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.