While it's called The Kid, the LP shows Smith has matured as an artist.

This is straight-up fight music. 2017 - 2019 isn't quite this lairy elsewhere, but most of it is jagged, hard-hitting and seriously over-driven. The change has Jaar sounding artistically replenished.

There's still plenty of juice left in the ideas Four Tet favours. ... This club/non-club ratio is similar to that of New Energy, the last Four Tet album, but Sixteen Oceans surpasses that LP through the strength of its ambient and electronica.

Theory Of Colours works equally well as a collection of chill-out jams or club tracks for DJs. It's a dance floor album that isn't all that concerned with the dance floor, which makes it a pleasure to listen to from front to back.

They've become powerful songwriters since they focused on the craft in 2010, and Foam Island shows it off more than anything else.

Eyeroll is Ziúr's most punk record to date, planting her proudly on the fringes where she's happiest.

A singularly impressive work.

AIN'T NO DAMN WAY!'s 12 tracks are a cohesive joyride through Kaytra's earliest influences, indulging his omnivorous taste for rap, jazz and orchestral music through the connective tissue of house.

Trumpets, drums, vocals, violins, flutes, saxophones and cellos make for a much fuller, richer and more authentic sound than ever before.

On Restless Idylls, Lobo has cemented Tropic Of Cancer as her own, crafting a signature sound that is sleek and addictive.

Fire is a classic-style Bug album, just with everything turned up to 11. It's more intense, but the rhythms are familiar and the format is the same.

Though Malone's music can often feel still, one thing's for certain about Does Spring Hide Its Joy: it'll move you.

Roisin Machine captures the singer at her most triumphant, finally comfortable in her role as an alt-pop icon—there's something casual and more assured about this Roisin Murphy.

The complexities of romance, alcohol dependence, the fragility of life and untimely death weave in and out of intricate arrangements of manipulated vocals and bold melodies.

Sleek, confident and totally captivating, New Epoch is bound to attract interest and even incite excitement in those who might have thought the 140 BPM form outmoded and uninteresting.

While some of Black Up isn't a million miles from his former group's darker corners, it's not particularly like much else. It's all present tense, in a way too little is, and brash, bold, and weird about it. Per one of his more baffling lines: "up, or don't toss it at all."

From the way the melodies climb through the hanging atmosphere of "Ripples" to the Sasha-like glitter of "Cloud Refuge," Swirlings is full of lovely, considered music that sticks in your mind long after the synth fog dissipates.

The result could have been an album so mournful as to lose itself in self-serious introspection, but Dedication's brief track lengths mean the album is breezy in a manner unbefitting of its ostensibly grave subject matter.

LP might be Ren Schofield's shortest album as Container, but it's also the one that best captures the full elemental force of his music.

A well-considered and promising debut album, one that knows just when to stop and breathe before breaking another sweat.

Da Mind Of Traxman Vol. 2 might not be Traxman's most innovative album, but that's fine. It's still one of the genre's most singular records so far.

Elasticity rewards repeat listens from start to finish.

In the end, LP1 is probably the most singular pop album of the year. It's testament to how emotionally affecting one person's realised vision can be.

While the record is certainly appreciable on purely musical terms--this is evocative, heart-tugging stuff--when knowledge of Kirby's intent lurks underneath the damaged acetate grooves, it becomes something else entirely: A poignant interrogation of memory loss and aging.

It's hard to argue with the result anyway: Its slow build and aching vocals stand out as a purposeful moment of perfection on a record chock full of them.

This collection gives a certain joy that a hyper-specific brand of record collector gets from the "not gonna make it easy on you" type of inspiration.

On an initial spin, the record's cold sheen is its most appealing quality. But what makes it so replayable is the layers that emerge once it thaws.

Free from spatial or historical associations, these songs now feel modern and ancient at once. The album's undulating textures can distort familiar surroundings and plunge the listener into heady contemplation. It's a defining work for Davachi that once again demonstrates her uncanny ability to draw new and arresting shapes and feelings from familiar materials.