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.

The TNGHT EP packs five explosive instrumental hip-hop tracks, every one dripping with each producer's trademark sonic flourishes.

It’s a high-quality project, but we lost Mac way too soon, and that’s hard to accept. So while it’s hard to listen to him talking about self-deterioration and how he spends far too much time in his own head, it’s a privilege to hear him share his inner most thoughts over a bed of sweeping, inventive sonics. This is the album Mac Miller was born to make.

July is a career high.

Where his previous projects felt sprawling, ’uknowhatimsayin¿’ succeeds in feeling compact while delivering a powerful project that is expertly produced and concisely executed.

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.

When the album proper kicks in with ‘Totally Fine’, it’s clear that PUP are still trading in the same brutally pissed off but unassailably catchy blasts of self-loathing. And, yes, it’s still as much fun as ever.

If the best country music has always been about storytelling, then on ‘Cruel Country’ Wilco are delivering it in its purest form.

Swans' bleakness is beset with great beauty, black wings to another world.

Tracks like 'Mortar Remembers You' convey the bleakness of the situation ("I had to build a room to contain all the panic"), but Campbell's voice and the persistent whirling synths infuse the desolation with compelling energy.

It's expansively, ecstatically excellent for many of the same reasons as The Field's previous two: blissful, loop-based hymns at the intersection between shoegazing, trance and minimal techno.

‘Harry’s House’ is undoubtedly Styles’ best record yet and presents a musician comfortable and confident in what he wants to create right now.

All in all, this is merely promising rather than masterful. [14 Oct 2006, p.35]

Their jaunty Americana morphs from something lovely into something utterly essential.

There’s almost something for everyone on Dose Your Dreams, and, thankfully, that eclectic aspect to Fucked Up’s most ambitious project yet means it leans more towards opus than hopeless.

Tracks like 'Torture' borrow far too liberally from A$AP Rocky's cloud-rap aesthetic to be considered original. But otherwise, Old is a perfect example of why 2013 is a very exciting time for hip-hop.

The impressive ‘3.15.20’ [is] well worth the wait.

Konnichiwa is a landmark in British street music, a record good enough to take on the world without having to compromise one inch in the process.

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

Tempest is a relentless exploration of bleakness.

‘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.

If ‘All Mirrors’ took you to a lavish, creaky ballroom, then ‘Whole New Mess’ tucks you away in the cupboard under the stairs, the door slammed tightly shut.

This is the side of Jack White III he's happy to show the world right now, and it's absolutely fascinating to behold.

Sounds as if it were recorded on one perfectly wasted afternoon. [22 Oct 2005, p.43]

Bass, horns, strings, organ and choir provide the backbone, and when Whitney allow themselves to kick it up a gear and really let rip, as on ‘Golden Days’ (with its cathartic “Na na na” outro) or the George Harrison-meets-The Band magnificence of ‘Dave’s Song’, they’re untouchable.

The resulting remixes and medleys, as heard on equipment that probably costs more than your house at Abbey Road, could make you weep with joy. It may not sound as good on a common-or-garden stereo, but you'll still mist up a bit.

Ultimately, this album is the sound of the future.

This urgent and important record will ensure the veterans don’t get lost in the shuffle.