Everything Now isn’t so much a misstep as a faceplant, hitting every wrong note with the same precision they hit every right one on Funeral. It’s a compositional mess, somehow both gratuitously moralising and morally repugnant, duller than watching already-dry paint.

Z is promising but it seems that SZA's identity isn't truly clear as there are too many different styles competing to be heard.

Although the production looks outward, the recording of these songs is up close and personal, playing up the physicality of Van Wissem's playing as much as the notes themselves. Each string slide and pluck is heard perfectly across much of the airy phrasing.

It's a superficial thrill ride but without those evocative moments, that captivating emotional core, it lacks staying power.

She's played it safe, probably on her label's whim, when really, perilous rule-breakers would have been better suited to her lyrical style.

It is shocking, it's exciting and it doesn't attempt to give any easy answers or clues as to its real intentions.

PersonA is an album based largely around Ebert's continued drive to reinvent himself to appease a particular audience. Unfortunately, the Magnetic Zeros and their brand of music is not one well suited to the audience they were attempting to find this time around.

Their latest adds a number of new facets to their performance, without diluting what makes their reality any less romantic.

The songs get you moving just enough. The melodies and lyrics gently grab you by the ears.

While the atmosphere of Slow Air enthralls with captivating layers of sedated synth and breathtaking reverb, the stunning production quality can’t save Still Corners from sinking into the increasingly crowded waters of the dream pop scene.

Matthewdavid is forever littering these tracks with too many disparate ideas and sometimes you find yourself wishing he'd taken more lessons from his previous LP and realised that less is more.

LANY is certainly listenable and its hour run-time isn’t a total drag (grating voicemail interlude ‘Parents’ notwithstanding). There’s just a deficit of substance in an album that practically seems to be begging for you to feel something.

There are hints of previously visited melodies, familiar heard-befores and usual arrangements, but perhaps what it lacks in innovative compositions and originality, it augments through euphoric beautiful moments that feel undeniably genuine.

The L-Shaped Man makes for a fascinating homage to the band that spawned a million t-shirts. How Ceremony will fit many of these new songs into their set lists without creating an odd pace remains to be seen, but the group has clearly attempted to showcase their veneration and done so with conviction.

They say love is blind; on the basis of this intelligently balanced LP, though, it certainly isn't deaf.

Each of the ten (plus one bonus) tracks has earned their place here and sits on the tracklisting proudly as such, leaving none of the excess that sometimes plagued their earlier releases.

Weatherhouse houses its own experiences but could just be listened to as a sub-experience of Radiohead. It shares many of experimental shifts using beat and synths to explore mood, only without the hooks and utterly unique melodies that nobody but Radiohead can produce.

In general, the album feels like a grab-bag of 'button issues', others' ideas, and content truly desperate to bear high-minded importance, but proves little more than Logic has clearly heard some Kendrick.

Passover may be an album of grieving, but it is not beholden to the process. While many albums of loss are as hard to hear as they are beautiful, Shields has opted for a somewhat more welcoming approach.

There's a cracking EP in amongst the tracks on Boys, but no shortage of filler, too.

No major leaps have been made and no showstoppers have been added. An effort to buck convention make have actually just made the project slide a few steps backwards.

Acoustic guitar-driven folk music blends fervently with spoken word-esque rap verses and passionate R&B-mingled choruses through fourteen emotional purpose-driven tracks brimming with woke material and a call to change for the millennial '90s baby generation like the passionate artist out of Stone Mountain, Georgia.

Expectations surpasses any you might have had.

It’s palatable, well-performed, but rarely involving. It’s a shame that the most exciting thing about a collaboration between Charles Hayward and Thurston Moore is that it’s a collaboration between Charles Hayward and Thurston Moore.

The band rarely have anything interesting to say.

The main take away from The Straight Hits! is that Josh T. Pearson has a lot more facets to his music than he may have previously let on.

The main problem with Shiny is that half of its tracklisting is dedicated to mid-tempo rockers that are only fractionally better than 'Knights of Malta.’ ... With some more time and care, ‘Silvery Sometimes’ could have been an unimpeachable addition to the Pumpkins canon. As it stands, it suffers the fate of being packaged in what will likely go down as one of the worst albums in the band’s discography.

The highlight of Best of Times is its epics; the ambition of their social commentary is matched by their compositional complexity.

This album is never afraid to speak its mind and voice its elastic relationship with love, pulled close only to be pinged apart.

There may be variances in sound on a track-by-track basis, but individual songs lack any real dynamic shifts and as a result this makes Transfixiation a fairly gruelling listen.

One or two additional flashes of brilliance fail to act as saving graces, however, leaving Await Barbarians a disappointing effort from one of modern pop's mavericks.

In general, Young Romance is a record that wears its influences plainly on its pulsating sleeves. It may not astound you, but like a pleasant day by the pool, it’s more than pleasant enough to be worth it.

Wanderlust has more hits than misses, and clearly places Sophie Ellis-Bextor as a versatile artist that can successfully step outside her musical comfort zone with ease.

Relaxer highlights the best and the absolute worst of Alt-J. That’s what makes it such a frustrating, and yet fascinating, listen.

In keeping it short and sour, the normally too giving Sleigh Bells have finally done it: left us wanting.

Apart from a few slip-ups earlier on, this is, for the most part, a wonderful listen.

Electric Würms as a whole: cool and weird with some great moments, but little structure or direction.

This is a really hard album to try and get in to, but when it does all click, it feels good. Sometimes it's just hard to tell whether the effort you're putting in is being rewarded or not.

The Gothenburg four-piece now release their enigmatic four track EP Lover Chanting, adding to a catalogue of playful and body-moving tracks from the past decade.

Across eighteen tracks, no matter how long they might be, quality control is bound to be something of an issue so alongside the cracking motorik electro instrumental of 'Overtime' we do get the morose 'Women Lost In Thought' or the noise-mess of 'Missing Time' but these are small detours from what's a pretty engaging record.

Yours Truly kept you singing until the moon shined and My Everything will make you want to dance until the sun comes up.

The Saga Continues, despite being a passably entertaining listen, is a grimmer entry, as there seems to be no concern for their legacy left.

There are moments when their roots peek through, such as on 'Sad Sad Situation,' but this record feels more like a well thought through progression and career finisher than an attempt to indulge in nostalgia.

A considered but playful overdue debut, Towards will no doubt sustain and serve them well as head onwards and upwards.

Mercurial moods aside, it's a beautifully produced record and almost addictive with the allure of its sublime tones, percussive arrangements that draw you in and an attractive coil of guitar phrasings.

It's cerebral, visceral storytelling. How you feel about that is your prerogative.

It's disappointing in some ways that quite a chunk of the record feels like offcuts; of precisely what, we can only wonder.

Nothing much sticks out, other than a campy nostalgia for an age when indie pop was still novel and there was a thick dividing line between this kind of guitar rock and the mainstream.

It's just disappointing that in the midst of a year defined by monumental hip-hop albums, Travi$ Scott chose now as the time to come lukewarm.

It's unabashed, unrepentant, contemplative when it needs to be, volcanically in-your-face the rest of the time.

Ye is an ambitious misfire.

It is like Prince meets The Allman Brothers Band, on an approximate dosage of 40–50ug of acid. ... And that makes it a certified...

As a continuation of U2’s work at this point in their career, Songs of Experience is a decent addition to their legacy that longtime fans should be generally pleased by. However, it still suffers from the same issues that have made U2 so polarizing in recent years, and is unlikely to change anyone’s mind about the band one way or another.

Notably shy of repetitive stadium-sized singalongs, it's a more intimate and mature affair on all accounts. By quieting things down, Justin Bieber may just drown out the noise.

These songs don’t live nicely in any genre, and suffer under the weight of attempting cross-pollination.

Overall, the EP is decent, its production hearkening back to Abel’s pre-pop efforts. It brings in a range of genres and collaborators into The Weeknd’s canon but fails to truly cover new ground in the lyrics and vocal threads. My Dear Melancholy is a promising output but here’s hoping these stylistic ideas can be explored more originally on a full-length EP.

Hiccups aside, Begin is an otherwise highly enjoyable album, one that sees Lion Babe fearless in their willingness to experiment with various styles in order to see what works and what doesn't, and it's through that process of discovery that they will eventually find their groove and hopefully the hit singles they are striving to create.

Enjoyable as Drift often is, The Men are honouring their influences but not going the extra mile some of their contemporaries do to make these songs stunners.

Too often, though, this feels like folk music on cruise control despite the attempts to introduce subtle electronic elements to the background of many of the songs, like a Fence Collective recording gone a bit wrong.

Sivu has naturally but powerfully created a palette of sensory strength, allowed into existence and our listening pleasure simply by being vulnerable and open to both the endurance and the departure of senses--and all that we feel, fear and hold dear.

Young Magic's second full-length is arguably a more accomplished body of work than Melt, which although also very strong, doesn't have the same congealed feel.

Fated draws you in, and encapsulates a range of euphoric sounds, leaving you much lighter on the other side.

This is an album that will not send Shintaro Sakamoto into super stardom, but will further cement his place as an experimental and eternally intriguing cult artist.

It's catchy without sacrificing heft. It's a behemoth, but also sounds meditative. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to compromise so much as heartily invite the genres it dives into.

Eminem was really rapping across an entire LP again (something I’d never say elsewhere: Rihanna is not missed), stans were going to like it too much, while his inflammatory remark is sure to prevent most any of the unconverted from being able to engage with the music itself.

It's not a terrible record, but given the weight of expectation and the creativity we've seen from them before, this just feels like a step backwards.

Its songwriting and overall conceptualising is definitely miles above the duo's experimental adolescent triple album. ...And Star Power is not an album - it's an out-of-body experience.

Unlike its predecessor, the new album is expressed with a confident ease rather than pent up frustration.

It's not the best music of its kind available, no. But for Maxïmo Park fans, this will succeed in becoming a vital notch in their canon, and for non-fans, it at least worth a spin or two.

Haiku From Zero offers up plenty of mesmerising moments, but they come with a damaging amount of baggage and ultimately the record falls a little short of the tropical dream that it envisages.

Even given the mixed results it's good to have them back. Listen without expecting the impossible and you'll find ample to enjoy.

In bitesize chunks this is a sumptuous feast--but it's more buffet than banquet.

Recorded in Los Angeles and produced entirely by Tommy English, most expressions of individuality have been removed and replaced with polished finesse. You are left with eleven songs that are entirely devoid of personality and the delivery only emphasises this.

Someday World shows us our trappings and our mortality, but rather than get overly sentimental, or even revert to doom-mongering, it creates something fun.

There aren't too many moments on the band's fourth studio LP that are going to reach out and steal you away.

As usual with Cooly, the sound selection is on point, as an 808 cowbell is included in the arrangement.

At its core, Death Race for Love feels less like music and more like a cynical attempt to bring out the worst in both emo and rap.

The rest is beautiful, sure, and there's moments that are truly intoxicating where you just want to stop what you're doing and let it wash over you, but it's also an album that, once it reaches its end, sort of fades away. There's nothing here that really sticks with you for any longer than the album's duration.

There is precious little personality to be found on this dry, pedestrian record, which comes across as a selection of yawn-worthy Adele-rejects rather than a cohesive body of work from a singular artist.

If you welcome the need for a slab of simple hedonistic pleasure, then you might find yourself some treasures here. Switch off and put yourself on party-autopilot.

Neon Icon is either the greatest social commentary on 21st century music, a moderately funny joke or a terrible hip-hop album. It is this conundrum which makes it such an endearing listen and one of this year's must hear albums.

Donker Mag is unashamedly synthetic in its make-up--a carefully constructed affectation of hooks, melodies and outlandish braggadocio.

The resulting effort is a complete mess of an already insipid project yelling to be accepted as otherwise.

The reality of A Pill For Loneliness is that it gets carried away with flights of fancy that are, more often than not, boring. In the past 14 years City and Colour has released some vital albums, and while this certainly alludes to them, it isn’t quite on a par.

Blanket Waves asks for your attention, and suggests you try soundtracking your own life with its echoes of joy and terror. It's not a cop-out to say that this is music which needs to be infused with human experience.

A Better Tomorrow doesn't quite hit the heights of The W, but it's a considerable improvement on 2007's 8 Diagrams, making it a stellar body of work for a group celebrating their twentieth anniversary.

Unfocused in places, it only comes together as a whole in fleeting moments... but those moments are really rather lovely, so there's enough here to say that Lia Ices remains a talented artist and one to keep watch over.

While Tangerine Reef inspires as a pseudo-political statement regarding the deteriorating environment at the hands of mankind, Animal Collective ultimately disappoints with this record--it’s yet another forgettable checkpoint within the band’s recent run.

There is a little too much grace and not enough diss.

The majority of the track list is made up of songs that run far too long, have beyond cringe worthy concepts and lyrics (see: the attempt at love struck club banger, complete with Beyoncé, on 'Hymn For The Weekend') or simply sound too unoriginal to stand out from the others.

While there are hours of discussions to be had about whether "electronic/classical" hybrids can consistently sound good in a pop context, New Eyes provides ample evidence for erring on the electronic side of that split.

Grasque sometimes manages to make average pizza from excellent ingredients. When COYB are tenacious enough to boil a track down to a workable size, the result is a triumph. Often it can resemble unleavened music, stripped of the necessary rise and fall.

This is a scribble to go up on the fridge alongside other much-loved items, even if those items are photographs which remind you what real life looks like. Stick a magnet on it. It's done.

NASIR is the weakest of the recent Kanye output, though perhaps more consistent than ye it fails to put a dent in the current hip hop conversation, feeling especially limp in comparison to the sudden arrival of a one-time nemesis and his wife.

On the whole, it feels like this is an album we've heard before. In all fairness, they rise well above mediocrity in certain areas.

Songs in the Key of Animals lacks the focus of A Love Extreme, but then again, we're talking about an album that was supposedly written on the fly.

Khalifa’s persona isn’t nearly ready to hoist up what’s essentially a double album, and, yet, this is largely the most focused and invested he’s sounded since Taylor Allderdice.