Perhaps ‘Shatter’ is almost too powerful. Once it’s over, the rest of the album feels much more muted – still pretty, still pleasant, still thought-provoking, but like the energy that came before has been spent.

Of all the dead genres, you’d think it would be hard to credibly reinvent blaxplotation-era soul, but The Heavy (who, along with Pop Levi, are heading up Ninja Tunes’ new imprint Counter Records) pull it off explosively well.

For a record just 30 minutes long it feels impossibly epic and for all its scuzzy, lo-fi production, it still sounds fully realised. Not to mention fully brilliant.

Two Suns is epic in scope and ambition and requires a similarly epic patience to unravel its charms.

So, while their Beach Boys on mescaline tricks won't rewrite the rulebook, for reckless frivolity they'll do just fine.

From the get-go, his highly-anticipated debut album delivers exactly what it promises with its stylish, nostalgic artwork: a distinct world filled with hazy strings, warped synths and vocals that range from a flawless ’70s-style falsetto to laid-back speech. It’s retro-inspired through a modern lens.

Though the emotional details can get swept up in the wall of sound, ‘If Not Winter’ is still a triumphant debut – and more than anything, the sound of a young artist who’s still growing into herself.

A common thread can be found in CYRK, Cate's second album: the application of a sincere pop-song sensibility, and a yen for the surreal that sidesteps the zany.

By marrying their fun-lovin’ musicality with songs that stand up to injustices, Dream Nails rollicking debut will rattle around your head for days on end – for more reason than one.

Viola Beach is an album that, against all odds, leaves you with a smile on your face.

Part of this brilliant record’s charm is its potential to be a low-stakes, high-quality one-off – a curio waiting to be discovered somewhere along the way.

In a cleaner, more mature, concerned-about-its-blood-pressure manner, Head Carrier revisits Pixies’ prime, primal age, melodically pumped and squaring up confidently to its admittedly formidable forebears.

As they adopt the very sounds that cultivated them on their come-up, ‘Ghetto Gods’ should mark the start of EarthGang’s ascension to superstardom.

This is an album that sits well alongside classics such as 1987's 'You're Living All Over Me'. In other words: a genuine monster.

CMAT will have you in stitches one second and emotionally suckerpunched the next. It’s brilliant. Inventive, intoxicating, deliciously camp – she continues to transcend all expectations and remains absolutely unmatched.

Fat White Family are a band reborn. ‘Serfs Up!’ is the richest, most accomplished music they’ve ever written.

Combining the band’s slightly sidelined knack for writing huge, immediately memorable pop bangers with the more complex, neurotic lyrical voice of The 1975’s more recent releases, ‘Being Funny In A Foreign Language’ feels like the right next step after pushing experimental excess to its logical conclusion.

What makes it so compelling is the simplicity of concept: like everyone, they get pissed off by jerkish behaviour, subdued by small misfortunes and comfort themselves with life’s small pleasures.

On his Sub Pop debut, he's sliced off the excess, preachy rhetoric for something inventive, bold and brilliantly fresh.

Oasis can't help but sound like a group battling to free themselves from being last century's thing.

Every album is a chapter in Frank’s on-going aural autobiography, and Positive Songs is his Getting Over It dispatch.

As a simple collection of songs, it’s as strong as anything they’ve come up with since 2004’s ‘American Idiot’.

The band now merges genres confidently and coolly, creating carefree indie pop tracks, yet always reserving a seat for their rock band roots.

By freshening up his style without entirely abandoning it, West still has the rest of the rap world playing catch-up.

Allen’s lo-fi production does nothing to dispel the notion that we’re eavesdropping on his innermost thoughts. At a time where many encumber sleepless nights and intense self-reflection, Puma Blue’s debut may well provide a brief moment of relief for those lost in the darkness.

It’s evident the band have begun a new chapter where they appreciate rather than become their influences. They’ve truly 
arrived.

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.

'Volta' is another amazing statement of intent - full of hope, eccentricity and wonderfulness.