Quilt really shine when Anna Fox Rochinski, Shane Butler and John Andrews harmonise impeccably over the spooky melodies of 'Saturday Bride' and 'Secondary Swan'.

This album isn’t quite what we’ve come to expect from The Last Shadow Puppets, but that’s just how we like it.

There’s surely enough here to bag him some space under Rihanna’s umbrella-ella-ella.

If I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose is the band's Everest, not only do they conquer it with unassuming boyish romance, but they've also created the most poignant anthology of what it means to be young and restless in the city since fellow Londoners Bloc Party's "Silent Alarm"--though they're a lot less frosty than Okereke et al.

Crystalline, slick and glistening, this feels like the last piece of a puzzle slotting into place, the tying off of any loose ends. It’s the sound of a band operating firmly, and finally, in their comfort zone.

It suits them just fine.

Khan refuses to yield crossover hits like 2009’s ‘Daniel’ (only the frenetic rhythms of ‘Sunday Love’ come close) opting instead for a slow style of storytelling that rewards the patient listener.

Will shock conservative punk purists everywhere. [11 Sep 2004, p.57]

It’s the otherworldliness of 22, A Million that makes it soar.

‘Back To The Water Below’ feels like a return for Royal Blood. Honouring their gut, as Kerr said they did in the studio, has manifested fertile results for their band.

So strange, it’s fantastic.

These songs are the sound of joy, canned and compressed for your aural pleasure.

We’ve been overdue an election-year statement record from the trio, and ‘Saviors’ gives it a good crack. .... Of course, the record is a good romp too.

Togetherness is the force that continually grounds The Book Of Traps And Lessons despite the dystopian soldiers that march across its drenched landscape.

Where’s My Utopia?’ marks an outlandish yet assertive second chapter for Yard Act, going toe-to-toe with the peculiar world that we find ourselves in.

Returning with her sixth solo record ‘Bright Future’, the Big Thief frontwoman achieves a newfound lyrical self-assuredness here.

With Freetown Sound, he’s made something bold, challenging, uncompromising and overlong--an album, like the man who made it, that’s the sum of its parts and then some.

Being able to show so much humanity and versatility so early in her career is highly respectable and if this is a glimpse of the future, Nia Archives looks set to become an unstoppable generational talent.

A very strange album, which shreds the old White Stripes rulebook (no bass, just guitar and drums) and pushes into territories way beyond the blues and rock of their previous four records.

Just another mind-bendingly great, often dazzling SFA record. [20 Aug 2005, p.57]

Mug Museum, her third full-length, is as wonderfully weird as any of its predecessors. And there’s now sparseness in her music, plus a cool, controlled confidence that showcases her knack for the surreal more than ever.

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

Danger Mouse and Black Thought remain firmly in their comfort zones, and though the record constantly delights, it rarely surprises. It seems a little churlish, however, to criticise two greats for simply living up to their own high standards. ‘Cheat Codes’ is brilliant.

Still as sharp and impactful [as 2023's self-titled debut] but focused more on the spaces in between her stories than the plots themselves.

‘Sincerely,’ sometimes meanders – six woozy minutes of ‘Lose My Cool’ is too much – but more often, it matches the dreamy intimacy of Uchis’ stunning 2020 smash ‘Telepatía’. Here, her music shimmers with confidence even when her lyrics hint at deep-rooted insecurities.

Open Your Heart is breezier and more tuneful than its predecessor, but this is very relative.

Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1 is a triumph; a good-time album of wall-to-wall hits with a carefree, funky tropical feel and more than enough cool points to see him embraced by the hipster crowd as well as holding on to the pop kids.

Ultra-lo-fi, but an album nonetheless stuffed full of rich melodies and arch lyrical observations.

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.

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

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.

This is the band’s sixth album in an 11-year career and it feels at once fresh and self-assured, bearing its painstaking complexity with a striking nonchalance.

Once again, SAULT demonstrate the power of words and just how impactful music can be. It’s impossible not to feel affected by the stories being told. But, despite ‘Nine’s sadness, SAULT channel optimism and hope for a brighter future into their songs.

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

They’ve made one that sounds like it was recorded without a care in the world.

There’s a rare moment of foreboding on the briefly gloomy ‘Feather Man’, but the likes of ‘Shining’ and the Avi Buffalo-style ‘Only The Lonely’ are representative of an optimistic and sprightly record.

London-based collective Fanfarlo’s debut is a carefully orchestrated treat.

There’s little hope in ANIMA. Little in the way of joy. It sounds exactly like a record trying to say something about 2019 should sound. ... Fittingly, there’s shades of the 2007 videogame Portal here. A bit of Blade Runner.

The astonishing thing is that on any other record, the two above low points [Snaps and Invincible] would be stand-out tracks. With Tinie, only the best will do.

‘As Long As You Are’ maybe an unexpected handbrake turn for Future Islands and it may not be as hit-laden as its predecessor, but it’s a refreshing record in its own right and one that throws up plenty of existential quandaries.

Tove Lo’s fourth album sees the star largely stick the formula that made her successful in the first place, but that’s no bad thing: it features some of her best work in years as she boldly embraces new sounds and unusual collaborators. Exhilarating and fearless, Tove Lo has ensured she’s stayed relevant with a bold, brash and at often quite brilliant record.

As California dreamin' goes, this is almost as good as heading for the hills, reaching for a hand-tooled native American bong and calling yourself Moon Unit.

Their imagery may be impenetrable--all "teardrops on the wires" and particles "falling into space"--but the tunes haunt the mind long after they've faded.

Despite being Segall's longest, packing 17 tracks into just under an hour, it’s also his most focused.

Everyday Life regularly steps to the left-field, proving that Coldplay are more adventurous than they’re often given credit for.

Metz deliver the same righteous anger that informed much of their favourite music in the early '90s.

The most promising debut of the year so far.

Hymns finds a fully-in-control Okereke, still tangled in the electronics of his solo albums (“Rock’n’roll has got so old, just give me neo-soul,” he admits on ‘Into The Earth’) fusing with Russell Lissack’s spectral shoegaze guitars to steer one of the century’s most pioneering underground bands into more mature and absorbing, if murkier, waters.

An eclectic album for Right Now, which shows what it means to be a modern pop star, and reveals a glittery crazy-paved path towards a brave new musical future.

A twinkling set of songs that benefits from Wild Beasts soundman Richard Formby’s gossamer production touch.

Ex Hex’s sound is so distinctive that it’s also very tough to escape, but luckily Mary Timony, Betsy Wright and Laura Harris avoid stumbling into the trap of picking up where they left off. As it happens, It’s Real is a bundle of collaborative fun instead.

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.

From the robotic churn of ‘Blue Lights’ to the wiry rock’n’roll of ‘Tin Birds’, there’s little cohesion--rhaps understandably, given Sniper’s penchant for releasing new material every couple of days--t that simply makes it feel of a lovingly-crafted mixtape.

‘Altar’ is a beautiful portrait of working out what you’re willing to give up and how to keep pushing yourself forward despite the aching within you.

Brilliantly, if subtly, displays a newfound maturity for Abrams.

Catchy and abstract in equal measure, Sea When Absent is the thrilling sound of shoegazing introverts coming out of their shells.

Mesmerisingly beautiful. [2 Apr 2005, p.50]

But more than anything else, Soft Hair is about intimacy, creativity and a zest for life--two singular musicians liberated by collaboration.

Thankfully this album doesn’t fall into the trap of posthumous records that feel like they’re shamelessly re-animating a corpse and therefore should have been left on the cutting room floor. Instead, this collection of tender songs finds Cohen at his most calm and reflective.

Their best album to date.

I'm Up represents Thug's most accessible and immediate work to date.

‘Model Citizen’ is the work of a band who are absolutely for the now. Mom, this pop-punk thing definitely isn’t just a phase.

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

'I Might Be Wrong' sounds significantly better than both of the studio albums that spawned it.

But rather than ending up a bombastic mess, ‘Sleep Mountain’ knows that the devil is in the detail.

Some listeners may not warm to Lo’s persona, but her songwriting skills are difficult to fault (she’s also co-written hits for Ellie Goulding and Girls Aloud on the side). Aided by collaborators including Lorde producer Joel Little and Max Martin’s protégé Ilya Salmanzadeh, she keeps the hooks coming throughout.

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.

Raw melody made Unknown Mortal Orchestra exciting two years ago; now they’ve matched it with attention to detail.

This latest album is his most fully-realised yet. There may be no answers to be found on ‘Worm Food’ but who needs them, when there’s so much raw honesty, understanding and self-empowerment.

It's a blessing that the surrogate mum to the hip-hop youth of America is out there pushing for sounds as deranged, commercial, newly kinetic, and socially risque as those licking your ears in 'X-tasy' and 'Slap! Slap! Slap!'.

The result is purest punk bubblegum, and deserves to be blasted long and loud all summer long.

There’s really something for everyone here; they embrace winning ways but also dive into new realms too. Many bands have chartered these waters before, but nobody does it like Parquet Courts.

This isn’t merely a record by a good band. This is a record by an important one that is now teetering on the edge of greatness.

'Breakdown' was a kicky little exercise in how to make a great pop record. 'Elevator' shows how to make one of substance. [23 Apr 2005, p.50]

A debut that will endure.

BODEGA’s most vital moments come when they lower their guard down and just let it all out.

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.

When she strains so hard on ‘Alive’ that her voice becomes pretty ragged, it’s thrilling. If you can buy into its concept, Sia’s play-acting is very entertaining indeed.

Take note, Mr Paltrow: this is how you do life-affirming.

Through her boundless ‘Orquídeas’ albums, Uchis blossoms into a fearless pop ambassador at the forefront of breaking down the divide between music in English and Spanish.

The album shines with crisp production, a dynamic of extremes and Aurora’s unflinchingly confident performance and message.

With a lilting, mountain-spring-clear vocal, Lillie effortlessly brings to mind Dolly Parton, whose sass and strength she channels throughout her solo debut’s 11 tracks. This is old-school country music that digs deep into the past.

ever. The Kills are finally hitting their peak, but a low-key kind of peak.

iii is probably a couple of tracks too long, but Banks has created another supremely intriguing musical world filled with ear-snagging lyrics and quirky production flourishes: the lone dog-bark sound effect before the final chorus of ‘Gimme’ is a classic Banks touch. It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion “that bitch” is a pretty apt description for her after all.

Sounds as if it was recorded in a hermetically sealed ballroom by a group of misanthropic, jazz-obsessed weird-beards.

Love is a lush, romantic, folk-driven collection that moves away from his earlier, more psychedelic work.

A record which is closer in spirit to the rustic eccentricity of his '...Bewilderbeast' debut, while still moving things forward. [19 Jun 2004, p.57]

[A] great debut record laced with melancholy and beautiful moments.

The result is a weighty collection of tunes that toughens up the band's predilection of a softly rendered, Cure-indebted jangle and nudges the harder edges of Green Day's stadium punk.

Of late he’s adopted a sweeter, eddying Americana, and Dream River takes a turn to lush country-soul.

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.

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

‘About Last Night…’ leaves you with your ears ringing, hooks stuck in your head and a healthy dose of dancefloor catharsis that’ll make you feel lighter – much like the jacket you forgot to collect from the cloakroom.

In sick times, with extreme politics on the rise and a fright-wigged bad Tory joke in charge of London, this is an album you can retreat to for succour.

From the moment ‘Bombs Away’ hoves menacingly into view, it’s clear this is Eels at their most visceral.

‘Jade Bird’ has the edge of an assured debut album and is a startling introduction to a British talent who looks set to take the States by storm.

Not their best, but still more consistent than any British indie album released this year.

He empowers all to be ‘African Giants’ on an all-over entertaining album, demonstrating that he’s one for his people.