With this record, there is Britpop, Radiohead, Spiritualized, grunge, trip-hop and more basking under an astral, space-rock umbrella, and Pumarosa have turned it all into a contorting, ornamental obelisk.

I Romanticize bobs around with a collage of springy trinkets that both confound and fascinate, though never without trying to make sense of his eccentric impulses.

With producer Andrew Schneider tweaking the knobs, his experience producing Unsane certainly applying here, KEN mode elevates their sonic outcry, hitting levels of discomfort with the subtly seasick Learning To Be Too Cold, thrash-bred Not Soulmates, and the manic combination of sounds in Fractures In Adults.

These remarkably self-assured ten tracks stand on their own with joyful inventiveness, as McGreevy tries to make sense of his past mistakes (Old Times) and alcohol-induced pseudo-intellectual babbling (Fit to Burst) through their joyous outbursts.

Fairweather Friend is a great record, a genre standout deserving of adoration and acclaim beyond the niche of specialist blogs and, let’s be honest, the No Ripcords of the world. Great songs are still great songs in 2024. If you like those, you’ll love The Umbrellas.

Their quiet, understated charms reward the kind of focused listening that is seemingly less fashionable in this screen-addled age. III might not lend itself to modern playlist culture, but if you’re looking for a 2026 release to truly invest in, its exquisite beauty will reward your time and efforts many times over.

Only one year later and we have Two Dancers an album so laden with lush densities and provocative melodies that you would be forgiven for thinking this album had taken ten years to make.

While they add a few new tricks to their arsenal, whether adding an extra layer of polish to their tried-and-true hardcore (SUNSHOWER, SOLE) or a touch of bright, jangly new wave (I CARE, SEEIN' STARS), their crossover attempts feel frustratingly half-hearted for a band that genuinely subscribes to the healing power of music.

Petals for Armor succeeds best at sustaining a mood throughout, capturing the chaotic ups and downs of depression. Some moments are sugary sweet, while others are biting and angry, but the album keeps things healthy by switching between infectious pop tunes and mellow art-pop parts.

Truly electrifying.

It’s a wondrous gem of an album that, even at its most lustrous, manifests itself with biting precision.

Magus captures well the force of its players throughout its near 90-minute runtime, the culmination of which occurs in the album’s final track, Supremacy.

Pierce commits to an intricately layered masterwork that brims with beauty at every turn. He has come close to writing a Motown-inspired ballad-like Let it Bleed (For Iggy) before, but here, in typically unorthodox fashion, Pierce nails down that aesthetic while serving up Britpop grandeur this side of Blur’s The Universal.

The eclectic range Bey displays in Fidelity occasionally runs into filler, but it also drops clues into what her next big statement might entail.

A glorious triumph.... The Decemberists deserve to become your new favourite band.

The final three songs aren’t quite as engaging, but it’s clear that Sorry have done enough to ensure Cosplay is worth revisiting—even if a few judicious clicks on the skip button will be necessary.

FLOTUS is much more than another genre effort, where Wagner deeply alters his usual country bearings and gives it a new and unexpected orientation.

Ekstasis abounds with originality and depth; soars and sinks; expands and implodes; evolves and dissipates; crackles and breaks all within one cohesive sound.

Celebration Rock's high-tempo riff rock concerns itself with energy and embraces our serendipitous run-ins with those good times worth remembering.

This isn’t political, but it is personal, comical, sad, satirical, intelligent and refreshingly honest.

She heads into more accessible waters —on tracks like Down on Me and Confessions, Davis softens her pop-meets-classical mishmash with a mellifluous inflection that gives clarity to her self-empowering message. And like a memoir of sorts, she goes through stories that range from her birth to the present day.

The record stands as the most shocking thing the Odd Future collective has put out to date: a R&B record with crossover potential without sacrificing soul that creates a complete picture of its author, warts and all.

Sheer Mag’s heady mixture of influences shouldn’t work. And yet, their tireless curiosity and genuine affection for rock song forms is what separates Need to Feel Your Love from sounding like a conventional tribute.

These tracks resonate through lovely pop music, the core that ties together these songs, but there’s plenty of stylistic range—disco, jangle, chamber pop, Brill Building—to both chew on and delight in.

At its best, Laughter In Summer is deeply affecting and genuinely beautiful. At its least compelling (“Children’s Anthem,” “Harbour”), it remains enjoyably wholesome, but falls well short of his finest work, where Glenn-Copeland’s simple lyrical sentiments were adorned with more engaging layers and textures. Still, it feels unreasonable to grumble.

Despite Holter's all-around meticulousness, Aviary never comes across as careful or rigorous. She engages in artful replication, seeking to understand those voices she successfully reconstructs with a feeling of apprehension and anticipation. And in the process, leaving her own imprint for others to also discover in centuries to come.

He’s on a full-on conversationalist binge on Sky, though it’ll demand your extra attention since the album’s turbulent production tends to obscure most of his learned reflections. In spite of this, it wouldn’t be a true Mould record if it didn’t hit you with that pummeling, noisy sheen.

These are songs that you feel more than listen to. Everyone has encountered some sort of mental illness, addiction or crisis of faith, whether in your life or another’s. Not only does Baker prove that you’re not alone, but she finds a way to make it better.