Never Enough is laser-focused on doing the simple things to perfection: guitar, bass and drums in service of verse-chorus-verse hooks that will rattle around your head for days with rakish, disreputable charm in spades.

Coupled with their uninhibited star-crossed takes on love and relationships, these chiming refrains are addictive and refreshing, lending impetus to what can appear to be a dog-eared set of blueprints.

The result is the most expansive, yet cohesive record Bastille have put their name to. In fact, they may have created a perfect soundtrack to life after lockdown.

It’s an exhilarating punk album with the intention of mobilising those who listen to it. There’s rage, sadness, delight and bitterness within every sound and syllable, and from within that cocktail of feelings is a charged devotion to creating change.

Menace Beach’s debut may relish a world on the brink of chaos, but this is a band with their shit together.

It is also, perhaps more importantly, an album absolutely overloaded with spine-tingling, pulse-quickening electro noises.

With ‘Intruder’, he’s chiming with the times – and sounding thrillingly relevant in the process.

As a (black) whole, ‘Night Life’ is an impressive return from a band that has taken a long time to metamorphose into this fabulous current form.

Obits create the same buzz in your brain that was almost certainly present the first time you heard The Hives or The Vines, the feeling which had you so giddy that you perfected excitement wees to rival a puppy (probably). This time, though, it’s not bratty whipper-snappers but a fine veteran taking the lead.

‘TANGK’ is an adventure into pastures new. Talbot is keen to put arm’s length at the material that exorcises his past traumas and battles with addiction and general frustration at the modern malaise. Now’s a time of appreciation and restraint.

It's the mischievous desire to deconstruct his own perfectly rounded pop snapshots that marks him down as a post-everything wunderkind

Two Technicolor explosions of creativity that people will be exploring, analysing and partying to for years.

The stuff of jagged, ornate artistes living in a weird pop monsterland with defiantly anti-wacky lyrics. [13 Nov 2004, p.57]

The sequel to 2021’s ‘Music Of The Spheres’ – and one of the band’s final records – gently and subtly distils that spirit of weathering any storm, going on a journey from that bleak opening moment to a more accepting, happier ending.

Endless Boogie justify indulgence via countless glorious shut-eye air guitar moments that nod to the Groundhogs, Canned Heat, the Stones at their tuffest.

ESG remain a no-wave New York group unlike any other.

Not only does it showcase Pearl Jam reclaiming the charm that first made them a force to be reckoned with back in 1991, it comes alongside some of their most impressive musicianship yet, as well as a determination to take risks after years of playing it safe.

Fearless in their desire to break out of any pigeonholes but smart enough to play to their strengths, Haiku Hands’ self-titled debut does good on all that live promise and takes on new challenges as the trio adapt to the world around them.

As a statement of blingy opulence, it’s a big look. As gangsta move, it’s pretty potent too. At the same time, though, it proves that while Shabazz Palaces are definitely moving in hip-hop’s orbit, they’re spinning further out than most.

What A Time To Be Alive often sounds more like a Drake album than the jazzier, busier records that Future usually creates. Yet the Atlanta rapper dominates the record, demonstrating his impressive adaptability.

Just as their previous fetish for deep distortion and a limited set of chords did, pink-hued noir here can prove to be something of an acquired taste. However, it never sinks into unintentional parody, earning it the acclaim of sounding like nothing else currently out there.

Follow-up Ready For The Magic is just as angry and their sometimes gauzy alt-rock is beefed up to ferocious levels.

Drunk, as out-there as it can be, is an album totally high on its own unique ideas.

At 18 tracks, ‘In the Meantime’ meanders a bit towards the finish, though there are no real duds here.

This collection encouraged them to follow their instincts and embrace the melodies, choruses and beats that arrived the fastest. The result is brilliant, bruising dance music right from the gut.

Simz’s storytelling is deft and full of range, gliding between generational trauma (‘Broken’) and faith and the grind (‘Who Even Cares’) with ease. The album’s sonic palette, meanwhile, takes on a mellower and less grandiose tone, with Inflo – the producer behind her last two records and the mysterious musical project Sault – and collaborator Cleo Sol bringing a warm, homely base for Simz to nestle in.

Route One... is an enlightening joy because it trips all over the place, from darkness to bright to fast to slow to synthetic to organic and back again, and that's not because of any one person's influence.

A record of sonic maturity and real beauty. [2 Jul 2005, p.64]