Lux Prima is a hypnotic listen.

Danceable yet thoughtful debut album.

Rammstein and their unshakable sound have remained tethered to their originality, fusing catchy lyrics with serious industrial power hooks. For that they should be applauded across the board, because this album is undoubtedly a resounding triumph.

All we can say for sure is that here is a talent in bloom, the sound of ideas finding shape, winding out in all directions.

He hasn’t sounded this vital in years.

It was a coming together of people and community, and it's therefore fitting that Lupercalia the album is a celebration too.

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.

Her ambition is flabbergasting, let alone that she executes it with bundles of fun and a fizzing personality.

They've delivered the tunes, alright, but they can't help but fill them with angst, confusion and lashings of amp fuzz. Safe, predictable and packaged for the mainstream? This album is anything but.

Their debut album is 11 whispered R&B songs, all textured, considered and thoughtfully constructed.

It’s not an easy listen, but it may just be one of the most nuanced, soothing and adventurous of 2013.

Their musical range may not yet be as expansive as her vocal one, but any group who are able to segue from the psychotropic ’70s soul of ‘Guess Who’ to the proto-punk sturm und drang of ‘The Greatest’ are clearly no one-trick ponies.

With the core ‘XTRMNTR’ team--the Scream, Shields, producer David Holmes--More Light, the Scream’s 10th album and first in five years, lives up to its bilious billing.

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.

‘Memento Mori’ is comfortably their best album this side of the millennium, and, most importantly, a testament to creativity and friendship. The music world is richer for it.

Musically, Carpenter mostly finds that niche she’s been searching for, getting comfortable in a country-pop groove on the likes of ‘Coincidence’ and ‘Please Please Please’, or nailing frothy pop bops like ‘Taste’ and ‘Juno’.

At 18 tracks, Aquarius may be overstuffed (the ambient interludes offer little) but it’s an impressive statement that should elevate Tinashe far beyond the hype that has surrounded her mixtape releases so far.

We could all do with an absence of cynicism – and the presence of some comfort, hope and optimism – right now, and this 10-song collection certainly delivers on that front. Recorded back in September, the modest and warm performance sees Liam let down his trademark bravado, laying bare the bruised sincerity at the core of his unifying back-catalogue.

Ekstasis reminds us that music can mean so much more.

As ever, their key skill is being extremely dark as well as mega poppy.

Despite the abundance of male influence on the record, from ex-boyfriend to songwriters to producers to mentors, Rihanna makes the sound her own, and fights back.

An utterly charming album.

The first long-play offering by these Pennsylvania teen punks might just be one of the best punk rock debuts of the year.

Shape Shift With Me is an excellent album, Grace an essential cultural figure.

Great Divide is a love letter to the power of music itself; earnest, yes, but as heart-warming a rock record as it's possible to imagine.

It’ll take time to see if it becomes a standout in her discography, but this boldly brazen record definitely makes a statement.

Along with its album-ending coda, it helps to shroud the album in a rootsy, pastoral intimacy fitting for the times and akin to (although significantly meatier than) ‘McCartney’. In between, as you’d expect from a legend who’s been pushing his electronic boundaries on recent albums such as ‘2018’s ‘Egypt Station’, Sir Paul approaches the record with the same adventuring spirit as he did ‘McCartney II.’

It's astonishing how the band are unafraid to take on Serious Issues yet remain so much fun.

Newsom has managed to lessen the twee factor of her last record... in the process crafting an album as bewitching as it is odd.

One of the few certainties we can take from this restless, relentlessly intriguing album is that David Bowie is positively allergic to the idea of heritage rock.

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

The fourth album from Caribou is the sound of the summer we're only just getting round to enjoying.

It’s to Weller’s credit that these more plaintive and introspective tracks sit so smoothly aside ‘Fat Pop’’s more playful experiments. It means that for the second time in less than a year he’s released a record that can sit safely among the best of his long career.

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.

American Love Call is a timeless, optimistic listen in a time of peril one that now, and in the future, can confidently be referred to as a truly great American soul record.

It’s Dionysian disco: dynamic, decadent and utterly brilliant.

You know everything is going to be OK within seconds of the surging, tidal riffs of ‘Wraithlike’, and what follows is simply a fine-tuning of what the Park have done before.

If it’s mournful epics you want, then the album’s crammed full of them, from the strummed, outdoorsy sorrow of ‘Winter Dies’ to ‘Rulers, Ruling All Things’, which is peppered with cheeky Spanish guitar and weighty, fin-de-siècle lyrical flair.

When icy guitar turns ‘Pay My Debts’ into one of Van Etten’s darkest songs yet, Van Etten’s wounds feel incredibly raw.

To bypass Yuck would be imbecilic simply because their debut contains some of the most effortlessly hard-hitting, heart-hitting pop of 2011.

She’s made an album that sounds consistently inviting and sometimes exciting.

Only a few tracks come down with showtune-itis--‘All The Young Dudes’ and ‘Changes’, which morphs from a breathy, jazz-flecked ballad to an over-emotive Liza Minnelli cabaret piece in the hands of Cristin Milioti. Otherwise, invention reigns.

Dlamini’s taking no chances here and, now that the smoke’s lifted, it’s clear she’s a pop contender with the nous and drive to go as far as she wants.

Where all this fits in the mesh of the Prince pantheon is anyone's guess, but it's in the good part, and after nearly 40 albums that's an achievement.

This is nuanced, purposeful songwriting from an artist growing in power.

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

It's got the charm and spark of the Weezer of old, and that's a quality you just can't fake.

Familiar but daring, ‘Heartwork’ is a dynamic, surprising and enjoyable adventure.

Filled with lively, stylised pop tunes, she’s once again proven that she’s not just that girl from ‘Call Me Maybe’.

Though there are less standout moments than on previous records, it is a wonderfully cohesive whole that renders brooding menace into graceful songcraft.

In aiming to examine the self rather than please others, Fontaines D.C. have exerted a knack for writing anthems that are at once self-excoriating and intimately relatable.

If the DJ's art is to unite unlikely musical party guests, The Automator is a fine and generous host.

It’s not as if Kano’s position as one of the Top Boys of an energised UK grime and rap scene needed any further cementing, though ‘Hoodies All Summer’ has done exactly that.

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

Thorny and tangled, this is dance music for drifting home from the club on deserted pavements; the moment of reflection after the euphoria fades.

Another blistering, brilliant missive from one of rock’s most fearless bands, on ‘Social Lubrication’, Dream Wife prove two things. Firstly, social commentary and exorcising your fury at the world don’t have to be joyless, and secondly, they’re still one of the most vital acts we’ve got right now.

After a year that took so much, the return of the Foos feels like the culture getting back in credit. Consider the record’s closing track, ‘Love Dies Young’, which sparkles with effervescence that the last 12 months have lacked – it’s one of the best songs the band have ever put their name to.

Throughout this record, 070 Shake paints vivid – and often uncomfortable, or jarring – pictures, and it’s all on her own terms.

‘IRL’ reflects a young woman fully becoming herself, not just confidently throwing her hands up but boldly letting her guard down too.

‘Pompeii // Utility’ is undeniably a long listen, and it occasionally buckles under the weight of its own ambition. But within that excess lies its purpose: a restless, evolving portrait of MIKE and Earl Sweatshirt at a point where convergence feels less like a destination and more like an ongoing process.

Sure, there is some inevitable fan service – the title, after all, is an anagram of ‘Clancy is dead’ – but this album sees one of the most fearless bands of their generation continue to take risks.

Although it's not quite the perfect pop record 'Video Games' might have led us to wish for, Born To Die still marks the arrival of a fresh--and refreshingly self-aware--sensibility in pop.

It exists in its own eccentric, unique universe, and that is the best thing that any debut album can do.

With The Crying Light Antony And The Johnsons continue to explore the creative boundaries of pop while covering all emotional bases. For that, they should be celebrated.

It’s admittedly not the most cohesive album, infatuated with various experimental threads, but it’s also hard to fault this restlessness album, which is punchy and gutsy enough to hold up Torres’ constantly intriguing ideas.

At a sprawling 16 tracks and 63 minutes long, the only thing I Am Easy To Find suffers from is its sombre and pensive pace, without the feral release that certain fans of ‘Boxer’ or ‘Alligator’ might long for.

‘Addison’ is bold, expressive, and catchy as hell, and with little overt biography, it’s completely personal in its craftsmanship.

On ‘What Happened To The Beach?’, perfectionism is released to make space to revel in creativity, resulting in a truly joyful effort.

Departure isn't merely a psychedelia record cut with Suicide-aping proto-punk. These eight songs wrestle free of that assumption, flying off in myriad directions.

Considering Take Care is an affecting masterpiece easily on par with his debut, there could be no greater accolade for the genius of this man.

Adams has stripped most of '29''s tracks down to spare, brittle bones.

The results, on LUMP’s second album ‘Animal’, are simply thrilling.

‘Welcome 2 America’ is an album that speaks to today’s problems and demands to be heard.

It’s crisper and glistens with ambient atmosphere and mellow beats.

An album so autonomous and remote it sounds like it's being beamed from a deep-space probe.

Now well into her stride as a solo artist, with ‘Black Girl Magic’ Dijon has produced another collection of standout, all-inclusive house classics that’ll dominate dancefloors for years to come.

The first glitchy music released this year that you could happily have sex to.

The occasional leaden production job remains the album’s main stumbling block. But if Giggs is unlikely to follow Stormzy into the mainstream, it’s hard to deny this record’s bleak intensity or lyrical command.

Turn To Clear View showcases both the cross-pollination and multiculturalism of London, while distinguishing Armon-Jones as an artist whose tastes are as varied as they are exceptional.

The 10 [tracks] he chose form a supple, sedated record that's immaculate throughout.

Sandoval's voice remains an indescribably beautiful thing, while David Roback's guitar provides haunting backing.

This album is a subtly, sweetly wonderful thing--proof that, sometimes, sonic actions speak louder than words.

As good as it is, ‘Hackney Diamonds’ does have bad spots. Country honker ‘Dreamy Skies’ would’ve sounded outdated in the ‘70s – and even a cameo from founder bassist Bill Wyman can’t save punk-y cringe-a-thon ‘Live By The Sword’, another victim of Mick’s interminable Johnny Rotten impression. Those low points are thankfully scarce, fewer and farther between than on anything this side of 1981.

In August 2014, Los Angeles trio Wand released debut ‘Ganglion Reef’, a psychedelic record inspired by a make-believe island. They’ve maintained that imaginative approach for follow-up Golem, which is full of brain-bending riffs, effects and abstract lyrics.

In turns more glam-indebted and more duskily evocative than anything they’ve previously offered up, Himalayan’s aims are as monumental as its title.

Throughout the five tracks, Walker’s lyrics never feel anthemic. Rather, they are personal, almost as if she’s right there with you. Her words are a balm: comforting advice of an old friend through a Zoom call.

These blow-dried disco numbers are unmistakably well-toned. [18 Sep 2004, p.65]

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.

A marvellous little menagerie of smart, eccentric guitar pop full of arty tics and tricks. [13 Aug 2005, p.58]

All told, while not every track has the immediacy of 'Lies' or 'Recover', there's not a weak one among them.

Nostalgia aside: this is an album worth celebrating now.

Just as good [as the compilation]. [1 Apr 2006, p.43]

On their 12th album, Red Hot Chili Peppers not only get comfortable with their own impressive legacy, but prove there’s plenty more to come.

Even if Prince, Madonna, Paul Weller, Shane MacGowan, Ice-T and Michael Jackson got together to form a freakish supergroup, they’d struggle to make an album containing as much vitality, humour and invention as Cave and his wizened cronies have.

Silver Tongues picks up exactly where they left off: back on top as one of Britain’s most thrilling rising bands.

Despite the odd unfortunate guest, ‘Rockstar’ is as bursting with life and positivity as the woman who made it.

Love and its bruising unobtainableness remains his chief concern, but with Years Of Refusal some things have changed. For a start there’s less of the stately strings of "Ringleader..." and more of the direct rockabilly of "...Quarry."

Brave and futuristic, by venturing into space, Mescudi finally steps out of Kanye’s shadow--with not just one small step, but one giant leap.