minefield for the morbidity and bloodiness of our hedonistic modern existences. No one nails that like Japanese Breakfast.

With ‘Kings Disease II’, he has delivered a masterpiece of monolithic measures, completing arguably the best two-volume series in hip-hop.

A record that, when given the requisite time and attention, offers unfathomable depths to explore.

Even if you've been fortunate enough to live with these tracks over the last year or so, they still sound more vital, more likely to make you form your own band than anything else out there.

A tempestuous record, one that stays with you longer than the rage and anguish which, here, is as fleeting, yet deeply magical, as the changing seasons.

Mournful acoustic strumming, slide guitar, hushed percussion, strung-out woozy piano – there’s consistency and clarity to ‘Curve Of Earth’; perhaps more than you’d expect of a record 15 years in the making. What this album does, though, is contain the chaos of addiction, crystallising mistakes into something much more beautiful. The result is extraordinary and life-affirming.

Two empowering protest-techno-with-a-message juggernauts, ‘They Told Us It Was Hard, But They Were Wrong’ and ‘Megapunk’ mark a distinction and sonic evolution from the floaty dream-pop of 2017’s ‘Adapt’ EP and 2018’s rumbling club-driven ‘OK/‘So’. ... This debut harnesses the spirit and will to overcome forcefully and with inclusivity.

It’s a record that’ll please newcomers and existing fans alike, but, given the backstory and heart poured into ‘Wait Til I Get Over’, the record existing for Jones feels like a triumph. Whether or not he brings these sounds or elements back to the group is yet to be seen, but this record will shake the walls of Hillaryville and beyond.

In some ways, ‘Brat And It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat’ is a home run for its creator, letting her finish the game on her own terms. She has perfected the art of remixing, keeping the songs moving by giving them a brand new lease of life rather than letting them exist statically in their original form.

A complete and resounding success, ‘Dreamstate’ offers one of the most emotionally engrossing collections of electronic music you’ll hear this year.

The album constantly reaches out to the pop world: exploring how hardcore might form the basis for something technicolour, playful and accessible. That attitude towards the genre, as capable of mass appeal and ripe for experimentation, is what powers this excellent album.

‘Caroline 2’ marks a fully fleshed-out blueprint for a Caroline 2.0: a well-refined octet pushing musical boundaries in their most dazzling release to date.

Energy, desire and that indefinable cool that any great rock band must have burst from every angle. This album feels like a celebration, and Sheer Mag sure deserve one.

As a whole, the album is confirmation of two young artists at the top of their game, watching the landscape unfold from the throne they earned themselves four years ago.

For someone who helped to invent modern metal, he’s held a stunning number of surprises up his cloak sleeve (see: a wildly successful solo career and genre-defining reality TV show). This rollicking album is yet another.

This is a dynamic album that is reflective of the muddled world we find ourselves in – delivered with a fortifying sense of honesty from an essential emerging band.

Porridge Radio nail some of music’s hardest tricks – breathing fresh life into indie and making a record that can loosely be compared to other bands in fragments, but also feels entirely their own. ‘Every Bad’ is a breathtaking step up from their bedroom-recorded 2016 debut, ‘Rice, Pasta And Other Fillers.’

‘On Bright Green Field’, in all of its weird, frantic and fantastic glory, they’ve gone above and beyond.

‘Happier Than Ever’ fully establishes Billie Eilish as one of her generation’s most significant pop artists – and, better still, does so without repeating a single trick from the debut that turned her life upside down.

Parks has a singular talent for tapping into sadness and turning it into something uplifting. ... Arlo Parks may be the voice of Gen Z, but there’s no doubt that this is a universal collection of stories that’ll provide solace for listeners of all ages and backgrounds for decades to come.

His clear-eyed spoken-word and stylish beatmaking, both sharpened since his 2021 eponymous debut, combine for a brutal, complex study of his city. The key to the album’s brilliance is Balfe’s darting between small, succinct portraits, from barflies to beatings.

It’s one of the deepest cuts we’ve had from Kendrick. While ‘good kid, m.A.A.d city’ showed the world what it’s like to grow up as a kid in Compton, his fifth album serves up vignettes about what it’s like to be a Black adult whose trauma still haunts them.

An album packed with shimmering highlights.

Genres may come and go, but Sawayama’s second album is defined by her ability to fashion each of these sounds into big, brilliant pop songs. The best British pop album of the year.

No other record released this year will provoke such conflicting emotions in you. Skeleton Tree is both beautiful and harrowing, hard to listen to but even harder to look away from.

Lana Del Rey is large – she contains multitudes, and the way she balances and embodies them on her fifth album is nothing short of stunning.

Rightly championed as a vital new voice in the world of rock, Nova Twins haven’t let any of that pressure get in the way of creating a flamboyant, fantastic second album that’s as playful as it is powerful.

In exploring himself on Psychodrama, Dave has produced a masterpiece. This 20-year-old has lost in some ways and won in others, and asks us to listen as he tries to find some answers. The lessons you learn with Dave are sure to live long in the memory.

This is The National back from their brink and at their absolute best.

Besides its flirtations with big band-style instrumentals, ‘Chloë and the Next 20th Century’ serves as a gorgeously crafted highlight reel of the singer’s many previous styles and guises, rather than a complete reinvention.

‘Carnage’ is arguably Cave and Ellis’ best record since The Bad Seeds’ latter day reinvention on 2013’s ‘Push The Sky Away’, or maybe even ‘Abattoir Blues’. It’s certainly two master craftsmen at the peak of their melodramatic powers.

Whatever this is, it’s jaw-dropping.

Arctic Monkeys’ fifth record is absolutely and unarguably the most incredible album of their career. It might also be the greatest record of the last decade.

‘Yesterday Is Heavy’ is a bold and inventive step forward from an artist who has been threatening to make this kind of artistic statement for some time.

The fight for a better Ireland deserves songs that mirror the depth of the crisis, and in its endlessly captivating glory, ‘Skinty Fia’ rises triumphantly to the task.

‘A Comforting Notion’ feels urgent and important, brimming with all the promise of the next great cult act.

It’s an ambitious, emotional monolith of a record, with all the hallmarks of future classic status.

‘Heis’ ultimately serves its purpose and shows who Rema truly is: a dancefloor mastermind that will be a face of Afropop for decades to come.

From the get go, Bdrmm delight in defying expectation. .... What’s so compelling about the record is the urgency of Smith’s writing this time round.

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

By being pliable, open and more tender, Mering seems to suggest, perhaps we can save ourselves from the doom that this stunning record finds itself gripped within.

Expertly curated, every single song in ‘Valentine’s relatively restrained 10-song tracklist feels like a fully-realised gem.

As with each of his albums to date, Kiwanuka navigates the past and the present, skilfully making sounds and subjects appear both classic and contemporary at once.

By assembling a cast of their favourite musicians and delving into their adolescent memories, Daft Punk have created something as emotionally honest as any singer-songwriter confessional--and a lot more fun to dance to.

The full, colourful spectrum of Jamie is on show here, as broad as it’s ever been.

If ‘Folklore’ is an introspective, romantic older sister, ‘Evermore’ is the freewheeling younger sibling. ‘Folklore’ was Swift’s masterful songwriting spun through a very specific sonic palette; ‘Evermore’ feels looser, with more experimentation, charm and musical shades at play. The new album reaps the rewards the stylistic leap of faith that ‘Folklore’ represented, pushing the boundaries of that sonic palette further still.

It’s a reminder that, more than just being influenced by the likes of Joan Baez and Stevie Nicks, she’s now on a par with them. Lana Del Rey is at the peak of her game – just don’t expect her to come down anytime soon.

The production alone is noteworthy, painting a portrait of richness and precision that highlights Beyoncé’s peerless vocal range. .... It’s an undeniable thrill to see her swing so big on a project that dares her to be so intimate and vocal-focused, while making way for country’s up-and-comers too.

An easy contender for the rap album of 2024.

It all adds up to the most serene, stylistically varied album Marling has ever created.

We already knew Samia was a sublime songwriter, but on her third album, she sets a new bar – and then some.

By breaking from what the world might expect from them and letting themselves do whatever the hell they want, they have produced a record that’s experimental, soothing and vulnerable; it’s a thing of great beauty.

The band artfully showcase their musical knowledge to create a project which marks a clear distinction for the largely instrumental band. With ‘Mordechai’, Khruangbin have at once expanded their horizons while rooting their latest project in a sound they’ve made their own.

Exhilarating and violent.

'Let It Come Down' is another towering achievement - both musically and emotionally.... This is music as it's meant to be: raw, colossal and awe-inspiring. No wonder everything else just pales in comparison.

Virtuosity and accessibility have never been easy bedfellows, but Strange Mercy is one of those rare albums that makes you think and makes you fall in love.

It is that rarest of things, a record so particular to Björk's own artistry that no-one could ever hope to replicate it.

'Myths Of The Near Future' is charged with the same spirit which fuelled legendary rave pranksters The KLF's period of pop subversion.

Each track on their fourth boasting a captivating blend of experimentalism and depth.

Whenever Mr Rager sets off on his next adventure we're ready, musical machetes in hand, to follow him into the undergrowth…

Light Up Gold is one of the best debut albums you'll hear all year.

La Priest, he’s made one of the debuts of the year.

As Britain suffers from youth unemployment and economic crisis, our greatest currency is the chime of a golden tune. Peace have delivered 10 of them.

The Suburbs isn't anything as simple as back to basics--they're a much more accomplished, musically interesting band now.

They have done a hell of a lot of growing up. An immense album.

With High, they’ve recorded an almost perfect 30 minutes of indie-punk. There’s no flabbiness, no million-dollar production that adds nothing to the songs, no bloated guitar lines or pointless drum fills and nothing that even comes close to seeming in any way meaningless.

Gruelling assault course of lyrical genius that pours itself into the 18 tracks on this album-

This is big, epic, widescreen music, albeit wonderfully understated. [5 Mar 2005, p.51]

Pummelling electro punk at it's finest.

'Silent Alarm' is no 'Franz Ferdinand'. In fact, listen to it with the words 'popular' and 'arty' in mind and its spirit is closer to the Manic Street Preachers' 'The Holy Bible'. [5 Feb 2005, p.49]

By balancing progression with consolidation, technology with tradition, MMJ have created a work of stunningly expansive ambition. [15 Oct 2005, p.36]

The result is an LP that feels more in sync with contemporary music than ever before. There are notes here of Oneohtrix Point Never, Clams Casino, and Tim Hecker. Crucially, though, Present Tense roams a landscape which couldn’t have been charted by anyone else.

The true masters have finally awakened from their slumber.

It’s a tightrope across a canyon down which many a pie-eyed baggy daredevil has fallen. Jagwar Ma make it look effortless.

It’s heavy, assured and profound--a terrific record alone, but also one that sits in the Sleater-Kinney catalogue naturally, like they’ve never been away.

Everything about this album boils down to escape.

Antique keyboards pulse, fretless basses thrum and a variety of voices echo in and out, underlying the trippy feel and making this pretty much the most scintillating and daring record of the year so far.

The Hum is all feel, no bullshit, and it truly gets under your skin.

Assembled by the album's main beat-peddling prodigy, Lex Luger, they showcase a masterclass in reductionism; juggernauts of hulking, bruising, brick-to-skull intensity.

Tribes have roared back fiercer than ever.

Origin: Orphan is the sound of The Hidden Cameras finally proving they can make records as wham-bam powerful as their performances, with deliciously sumptuous results.

A disorientatingly great mess of free-jazz, space-rock and voodoo swamp music. [10 Dec 2005, p.37]

The ore of modern Pitchfork rock is here, laid out in all its flawed-diamond beauty. For a canon so flagrant in its faults, Quarantine is all-but faultless.

This is one to file alongside 'American Idiot', 'Doolittle' and 'Nevermind' on your greatest US rock albums shelf.

This isn't just her finest album, but one of early 2012's best.

The Adams of ‘Love Is Hell’ has gone out to make an album that actually is classic rock ‘n’ roll rather than one that can simply impersonate it, and sound convincing. [Review applicable to both Part 1 and Part 2]

The wonder of 'Stars...' is how magnificently alive all this suburban angst sounds.

Just as Moz's stance as a one-man outsider army and ringleader of the tormentors is restated, so is his standing as the godfather of indie disaffection and despair.

'A Grand Don't Come For Free' is proof that 'Original Pirate Material' wasn't a happy fluke.

It's a third album that avoids all the pitfalls of third albums: introspective without being self-pitying, expansive in scope without being pompous, exploring new directions without disappearing up its own arse.

Ultimately, this album is the sound of the future.

It's genuinely surprising, beautifully wrought and announces TNP as one of the most powerful artistic forces in Britain today.

'10,000Hz Legend' is nothing like 'Moon Safari', then again it doesn't really bear a resemblance to much. Instead, it's a glowing, highly ambitious, quasi-concept album that sees Air spiralling off on a wildly idiosyncratic and brilliantly insane tangent all of their own.

'Yoshimi...' sets yet another benchmark.

So believe it: this is the real thing, no-one’s crying wolf, not even Alan McGee.

Within all the emotional turmoil, there's a lot for the listener to love.