So, less shoegazing and ’80s pop, more Doors and ZZ Top. Still magnificent, though.

As an honest dispatch from the coal-face, it's glorious indeed.

It's warm, out-there pop that was worth all the care and attention that has been invested in it.

It’s this ability that makes The Big Pink so special for, beneath the dissonance, the artful posturing and the pop hooks is something far more enduring: these guys have got a soul and they’re not afraid to bare it.

With the help of 'Cisco fuzz-pop linchpin Mikael Cronin, they've turned out a collection which displays a fondness for vintage '60s psych and the spooky microdot-pop of Thee Oh Sees.

Some of 'Free The Bees' could have been recorded 40 years ago and some of it could have been beamed down from an orbiting space station 3,000 years further along the pipe than us. [26 Jun 2004, p.54]

Taking so many chances means there are inevitable hiccups, but they scarcely matter.

Squired by The xx producer Rodaidh McDonald, this second album is hugely accomplished.

Through glowing stasis and solemn ceremony, Divide and Dissolve’s sonics of despair and destruction have been crafted into a remarkably life-affirming experience, and it’s never been more needed.

By digging deeper into her heritage and her own psyche, Cabello has created her richest and most compelling album yet.

It's a dream of the psychedelic tropics, a heady explosion of colours, an album that takes what it means to be 'in an indie band' and gives it a good shake.

While there’s a sense that Webster’s not taking the songwriting risks she once was, this transcendent set suggests sincerity suits her.

While it’ll take more than four songs for any veritable flashlight to irradiate Skullcrusher as the answer, this EP will at least start us asking the question.

These heartfelt, confessional apologies are delivered via Jay’s most concise, straightforward album in years. 10 tracks and 36 minutes long, this is a filler-free return to form after 2013’s patchy and bloated ‘Magna Carta Holy Grail’.

The most brilliantly ambitious record of the year.

Causers Of This’ infects your mind with pure psychedelia, splicing such conflicting sounds as soul, freak folk, hip-hop and electronica, and the result hits you like Animal Collective on a comedown, or Ariel Pink with Seasonal Affective Disorder.

The cathartic nature of the album is clearest on the emotive piano and string-laden ballad ‘Praying’, a forceful Lady-Gaga-worthy offering of defiance, as she hollers “’Cos you brought the flames and you put me through hell / I had to learn how to fight for myself”.

They may have been apart for eight years, but less than a minute into opening track, 'Crystal', they've slotted back into their own idiosyncratic groove and the years are pouring off them.... Being in New Order never sounded like half as much fun as it does here.

It’s a moment of pure pop catharsis that leans into the good, bad and messy of infatuation. This is the joy of ‘The Secret of Us’: it doesn’t shy away from the complex or contradictory. Here Gracie Abrams embraces her growing pains and celebrates enduring the difficult moments. She’s never sounded better.

No influence spills into the next song and that makes for fairly rigidly eclectic listening, but it's done so artfully that there's never a sense of stylistic boxes simply being crossed.

A rough and rabid ride.

The process of letting go has resulted in a record on which an acclaimed voice can explore human emotion with more breadth and depth than ever before.

With lyrics that encompass the reality of ageing with all its wisdom and regrets, and with music that employs the deftness of touch that can only come with long-term honing, Arab Strap have delivered their defining record.

‘Please Stay’ is wistful and pretty, but largely forgettable, and the surging indie-rock of ‘First Time’ doesn’t quite hold up against the rest of the record. But for the most part, Dacus proves that looking back at your past might make you cringe, but there is beauty and value in those faltering, gawky days.

It’s a fizzing piece of hard-rock magic.

‘Spiral’ is a gorgeous, often filmic listen that rewards with each spin. Most importantly, Jaar’s enhanced vocal role gives a new voice to troubling themes previously suggested in the stirring moods of Darkside’s music. Eight years was worth the wait.

Bird roars through the album’s 15 tracks, seamlessly transitioning to thoughtful downtempo moments. Broadening her sound to keep up with her perspective, she’s stayed true to her roots while knocking down the genre walls she was once placed within.

‘The Melodic Blue’ offers a confident and fully-realised project, one that shows that he continues to be difficult to pigeonhole.