Whatever happens next, Shears has certainly delivered one of the year’s most welcome and infectious comeback albums.

While The 1975 don’t own radio-rock just yet, Rituals feels a little too much like Deaf Havana have lost sight of their own signature, while hammering at the heels of Healy’s.

This is the sound of a musician who has worked to forge an entire world, an empire, around himself--we can peer in, but from afar, guessing at his motives and life behind the velvet rope.

This album shows his growth as both an artist, and as aa person who’s had to deal with the most private aspects of their life being publicly dissected. It’s a stellar--if somewhat overlong--artistic statement.

Teatime Dub Encounters doesn’t pale in their shadow or smack of a vanity or side project. This is a whole new monster born of the friction from a restless need to create, the pure abandon to do whatever the fuck feels good, and the batshit brilliance from three mad scientists with so much still to prove. Others of their standing may choose the wallowing legacy of safety. These guys do not.

There are no dull moments, but if there’s even a brief drop in intensity, it should only be used to reflect on the energy you probably just felt.

Sutherland’s taken dancehall to the American mainstream, but, with Forever, he also transports us to a better world--where positivity reigns.

Sure, it’s worth making the effort if you’re already a Segall Stan or a White Fence mega fan, but beyond that? There’s little here to latch onto that’ll make your stay worthwhile.

Melding Motown melodies and pop chords for heartbreak and house party listeners alike, Hive Mind is a triumph.

If ‘Dust’ was Halo’s sprawling, lush, wildly diverse ‘Life of Pablo’, then the sparse, introverted ‘Raw Silk Uncut Wood’ is her ‘ye’, the sound of an artist regrouping to test new boundaries before she forges ahead once again.

There’s plenty of fun, filth and frills to go around with McHale’s latest venture.

Filthy, sexy, thoroughly debauched pop at its finest; Palo Santo feels like a magical album.

It’s a marvellous return to form for an act that possesses such unbridled creative energy. We’re glad they’ve been put to joyous use this time round.

Deafheaven’s brilliance has long been hung upon the pursuit of a truth, like documentarians before they hit the edit suite. These songs are filthy, dank, often devoid of light, but like a weed emerging from a pavement’s crack, there’s something resembling hope there. A suggestion that maybe there’s something more.

Two years ago, such a mis-match of styles usually resulted in dizzying chaos for the duo, here it’s inventive and enjoyable as they capture teenage life with devastating precision.

The star’s hubris is no more apparent than in its sheer breadth and lack of quality control. At 25 tracks in total, Scorpion is way too long--even by Drake’s own standards--and simply doesn’t need to be.

Stripped to the bare bones of her soul and the sentiment, her truth shines--and there’s a beauty in that. The only thing holding it back is a lack of risk, but there’s still so much comfort in the familiar.

20 years after the outlines of the band was first sketched by co-creator Jamie Hewlett, the band clearly still stands as a vivid creative outlet for Albarn. He’s managed to tap into the chaotic ethos so electrifying and unpredictable first time round, and reanimate the band’s fortunes in dazzling fashion.

It’s the sound of a band bolstering their already formidable palette. Free from the shackles of Reznor’s self-imposed trilogy of releases, the masters of melancholy sound rejuvenated, and ready for another 30-plus years as kings of the musical underworld.

Expectations isn’t flawless, but it’s a compelling re-introduction to an underrated artist--one capable of putting her own stamp on current pop sounds.

The album was written immediately after Brendon’s recent stint in the Broadway musical ‘Kinky Boots’, and while it’s fair to say he’s always had a flair for theatrics, the experience has injected these tracks with unprecedented levels of sass and drama. Urie is clearly still relishing the role of the sonic bachelor, and it shows. On Pray, it sounds like he’s having a total blast.

Gang Gang Dance’s sixth album, just like their previous work, emphasises how there’s a vast world beyond our closest surroundings.

Yes, there’s joy to be found in hearing a musician so unshackled from expectation and finding catharsis in the experience. But Boy Voyage lacks a running thread, centrepiece or concept to build itself around. It’s a wild, space-age trip that could do with a return ticket back to Earth.

Everything is Love may lack the immediate impact of Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s respective solo latest records, but it’s still interesting to see two of the biggest stars in the world relax. ... There’s nothing glitzy here; it all just works.

As the name suggests, Nothing Is Still is a fluid, complete piece of electronic music that sways from thoughtful down-tempo beats to swelling pieces of orchestral beauty. There are particular moments of beauty, though.

Liberation may lack the grand ambition and massive pop bangers of her glory days, but by the end, it’s hard to deny that she feels reasonably relevant and contemporary again.

Crossing boundaries of pop music and chasing transcendence, SOPHIE achieves the rare feat of making abstract, difficult electronic music that hits you straight in the heart.

Whilst stylistically Nasir may well have plenty of strong moments, its contradictions make it a difficult, problematic listen: it’s the silences on here which so often deafen.