Destroyer feels like a band waking up from the slumber rut that marred their more recent output. There is a distinct sense of urgency here, of the adrenaline felt with a new experience that always seemed previously out of reach. McBean has (fuel) injected an exigency to this project once again, and the results are great.

ALASKALASKA are refreshing, listening to just one album sounds like listening to ten. The Dots is a long record and at times their weirdness washes over you, but over time, like the ocean over stones, something subtly changes.

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.

This album certainly does mark a “departure” for Siobhan Wilson, but it sheds none of her allure.

From bird sounds, flutes and screams to pounding techno beats, disco, house and catchy hooks, DOOMSQUAD’s Let Yourself Be Seen creates harmony in chaos, showing a reflection of our times and the necessity of togetherness in finding a release for self-expression.

With many other moments that dive into depression, death, addiction among other heavier topics, Injury Reserve’s debut record surpasses any and all expectations as a seamless concoction of serious topics flawlessly juxtaposed by extraterrestrial sounds, humor and righteous anger.

Many will ding this record for being too subdued, but the matter of fact is Bondy has grown as an artist since his days as Verbena. He’s evolved, more experimental, more in-touch with what drives him, with the decaying America around him and of course, what pulls at his (and our) heartstrings. Enderness is a profound testament to his maturation.

‘Unspoken History’ and ‘I Want U’ show she has real talent. With more work, and more pain, she might graduate from The Best of Luck Club.

While Jepsen has once again delivered a stunning hook-filled record that frankly gets catchier every time you hear it, Dedicated may not quite satisfy our lust for connection.

The talented likes of Lisa Hannigan and Sharon Van Etten attempt to breathe life into affairs, but there’s no resuscitating a creature that never breathed to begin with. No less, they for some reason decided to draw this death rattle out across their longest album to date, blindly moping through an inexplicably sixty-three minute run time.

Your mileage with This Mess is a Place may indeed vary, but more than anything, if you’ve had a lousy, or dull, day, it’s sure to jump start your tired mind into grinning goofily with its sugary, determinedly peppy rush.

And, on the whole, Clinic’s paean to the 70s is a satisfying reinforcement of the current, clichéd view of that decade. It is lovingly put together. It yearns to experience an age that is tantalisingly close, but entirely out of reach.

All of the album’s five tracks share the same aural characteristics of minimalist and pulsating synth drone, languid vocals and swirls and ripples of mechanised undulations and the album feels like a complete body of work rather than a collection of songs.

It feels Mac also went through these motions creating Here Comes The Cowboy, something is lacking, and it feels like it was motivation. That being said, with this record Mac has taken some creative risks.

Cohen’s voice doesn’t do all the heavy lifting. The instrumentation is lush, and Owens’ production pristine, with each and every layer given time to shine. It can all be a bit glossy, but how else should one approach such joy? It suits the feelings found here well, and makes Welcome Home and endlessly pleasant abode to inhabit.

HÆLOS may still look toward the past, but their sound continues to push towards the future, heaving up their influences and dragging them all the way into whatever bleak tomorrow the band sees ahead. Any Random Kindness is an album of a generation lost, looking for humanity, gripping to whatever feeling they’ve managed to retain.

This is a world to become truly lost within. Fair warning, you may not want to come out.

PROTO is already one-of-a-kind, but there are times when Herndon could’ve stood to push the envelope just a bit more, instead of giving lovely but somewhat slight and redundant moments like ‘Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt’ or the ‘Live Training’ interludes. But she’s in a class of her own when it comes to this sort of electronic pioneering.

This is a more palatable and approachable record (even if Maguire sounds like he’s being beaten to death on ‘The Soft Hands of Stephen Miller’). But what’s missing is a lot of risk, something that each Pile record has revelled in.

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

Useless Coordinates is not perfect, and there are some flat moments, such as ‘Unwound’ which is very artrock-by-numbers, but overall this is an album which kicks arse and promises much for the future from a band clearly enamoured with the idea of challenging themselves and their audience.

This is R&B and dense pop bent to its creators will, rather than anything the other way around. This is Beyoncé for a panic attack. This is, only more and more so with time spent in its valleys and peaks, essential listening.

With Father of the Bride, Vampire Weekend expand and re-contextualise their own creative universe, offer more questions than answers, take new risks, and open up new possibilities for their artistic future. In the process of doing so, they add at least a handful of brilliant tracks to their discography.

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.

Drastic Measures’ kaleidoscope of sound will undoubtedly charm you, as Sellers himself sings “she looks like a go-getter.”

While calling Fishing For Fishies stale at first may be a bit harsh, it becomes pronounced once you consider the adventurous image King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard has carved out for itself over the last five years. With this passive listening experience, rarely was I ever intrigued by the band’s songwriting.

CrasH Talk is an unfortunate example of what can happen when someone gets the creative validation they’ve desired, only to find themselves at an impasse.

[The stories] are universal and they are forgiving, and only a songwriter as soft and deft as Kevin Morby could have pulled it off so charmingly.