IDLES believe that community spirit and togetherness will be what ultimately guides us closer to happiness as a whole, and in Joy As An Act Of Resistance they’ve created a monumental banner for the movement.

Visions put Grimes on the map as pop's pure misfit but Art Angels secured her tangible place as the genre's most unconventional star. For those that doubted, she's done that thing she does, but better. More defined.

A complement to Homer, whose exquisite myth catapulted the bard himself into the realm of myth, Crampton fashions a performative poetics that performs its own brown, queer, and sublime reality.

Negative Capability is sure to stand the test of time, much like its creator. Marianne Faithfull has delivered a searing late career masterstroke, as vital as any in her storied career.

This record is a wholly singular work; not only does it defy expectations of what a Flying Lotus album should sound like, it totally obliterates any preconceptions about what can be released by a remotely popular contemporary musician.

As an approximation of the band’s legacy and a reckoning with Lacey’s vocation of confessionalism, this record feels made for them. Science Fiction feels like an Event, similar to the releases of To Pimp a Butterfly and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

He immediately introduces us to his new titular “Shepherd” persona, and continues to act like the consummate host to the listener throughout the record’s beautifully interwoven 20 tracks and 64 minutes.

She seems a lot happier, or at least more energetic and outgoing, coming into second album Plunge. But that only seems to bring her up against more frustrations in the world around her, which are wrought vividly throughout.

In all, Holter has made an album about blissful, hypnotic escape in many forms, and in listening to it and engaging with it, you'll be overwhelmed by these feelings too.

The new release of Twin Fantasy never panders to the original. Nor does it feel like Toledo is forced to adhere to the limitations of his previous work. It’s a development, not a remake; the full realisation of what was always supposed to be--and it sounds all the more incredible for it.

Big Thief’s most empathic and ethereal work yet. U.F.O.F. is by no means an album that will grab for your attention, it just rests in the atmosphere like a wavelength, waiting for you to tune in – and you’ll be richly rewarded when you find it.

In some ways, Microshift is Hookworms’ equivalent of that album [Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion]. A band with an established sound embracing electronics and pop songwriting like never before, but managing to do so without it feeling remotely forced, and finding their biggest audience yet as a result.

The bag is mixed, and the lyrics often seem a bit familiar, but Sundfør's shadowy contributions to an often-tired genre are undoubtedly unique.

It’s a wounding, life-affirming ride.

Much like its cover art, Cocoon Crush can be recognized as something familiar, but you’re unlikely to be able to glean just what that is. It lies, distant and in waiting, ready to challenge you, with Objekt ever-seeking to open, both for his listeners and himself, new possibilities.

Reward could easily exist in a decade long since past but become a hidden gem, along the lines of Linda Perhac’s Parallelograms or Vashti Bunyan’s Just Another Diamond Day. Thanks to streaming, far more people will be able to hear it.

Everything about You Won’t Get What You Want is carved out of sheer insert-synonym-for-unhappiness-here, from the guitars to the drums to the vocals, but there’s more than enough nuance and versatility to earn your respect, even if it’s not something you’re typically drawn towards.

Too Bright is a strident and bold statement from an artist who has finally undone the knot of his past. It won't be the record which brings him mainstream success but it will be the record that frees him from the pigeonholing of his bruised and broken singer-songwriter image.

Whether he feels every emotion he’s describing or is putting on a mask, the songs remain enjoyable and lighthearted.

It's sometimes easy to forget that Mitski didn't technically enter the greater music consciousness until last year, and what makes that worth pointing out is that despite her hitting her stride and turning out the most accomplished album of her career yet, she sounds like she's only getting started.

It’s a challenging but rewarding listen which uncovers itself most rewardingly when given full attention on a dark and melancholic night.

While unrelentingly committed to his personal story, Vince rapturously integrates dense and conscious-filled narratives of his inner life, packaged vibrantly over layered and unpredictable production executively produced by No I.D with support from DJ Dahi, Clams Casino and Christian Rich. Among 20 tracks, there's no filler to be found.

Great art takes pain and turns it into something that can help us heal. Vulnicura does exactly that.

Honeybear is rich with sarcasm, flagrant in some places and barely discernable in others. It is impossible to take seriously, but too damn compelling to be dismissed.

Though it’s a record perspiring uncertainty and the fear of becoming stagnant, Be The Cowboy is Mitski’s most personal and confrontational thus far. It’s violently poignant and the mark of an artist who’s barely tapped into her singularity.

soil is an album that delves into the dirt of passion, be that artistic, romantic or religious. For every moment of ecstatic energy there’s another equal moment of debilitating disappointment, for every igniting of love, there’s wilting relationships.

This is the most rewarding album from the project yet, as it only seems to unfold further and further as you delve deeper and keep replaying.

None of these influences are worn on Young Fathers' sleeves and Cocoa Sugar is further proof that when the band puts something out that you can prepare for a unique, engaging listen.