It's a dub reimagining that takes the material further out, into a soundscape whose fractured dubstep tones, sped-up samples and drum'n'bass beats only occasionally work in its favour.

It’s wonderful to find so many moreish layers in music that was, apparently, composed so quickly. Grab yourself a bean bag and settle in for the long haul with this one.

Given how far out Scott Walker had stepped with 2012’s complex and challenging, allusive and abusive Bish Bosch, the five tracks which comprise Soused seem almost mainstream by comparison.

As with all of The 1975’s escapades, it ought to be a disaster. Instead, the showpiece triumphs as an unlikely paragon of social media-era pop. In a glass bottle, tamed and ridiculed, the inferno is strangely beautiful.

Spare Ribs certainly reflects the personal and political overload of 2021, but half an hour in you’d be forgiven for scanning the horizon for your stop.

Tracks such as the blistering “Temple of the Sun” take no prisoners, taking little time before exploding into the kind of full-frontal assault we’ve come to expect from the heavier side of metal. Elsewhere “The Luminous Sky” takes a more frenetic approach though feels no less uncompromising, while “The Sacred Soil” closes out a record that not only shows exactly where Skeletonwitch are in 2018, but also where contemporary metal is at as well.

Even by Wilco’s adventurous standards, Star Wars is possibly the most unusual, exploratory work of the band’s existence.

Two Ribbons is another milestone for the duo. Their third record finds the inseparable pair separated. Written mostly individually, it explores the small fissures beginning to show in their friendship as they’ve grown up and grown apart. The result is remarkable.

There’s a confidence and flexibility to his disparate themes.

This new collection finds Horan moving towards the lusher production sound of his former bandmate Harry Styles. Laurel Canyon references mingle easily with Eighties synth-pop and Noughties guitar rock. It’s beautifully cohesive.

The charm – and perhaps a flaw – of Collapsed in Sunbeams is how easy it is to drift in and out of it. At times, Parks’s prism colours and ideas can leap out, scatter and startle you. At others, the myriad references to fruit and fashion alongside mental health catchphrases can feel like flipping through a magazine. But then, that’s how the light works. And I’m so glad Parks is here to brighten this dark year.

A master at cramming elaborate lines into verses far too small for them, Bradfield could have made Even in Exile a wordy tangle of exotic oppressions. Instead, to draw parallels with the “acceptable” brutalising of today’s socialist figures, he takes a more impressionistic approach.

Themes of lust, power politics and rebellion are smuggled in via unusual locutions, de-synchronous beats and treated sample-loops – interesting stuff, though occasionally one yearns for a decent tune.

Despite the limited instrumental palette, there’s a broad variety of approaches.

Hive Mind feels much more collaborative, put together in studios and homes the band rented around the world. It’s undoubtedly one of their best works: the band have a synergy that draws the listener in, allowing you to revel in their irresistible confidence, and hope they might invite you to join the party.

It’s alienation couched in the most genial manner; and along the way, he gets to muse over such matters as speech and silence, mysticism and medicine, relationships and reality, in a beautifully meandering song-cycle.

The lyrics sound like they’re being negotiated, rather than expressed, while the music, for all its pleasing West Coast and Brit-psych affinities, lacks the risk and edge that made Sixties psychedelia such a thrill-ride.

If it's not quite the landmark that was Wilco (the album), it's not far behind, as absorbing as any you'll hear this year.

What impresses most about Blue & Lonesome is Mick Jagger, who really animates these songs.

The sort-of-romantic themes and sort-of-funk grooves lend a greater unity than usual, but save for a few tracks, the general impression is of lots of bustling, itchy industry – the scratchy guitars, the scuttling beats, the dying-firework synths – to no particularly attractive end.

Laura Marling continues to impress on her third outing, though the transatlantic influences are becoming more apparent.

Recommended to fans of Michael Chapman, Ryley Walker and Jack Rose.

It is an album as multi-faceted as it is innovative. And that’s Sparks to a tee.

On their fourth record (as raucous as ever), the Bristol punks put out some of their most interesting and introspective music yet.

By the time her vocals roll in on “God Above”, you’re already caught in the slipstream of Drop Cherries. ... Marten dials back her sound to paint tender, intimate moments using only strokes of orchestral watercolour.

Charli proves herself much more in tune with the terrible complexity of Brontë’s original vision than Fennell: there are no inverted commas around the emotion expressed on this record. A windswept, gothic triumph.

For the most part, When We All Fall Asleep is stiflingly dull and bloated, with subpar production from Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell (known for his time on Glee).

Achingly dull, and self-regardingly solipsistic.

If there’s any justice, its follow-up, Saves the World, should see MUNA joining the ranks of those who have brazenly borrowed their sound.

The usual bouts of brusque dissing rub shoulders with love songs, fond tributes to his mom, and a fulsome, swaying devotional hymn “Blinded By Your Grace Pt. 2”. But it’s the engaging sense of vulnerability and self-deprecation that brings depth and charm to Gang Signs & Prayer.

She’s uniquely gifted--one’s only reservation concerns her inclination to pack everything into each track.

Sprints are smarter, and louder, than ever before.

Yet another career-best offering. .... Her voice is clear, pure and precise – delivered over deftly picked acoustic and swooning slide guitars – making each truth all the more devastating. Middle of Nowhere isn’t Musgraves at an impasse. No, she’s exactly where she needs to be.

Cutouts feels a little like the cheeky younger sister of Wall of Eyes. The arrangements on that second album skewed traditional; more sombre and vulnerable in tone. Here, there’s a newfound vibrancy perhaps taking cues from Skinner’s jazz background.

Listening to it feels like fleeing from a warehouse rave. Just like lockdown itself, How I’m Feeling Now can be overwhelming – panic-inducing, even – when taken as a whole. But there are snatches of brilliance here, and as perhaps the very first album to be produced under lockdown, it is really quite an achievement.

It's his band's most musically diverse effort.

Devonté Hynes’ latest outing as Blood Orange takes the soft-soul stylings of 2013’s Cupid Deluxe and mashes them together with African voices and percussion, saxophones and vox populi samples to create a sonic collage that seeks to marry the vision of Marvin Gaye with the methods of Frank Zappa. That’s a considerable ambition, and unsurprisingly it falls well short much of the time.

Ten tracks of seemingly upbeat alt-pop, Babelsberg is a record that on the outside appears bright and breezy, bordering almost on the whimsical. Dig deeper however, and it quickly begins to reveal itself as a wryly written document of current social and political climates.

Qualm may just be the album to solidify her position as one of the most exciting DJ’s in the world at present, as Hauff continues to carve out her very own unique, innovative position in an often cluttered electronic dance landscape.

It’s emo at its finest, and the record ends as emotionally as it begins. By the final track, How to Socialise & Make Friends shows that Camp Cope are driven by the band unapologetically being themselves

For his final recordings, Allman returned to Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, where gospelly backing vocals and burring horns bring a deep-soul tone and texture not just to a soul standard like “Out Of Left Field” but also to material like “Going, Going, Gone” and the Dead’s “Black Muddy River”.

At its heart, The Theory of Whatever is a Jamie T album; there are his usual characters, political barbs, and myriad observations about London in all its gross glory. But this is an evolution: new material Treays could only write now, performed with that same old bravado we know and love.

While there are plenty further examples on the bitterly disillusioned Dark Matter, the most effective songs here are those which pack a more personal emotional punch, echoing the solitary desolation he’s mined throughout his career.

It’s an album that cools and shimmers its way through a delicious range of nuanced moods and subtly layered musical ideas. Delightful.

Truly, a remarkable debut.

The air of exultant expectation recollected in tranquility pervades the entire album, with Garvey confiding memories and misgivings to the natural world in "The River" and "The Birds", the latter appointed "the keepers of our secrets", while the former ultimately washes them out to the west-facing sea.

Whatever the subject, it’s always conveyed with unexpected charm.

It’s delightfully weird.

From start to finish, Monet’s songs deliver mellow yet funky instrumentation, with a hint of glittery disco on the livelier songs. Often, she adopts what would be described as a traditionally masculine gaze: confident, brash, assertive. Monet knows what she wants and exactly how to get it.

A very brave, strong record. Hats off, Raye. These blues are smoking hot.

This is the perfect moment for Fearless (Taylor’s Version): there’s no time like a pandemic to be given a dose of nostalgia, and it’s nice to have a refresher of some of the best pop songs committed to record. Even the six “from the vault” tracks that didn’t make the cut first time round feel oddly comforting.

A sweet, joyously transgressive album.

Between the piano-led dreamscape of “Red Snakes”, the shimmering electronica of “Bloom at Night” and the pop-leaning “We Cannot Resist”, Animal feels restless right up until its six-and-a-half-minute closer “Phantom Limb”, which concludes with Marling’s autotuned voice reading out the album’s credits.

Elverum’s voice’s masculinity-defying diffidence couldn’t be more indie, but his words now add all the weight he needs.

Save for the big live band arrangement of Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody” that closes the album, it’s a thoughtful, intimate set.

The Lookout not only shows Veirs prevailing as a prolific songwriter, but also proving she has a welcomed perspective to emotional turmoil.

In range, energy and freshness, this may be their best album yet.

The song order mirrors the real-life messiness of dismantling a past relationship while falling in love with someone new. ... She frequently weaponises her voice, snarling and howling her pain into the ether; on the French-spoken piano ballad “Falaise de Malaise”, though, she is whisperingly vulnerable. What an extraordinary artist Martha Wainwright is.

This collection of early 1960s Stones sessions vibrates with youthful revolutionary fervour--though sadly, there’s none of the witty, whimsical mini-interviews with which the Fabs’ performances were punctuated.

The Talk Talk of their era.

The results have a lingering, languid charm, which does, as he suggests, help to liberate the material from the rusting manacles of big-band and cabaret mannerisms.

The confidence of the performances benefits strong contemporary material dealing with issues from outreach to domestic abuse.

Chlöe and the Next 20th Century is another shocking left-turn from indie-rock’s chief provocateur: a charming (huh?!), innocuous (gasp!) sojourn into lovely baroque-pop.

This year's version features the usual relaxed jazz-pop grooves, sophisticated horn arrangements and tinder-dry ironic tone.

An album that perhaps skips too easily from one style to another for its own good, though there are other sublime moments.

The songs on her third album are more concealed in their arrangements than before, despite a sonic palette still based in the slim, austere piano and cello settings for which she’s known.

An album that’s as enchanting as it is astute, from a band to treasure.

Thankfully, Burn Something Beautiful confirms his own fund of creativity is far from drained, the collaboration with Buck and McCaughey resulting in all three’s best work in years.

Not only is it a drastic step up from an impressive debut, but it shows an artist keen to test himself emotionally, as well as artistically.

It’s Turner’s persona that gives The Car its charm and intrigue, though. Where Tranquility Base… provided his obtuse lyricism with a sci-fi framework, here it roars off in every direction, as wonderfully imagistic as it is largely impenetrable.

In Jeff Tweedy, singer-songwriter Joan Shelley has surely met her perfect production partner. This, her fourth album, is simply magical.

There’s nothing particularly Nashville about Jason Isbell’s new album--no cowboy hats or keening steel guitars--but it does possess, in spades, the kind of blue-collar concerns that have traditionally furnished country music’s backbone.

A handful of tracks stand out, and are among Yorke’s best solo work.

The eight tracks of Cool It Down (a real mission statement of a title) make for a quasi-gothic synth record that beefs up the Eighties revivalism of the past decade... even as it leaves behind the yelping dynamism of their youth for a more considered and placid middle-age.

At its best, it’s quite thrilling.

It’s a cosy record, clean, and good for the soul.

No matter how sepia, settled or bowed the tone, On Sunset remains sonically voracious, Weller still challenging himself to make the greatest, most adventurous music of his life. The Changingman strikes again.

Gaslighter is not a reinvention for the trio by any means. Still political, still resilient – if you were a fan of The Dixie Chicks back in 2006, then The Chicks are precisely who you hoped they would grow to be in 2020.

What’s impressive on 7 is how they show a fascination with genres that should have no business being on the same album, but without the “smash and grab” attitude of so many Western artists. When it comes to music, 7 is is cast-iron proof we all speak the same language.

Fenian is an immensely enjoyable record. Chara and Bap have a great natural sense of flow, able to syncopate phrases in a way to ensure the punchlines hit.

Collins herself brings a demotic charm to whatever she sings.

This is one of Wainwright’s finest albums.

The album slips into a febrile combination of reminiscences, boasts and complaints that manages to keep an eye firmly on the present whilst gazing fondly back on former tribulations.

There is some sense that Blood Red Shoes are trying too hard to cultivate their own myth, with all these tales of rock and roll hedonism. For the most part, though, the music on Get Tragic is good enough to speak for itself.

By the time you reach the angelic post-rock “Rubicon”, you’ve given up looking for any cohesive thread in Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 and given in to its hazy momentum. Like the post-pandemic age, you never know what’s coming next.

I’m Your Empress Of is a bold statement of her individuality, nodding to her Honduran heritage but also her clear love of electronic music and Chicago house. ... This is an album that bristles with life.

Produced by Sturgill Simpson and David Ferguson, the arrangements offer a feisty take on bluegrass mountain music which sets off Childers’ perkily engaging delivery splendidly.

There’s a lot of human heart pumping beneath the bangers here. Be prepared for your mascara/fire-pit kohl to get smudgy. Because It’s Not That Deep actually sounds like the work of a woman who’s done some serious digging in order to party this hard.

Drunk Tank Pink offers a new sense of space, of notes ricocheting off walls. Green and Coyle-Smith clearly enjoyed experimenting with unconventional guitar tunings, playing energised ping pong with the tangy twists of key.

The whole thing is delightfully caffeinated: Short n’ Sweet is full of hiss and steam, grinding gears and deep kicks beneath the shining chrome surfaces.

It's an unashamedly middle-aged affair, from the quietly moving affirmation of devotion in "Two Children" to the comforting reverie of "I Remember You".

Not a party album.

An unfashionable record, then, and that may be its best asset. With such low stakes and barely any emotional intensity, Father of the Bride won’t cement Vampire Weekend’s legacy. But after a highly strung decade on the indie-rock A-list, it gives them room to breathe.

The confessional, autobiographical elements that are its strongest aspect also serve as its Achilles' heel: the whole enterprise depends on how fascinated the listener is with Rowland's psyche.

Its dark, unflinching songs certainly ponder humanity’s less attractive traits, with arrangements to match.

The Future And The Past is a journey of self-discovery brimming with hope and grooves made to help Prass and her listeners find optimism.

[Ventura] streamlines .Paak’s sound, making for a tightly packaged, melodic and danceable album.

At its best, Overgrown proves that James Blake doesn't need to listen to anyone's advice. He's doing fine already.