It encourages you to empathise with the subjects of the songs, and therefore adds some light to the melancholy. It scores highly because it weaves all these scenarios and tales over subtle yet richly varied music. For Mark Kozelek this is yet another career highlight.

Atrocity Exhibition, through assertive honesty, embraces Danny's self-assaulting cycle and this time, he's not looking for any personal help. That may be because he's making the most focused, textured music of his career instead and it's clear he's abandoned any afterthought of possible radio panhandling or herd-minded mainstream appeal.

With Eagle already standing as one of the peaks of modern folk music, we would not necessarily have expected to hear another knockout record from her, but there’s no denying Semper Femina stands toe-to-toe with her opus.

Careful attention to details grounds the story and makes it believable. You know, insomuch as a tale of transangels can be believable.

These are sprightly, assured, gratifying pop songs, pirouetting with enough agitated inventiveness to ensure each run is sunny, surprising, and fluently fun; a damn fine Summer record.

Pink City is a richly lyrical and instrumental tapestry weaving new life into traditional folk music by placing it in a Canadian backdrop which typifies her interpretation.

With Life Metal ... they have minimized those aspects of their sound which were perhaps becoming too comfortable for them, and too familiar for the audience. The result is a work rich in texture, depth and tenderness.

With clear intent, Omoiyari is a strong example of that rare moment when a musician finds their true stride later in their career. Kishi Bashi has offered up a truly essential statement.

While MNIMN's faults lie in its sequencing and filler, Darkest Before Dawn is concentrated and trimmed. And Pusha T, strengthened.

Musically, Mannequin Pussy show off a new-found nuance and detailed understanding that backs up this intricate situation perfectly, spinning the threads of guitar so beautifully that you can mistake the song for romantic, before you’re knocked back to earth by the painful reality of the situation.

We are guests in her world, after all, and Hell-On is precisely the breezy rock record we may need right now. If you need proof, any of the 12 tracks here will suffice.

To be sure, his willingness to descend into darkness, both regarding the world and within himself, is a large part of the man's appeal, but here he seems to have misunderstood, or simply ignored, what makes him truly great.

You can’t say that Two Hands is an overtly hopeful album, but it is far from hopeless. Rather, it is realistic and grounded. Big Thief’s restraint in adding the production wizardry they showcased on U.F.O.F. is a key move to making the songs of Two Hands really hit their mark.

If Astroworld suffers from any sin, it’s a nearly endless ambition.

The production isn't the only platinum facet of LIZZOBANGERS. Her technical ability is unparalleled. She doesn't just summon narratives or tell stories, she uses pace and rhythm and dialect to shape a song.

There is no ignoring the allusions to the natural world. And with big orchestration and even bigger ambition, the band were able to show just how we are only a small part of something much bigger.

Nilüfer Yanya has managed to produce an album which flits from one template to the next, yet at no time is there a tendency to feel that this is contrived and neither does it suggest an artist scrabbling around for an identity and an audience which then comes with it. These shifts in style always feel controlled, as though the song demands them.

Sivan may indeed only be 23 and while he might not be a gay icon just yet, records like Bloom which clearly and proudly sing about same sex relationships while sounding shiny and polished in all the right places, will certainly help him get there.

Though there are a million details about BEYONCÉ to examine--from the release strategy to the visual aspect and more--the strongest ideas are still found solely in the music. She addresses topics like beauty, body image, miscarriages, jealousy, sexuality, marriage, motherhood and self-worth.

Many a songwriter has tortured themselves to twist and turn these experiences into new metaphorical shapes, but Jacklin has resisted. By laying out her honest realities in plain sight, she has not only allowed herself to heal, but she has offered a healing process to others.

The Age of Immunology honors a potentially fading ideal. Should it all come crashing down, it's hard to think of a more fitting, colorful, and ambitious tribute than the one Vanishing Twin have given us here.

They continue to plough the same furrow as on their previous albums, yet with a little more urgency, consistency and richness that some of their earlier work lacked. There is a simplicity here, both in terms of lyrical content and musicality.

Fantasy Empire is the sound of a band modifying their sound rather than totally changing direction and whilst their spontaneity may have been tempered by their new ways of recording, their intensity and creativity remains very much intact.

Jason Pierce and co. have earned a victory lap. Thankfully, rather than gallivanting about the record, the band are still very much engaged, crafting what can feel like a Greatest Hits of all original material.

Islands is truly singular work, emotionally affecting, funky, infectious and philosophical.

All in all it's a time of self-expression and free-revelation, common features that make Love's Crushing Diamond so very beguiling, and warm its very earnest center.

Spelling continuously reinvents herself and her sound. What at first listen may turn many off bears repeated listening, through the often terrifying kaleidoscope of sound is a melodic pop centre.

At their peak, and not infrequently on Snares Like a Haircut they’re within touching distance, No Age are one of the most thrilling rock bands on this planet.

Ultimately though, it is about mixing disparate influences and seeing how they blend together. Happily for all of us, this approach works brilliantly.

They motor through these fifteen tracks with an energy and a precision that is a joy to hear, with the needles in the red all the way.

Unpacked individually, there’s a lot to love about each track and a laundry list of potential inspirations.

Freddie is an easily digestible trap album, not revolutionary or underwhelming but average considering Gibbs’ catalogue of work.

Jenny Hval has never come closer to a universal truth. If she’s often felt to have been speaking from on high, Hval has never been more purely human than on The Practice of Love.

Named both in recognition of this being the band’s fourth studio album and for the passing of lead singer Jeremy Bolm’s mother from cancer in 2014, Stage Four is a towering record. Few albums this year, if any, have felt more capable of telling such vivid, striking stories with such clarity and palpable emotion.

Channelling the vivacity of the Beatnik poets in her hurtling metre and arrestingly forensic imagery, Tempest unravels a modesty in the metaphysics all the more powerful for its naturalism.

It’s her most complete-feeling album to date, and never seems like Halo is trying to please anyone but herself. Yet, she also manages to create emotional bridges through the sincerity of her compositions.

Hadreas let a little light in, upped the production values and expanded his sonic repertoire, creating a near-masterpiece of hair-raising emotional evocation.

Sulphur English strips the band’s sound of much of the colour and light that they had increasingly let in over their past few releases, to send listeners careening, disorientated, into a dark and stormy night of the soul, with little promise of a brighter dawn.

Blood Bitch an interesting step forward from previous record Apocalypse, girl. It takes the guilty, ominous tone of that record and transforms it into something transcendent.

If Springsteen’s characters aren’t all that multifaceted, they’re at least part of songs that are. ... When Springsteen cuts into his characters’ pain is when Western Stars stands out as one of his best late-period works.

Wildheart is a leap in the right direction but Miguel hasn't shed off all of pop's restrictive trappings just yet.

Even at five tracks, Heterocetera is a strong, visceral electronic record that maintains its ambition and intensity from beginning to end.

Ephorize signals the true genesis of a fully realized, ambitious voice in hip hop.

With Hope Downs, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever have adroitly taken their trademark sound and expanded it into a thoroughly enjoyable album--and they’ve done it in rapid time.

It shimmers with an enchanting beauty that this writer at least has yet to find in any other song this year.

Burn Your Fire, through increased complexity of instrumentation, creates a new dynamic--the vocal is more understated and reserved, less elusive and divergent --it's autonomy partially tethered by the whole ensembles balanced interrelation.

Here, Cardi’s explosive personality translates flawlessly into confidence-saturated rhymes about hardships, love and success.

Singularity would be a dependable record to show someone in the process of discovering the wider world of electronic music, as it is exceptionally accessible, yet at the same time I feel that that same sense of accessibility and friendliness is what is wrong with it.

ANIMA isn't an overly kind record. It is, however, eternally honest.

All that's left are tightly compacted songs that may not have a reflective gloss to them, but instead light their own way.

It's her sprawling vocal range and smart, sharp songwriting that holds everything together, making Premonitions a thoroughly enjoyable and dazzling collection from one of the more promising artists in recent years.

It's a rich and rewarding experience, one that offers a powerful glimpse into the everyday lives of those members of marginalized communities struggling for acceptance in an increasingly closed, divided, and hostile society.

There's a strong sense that Our Love is an important step in the evolution of Caribou. Whatever the formula is, it's working.

This is as close to pop perfection as music as seen in quite some time.

Chilly Gonzales has shown time and again that he’s a composer worthy of our attention and this is just one more instance that proves him right. Solo Piano III is Gonzales at his most traditional, but with hints of his more disarming inner ego.

He brings a force with him that can't be found on any previous release of his, and if his brilliance hasn't swayed your take on him in the past, Who Told You To Think?! is an extremely attentive and translucent entry-point into the modern philosophies and ideals of one of the best emcees of this generation.

With the exception of the chart beckoning 'Out of My head' with Tove Lo, every track here has the structure of subverted pop destined for the decades beyond.

Take Me Apart doesn't feel desperate to reach for anything, it is comfortable, prepared for whatever may come, much like its bearer. Greatness hasn't sounded this natural in this arena for some time. This is everything.

Ben Frost has pulled off something quite remarkable with A U R O R A in making a record that's pretty terrifying in places yet so utterly irresistible.

While Raw Silk Uncut Wood may alienate some in its distinctness from her back catalogue it finds a firm place in her ever-growing oeuvre.

Your Need is an impressively produced, immaculate-sounding, often beguiling record, whose slightness and concision are its only real drawbacks.

Wiley has curated a project that binds the generations of Grime and acts as the final confirmation of the genre’s return.

It’s Calvi’s most complete record yet. It grasps the catchiness of her debut, and kneads in an increased sense of maturity in her delivery of topical subjects, brought together with seasoned production and her expectedly dexterous, mighty voice.

Infinite Worlds is accomplished and stirring, but it’s also sprinkled with surprise intimacies, distinguishing it as one of the most remarkable and challenging releases so far this year.

All in all, Everything’s Fine lays bold claim to being one of the most unique rap albums in recent memory. It cuts through the repetitive commercialism of the modern experience with dryly comedic lyrics over a vast collection of beats influenced by decades of hip-hop, r’n’b and jazz.

It’s a thoughtful, considered progression by one of the UK’s most thoughtful, considerate producers.

There are tracks on here that will undoubtedly go down in the pantheon of great Ty Segall songs and be taken out on stage to thrill and delight. The rest can be quickly and easily enjoyed, then entirely forgotten about--which doesn’t really matter, since we’re probably only a year or so away from yet another Ty Segall album.

The infusion of genre's and styles certainly makes the record feel like a score that would be used in an Olympic opening or indeed closing ceremony.

Not one second of How To Die in the North feels over-worked or incongruous.

Yolk In The Fur proves Wild Pink as a band that proclaim a strength in authenticity that is matched by a growth in character.

CHAI may be a fledgling band, but on PINK, they’re already shockingly sure of their sound and what they want to accomplish with it. It doesn’t hurt that they kick ass at it.

Siblings is not an easy listen, but it is a fantastically varied one. Self is at his most compelling when he is contrasting anarchic beats and chopped up vocals with more standard pop composition. It may take me another few dozen listens to fully understand the structure of Colin Self’s new album. That can only be to his credit.

Mushonga’s take on music is globe-trotting and (as per the title) galaxy-spanning. Though it runs the gamut of Afropop, chamber pop, and synthpop, the intention never feels like subgenres are being ticked off. This is soul music, literally and figuratively.

The title couldn't be more appropriate--it's an album about the healing power of music, a testament from someone who made it through, a shout to keep going.

Over repeated listens, the former evolves into a touching meditation on love’s complexity and erraticism, where introspection intercedes the Big Important Questions.

Need To Feel Your Love is more than just a terrific debut, it also happens to be of the best damn rock records released this year. What makes it work so well has to do with the sincerity of the band themselves.

Aviary is an incredibly immersive voyage and arguably her greatest achievement. In fact, it wouldn’t be too bold to say this is an Art pop masterpiece via one of the best songwriters alive—it’s just not for everyone, and Holter is ok with that.

What elevates Turn Out The Lights is that it’s sensory as well as earnest, personally destabilising while artfully assured; it oscillates in the spilling synaesthesia of panic attacks, the dizzying clarity of epiphany, the paralysing futility of depressive episodes, the unfathomable locus of being okay.

July is infectious. It translates well to many ears.

uknowhatimsayin¿ may not immediately shine as brightly as the grandly ambitious and fearlessly experimental XXX or Atrocity Exhibition, and some of its tracks and vocal hooks are a little undercooked, but Brown’s latest reveals itself more and more with each listen.

It all adds up to a pretty remarkable reinvention and album of leftfield synth-pop that is dark and mysterious enough to beguile in any language.

Although standalone each song is catchy and refreshingly danceable, they don't add up towards a comprehensive album experience. There is little variation from the funk-punk, and slower tracks like 'Flee!' feel weaker to their more nervy counterparts.

Although the performances on Live in Paris are spot on, they don’t fulfil the promise of the concert. It can’t convey the feeling of the floor moving during the chorus of ‘Bury Our Friends’. It lacks the visual component of Tucker and Brownstein kicking and howling while playing.

Dose Your Dreams creates a vividly realised world I love to visit. Once I press play, I feel compelled to see it through to the end. Other listeners will tackle it in chunks.

Right now, it can feel like every artistic statement is part of a grand commentary on our collective entropy. Joan Shelley plays on all of our nostalgia for calmer days. Her latest album is great shelter from the gathering storm.

Skepta has learned to remain steadily himself in the face of hurdling success, while delivering one of the most vital albums in the history (and for the future) of globally accepted grime.

Whilst SORROW is clearly marked by genius, the scope and weight of this project is so substantial that the individual talent of a virtuoso like Stetson is somewhat buried, stepping back from the centre stage and once again filling the role of collaborator.

A better summertime album will be hard to find this year. You can expect to see Whitney's name on a lot of year-end lists and deservedly so.

Nothing feels forced. The ease with which the compositions flow and lyrics are sung is something any aspiring musician should hope to accomplish. case/ lang/ veirs wrote an album that captures the beauty in pain and the flaws in magnificence.

Saturn is quite the trip, more than worthy of its stellar name.

Not only is Still Brazy, arguably the most sharply produced rap album of the year, emblazoned with the most pronounced storytelling of 2016, YG has un-apologetically used his gunshot as a metaphor for America in the time of Trump.

Wildflower might not be perfect, but it is gorgeous, heartwarming and fun. Its upbeat outlook is infectious and sure to be the soundtrack to many summers to come.

Genuine, life-affirming innovation is hard to come by, but you recognise it when it asks more questions than it gives answers. I challenge you to find an album that's less intended for straight-up consumption.

An incredibly physical record (both tonally and lyrically) with a greater focus on percussion.

Their ambition and drive is truly ‘Beyondless’, and that’s the galvanising effect and feeling you get as a listener when finishing Iceage’s latest statement album.

As jagged and dark as Dead might appear, there's a real celebratory feel to this album and that's down to some fantastic influences.

This is a gratifying song collection.

Where Nothing Feels Natural suffers is in the R&D department. Many of the ideas only make a couple of appearances. ... Still, there’s quite a lot to like here, and it’s mostly due to Greer--the speak-sing existentialism of ‘No Big Bang’, the Everything Goes Wrong-era Vivian Girls homage on ‘Nothing Feels Natural’, the ragged heartbeat of ‘Appropriate’.