This is the most country she has ever sounded. The most lavish, too, despite the album having been stripped back to only its most necessary parts.

As a soundtrack album to meditate to, Aporia is pleasant, but there’s no denying that the absence of Stevens’s typically ornate songcraft is keenly felt.

Are You in Love? is a magical marriage of joyful pop with heart and depth.

On her third album, the self-titled Kelsea, she finds a balance between the two. There’s more than a hint of early Taylor Swift on perky opener “Overshare”, while “Club” is as uplifting a “not going out” song as you could hope for.

Like Starboy, there’s a hefty Eighties influence here, although for the most part, After Hours abandons the danceability of its predecessor in favour of moody introspection. This is the music you listen to when the party’s over.

I Am Not a Dog has its moments, but they are brief and virtually lost amid the more experimental forays.

If the Grammy-nominated Forever was their blistering hellscape, Underneath is a glitchy, industrial wasteland.

Every Bad is a relinquishing of whatever it is that keeps us from baring our souls, and an unleashing of frustration at how, like children riding a carousel, we’re all just going round in circles.

Horan is impossible to dislike, forever existing on the right side of cheesy, but the result is a record almost entirely stuck on safe mode. You can only hope its stronger moments hint at better things to come.

Recorded over a week in New York, Everything Sucks is the brash, unapologetic sister to the more sensitive Everything is Beautiful.

The songs on Everything is Beautiful, by contrast [to Everything Sucks], are warm and sun-dappled; reminiscent of the uplifting, gospel-influenced hip hop of Chance the Rapper.

Musically, it’s lovely – loose, swirling California rock and country, led by gaze-out-the-train-window melodies. ... This album will leave a mark – one that is Moore’s and Moore’s alone.

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

Expect reassurance rather than revelation and you’ll find the lesser-worn pages of the American songbook elegantly traced.

As beautiful as it is exciting, Suddenly is an uplifting album that embraces the change and shifting perspectives that life throws our way.

She has pulled off the difficult trick of developing a new signature sound, without losing the personal perspective that separated her from the pack in the first place.

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.

This cohesive mood piece casts a hypnotic spell.

There’s brilliance here, but it’s when the album slows down that it becomes transcendent.

His latest LP largely lacks killer tunes.

This fourth LP polishes that dancier sound into his slickest dancefloor-ready music yet.

This isn’t so much an album that would rile you to the point of turning it off. Rather, it washes over you, with its mostly average beats (“Forever” is a rare exception) and seemingly random cluster of guest features.

Big Conspiracy is Hus’s second chance – an album that proves he’s just as essential a part of UK music today as he was three years ago.

Supervision is certainly not a bad album, but it’s a far cry from the bristling pop genius of Jackson’s best work.

Glam, anthemic and messy Father of All… may be, but “inspired” and “baddest” it is not.

The problem is, the album – so full of drawling balladry and anodyne lyrics – is deeply unremarkable. Listening to it is like wading through a quagmire of banality.

It’s the album equivalent of someone who can finally handle their liquor. Someone fresh out of their 20s and contemplating life via moments of late-night melancholy, as opposed to worrying implosion.

Hotspot teeters somewhere between their ballad-heavy album Behaviour (1990) and 1988’s shimmering dance record Introspective. ..You sense this album is intended as an expression of hope for the future, rather than a fond look back.

Eminem belittles the trauma of a then 26-year-old Ariana Grande for kicks on “Unaccommodating” by comparing himself to the Manchester Arena bomber. The sour taste of this track lingers well beyond the album’s centrepiece, “Darkness”, which is intended as a searing critique of America’s toxic gun culture. Instead, his use of gunfire and explosion samples feels grossly exploitative.

Through the album there’s a mesmerising rhythm, a kind of rocking horse motion that spurs you on to the next track. ... On Swimming he was adrift, searching for a lighthouse beam that would bring him back to “a place of comfort”. On Circles, it sounds as though – if only for the briefest of moments – he found it.

It’s a solid return – the sound of a band both rejuvenated and continuing the multi-layered sound of their previous releases.

Georgia splices the beat and twists the synths into an eerie doomscape, yet it’s strangely comforting – her reminder that while this night may have ended, there’s always tomorrow.

Certain songs work better than others: “Dog Eat Dog” tries to tackle social injustice but lacks real bite; “Don’t Think”, though, has all the swagger and defiance of vintage Blondie. Most impressive is how much more confident The Big Moon sound as a band.

There is a lot to like about Rare. But it never quite gets out from beneath the shadow of half a decade of behemothic bangers.

For better or worse, Duster sounds as though it was created by humans. Imperfections are packed into structures that are more comprehensible, and far less nebulous. Each crackle, echo and strained vocal makes the limitations of being human seem not only clear, but beautiful in its vulnerability.

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 may not reach the pinnacle of sex or sadness, but Fine Line is a fine album nonetheless.

It’s all fine: shiny and efficient pop, smelling of body oil and new car upholstery. But Payne treats each track like a rental car. He gives each song a spin and hands the keys back like a good lad without leaving a trace.

It feels like the throwing down of a gauntlet, Cabello determined to wear her heart on her sleeve in the studio as well as in paparazzi photos.

On the surface, Who sounds like a classic Who album. ... There are moments when Townshend stops questioning his own relevancy, but to dubious effect: “Beads on a String” is a limp metaphor for human connection, while “Hero Ground Zero” is just as clumsy.

Williams veers all too often from the kind of whimsy and cheese that’s acceptable at Christmastime, to a level of saccharine that actually makes your teeth hurt.

There may be none of the heart-tugging vibe of octave-spanning “Without You”, or the abundant melody of “Everybody’s Talkin’”, but Losst and Founnd resurrects a treasured voice in songs full of vim.

Everyday Life is a fascinating, occasionally brilliant curio, reflective of a band still very much figuring out how to respond to a world that has become meaner, dirtier and crueller since they were singing about clocks and colours. They’re not quite there, but you can admire the effort all the same.

I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This is imbued with the charisma of its creator; it’s a playful and inviting album whose first half zips through the mostly vocal-led numbers with ease and sprightly energy. ... Remarkable singers give rich layers to this accomplished album.

Although the fear was that Adam would be spreading his father’s legacy too thin, each track has the weight of a completed thought, not a sketch bulked out.

While these are enjoyable enough tracks to soundtrack your day, there’s little of the lasting emotion or progression for which we know Beck.

Courage is a force to be reckoned with. It seems unlikely that more than a few of its tracks will jostle their way onto Dion’s setlist, given the decades of power ballads they have to compete with. But those that do will make their mark.

Fame may be fickle, but Vollebekk’s dedication to improving his craft is anything but.

It’s one of the most considered and thought-provoking electronic albums of the year.

2042 may be the work of an accomplished songwriter, tackling pressing issues, but it’s also a hodgepodge – the result of an artist struggling to find his musical voice.

The follow-up to 2014’s LP1 is the sound of a woman teetering on the brink of collapse, gathering herself, and then erupting into a kind of defiance.

The record is an introspective mix of psychey soul, blues, rock and funk, which skips and strolls and swaggers through its 13 tracks – but it is not simply an exercise in nostalgia. Its influences span decades; Gil Scott-Heron, Fela Kuti, Kendrick Lamar and Bobby Womack are all recalled.

It’s no surprise, but still no less disappointing, that with all of West’s last-minute meddling of the album’s mixes the record lacks cohesion. Jesus is King feels more like a collection of well-produced skits than a full studio album, and fans will no doubt be wondering whether all the hype and stress that preceded its unveiling was worth it.

As with their debut, this album feels as though you’re being allowed a brief but intense insight into his self-contained world. Yet the vein of humour that ran through those earlier songs has been replaced by a deeper sincerity.

FIBS highlights Meredith as a much-needed creative force. Her shape-shifting genre-defiance constantly surprises and intrigues, but it’s good to get back down to Earth afterwards.

Colorado shows that Young, at 73, has lost none of his outrage and passion. ... Saying so much, so beautifully, Colorado was worth the wait.

The songs are just a little perfunctory. Like a popcorn disaster movie, the album is full of adrenaline, and yet doesn’t stick in the mind long after you’ve finished with it.

Crush is an insight into Shepherd’s brilliant mind and – such is the sheer variety of this album – a way to inspire one’s own imagination.

Two Hands is Big Thief’s best to date, and undoubtedly one of the best of the year.

No Home Record’s lack of cohesion is unlikely to pull you deep into its disjointed soundworld. What does unite the tracks, though, is the restlessly questing, non-conformist spirit of their creator. It’s great to have her back.

Perhaps their greatest album since their Mercury Prize-winning breakthrough The Seldom Seen Kid, released over a decade ago.

An astonishing record.

This is a quietly momentous album of depth, soothing in its introspection.

The result is a record as expansive as it is overwhelming.

Tegan and Sara’s last album, 2016’s Love You To Death, was a bold stadium-pop record; this one is less polished, but just as punchy. ... Most people read their teenage diary and cringe. With Hey I’m Just Like You, Tegan and Sara have painstakingly, tenderly, written theirs out again.

It’s pure rock and roll: sleazy, slick and lots of fun. Sound & Fury marks another milestone for a remarkable artist.

Cause and Effect isn’t Keane breaking any new ground, but in the quieter moments it’s surprisingly good.

Backed up by polished and expensive-sounding production, notably some lovely piano work on “Alright Now” and a hazy blur of strings and Kurt Vile-like chanting on “One of Us”, this is a strong, nicely workmanlike record, Gallagher never totally rocking the boat but delivering something far more personal and (for him) experimental than he easily could have done.

There’s no track on Jaime that is likely to make waves – not in the same way as some of the better-known Alabama Shakes tracks, such as “Hold On” or “This Feeling” (the latter of which was recently used to remarkable effect in the final scene of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag). But what lovely ripples it makes.

Overall this is Metronomy at their most ambitious and pleasurably weird.

There’s an interior dialogue throughout, which is sometimes more intriguing than musically engrossing. ... But there is transcendental beauty here to get lost in.

For the most part, an album of rock songs to cherish in the Pixies oeuvre, united by an eerie thread that’s hard to shake off.

The artwork for Charli XCX’s third studio album finds her clad only in a steely squiggle of computer-generated ribbon. It’s a great visual metaphor for a collection of 15 pop songs that – at their most thrilling – wear their raw, metallic beats and synths on the outside, like scaffolding.

Fender drew plenty of early comparisons to Bruce Springsteen – on Hypersonic Missiles they’re entirely warranted, as much for the instrumentation as the lyricism and his vignettes of working-class struggle.

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.

Valve Bone Woe is a lovingly crafted collection of covers – a surprising, successful new endeavour by an artist evidently still keen to challenge herself.

Free often feels like the messiest kind of improv, full of stream-of-consciousness expressions and storytelling that doesn’t follow any particular logic. But tracks like the tense “Glow in the Dark” or the sombre “The Dawn” are also oddly irresistible, loose, thoughtful and free-wheeling.

Yes, nostalgia is a fairly generic formula. But listened to as a whole, the album positively thrums with sonic invention, managing to feel both fresh and full of intrigue. Khan once again demonstrates a knack for uncanny storytelling.

The album is sultry and soporific, sitting somewhere between the minimalist trip-hop of Del Rey’s early days, and the scuzzy desert rock she has toyed with over the years.

Where Black America Again was notable for its sharp, observational urgency, Let Love feels far more personal, and softer in tone. Common’s optimistic nature gives it an uplifting vibe.

Threads is a culmination of virtually every sound Crow has explored through her career, which began with her crafting ad jingles in the late Eighties.

On her new album, Eve, she explores a lineage of black female icons in a way that is both tender and compelling. ... The overarching sound, production and instrumentation on Eve are outstanding. ... Nina Simone said an artist’s duty, “as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times”. This is precisely what Rapsody has done – in the most resonant way possible.

Twelve Nudes is Furman’s most urgent and cathartic record to date.

There is a brilliant album among the 18 songs, if only it had been pruned it a little.

If the music could hold its own, No Man’s Land might make for a more tolerable listen. But the instrumentation is plodding and occasionally appropriative, while elsewhere there is unfortunate evidence of Turner’s limited vocal range.

Rather than imitating 2011, Inflorescent instead brings to mind the summer of 2013, overwhelmed as it is by a neutered disco-funk sound reminiscent of Daft Punk’s inescapable “Get Lucky”. Only rarely as catchy.

Sleater-Kinney are as potent now as they ever were – their music spiky and confrontational, melding the personal and political to striking effect.

Drake is often best when he’s at his most brooding. ... This isn’t an artistic project as much as it is a business ploy ­– repackaging leftovers apparently without taking the effort to remix or remaster some of them.

You can let i,i overwhelm you or sink into its currents of drift and despondency – either way, it is immersive and rich. Yet it’s hard not to anticipate certain peaks (the unimpeachable climax of “Holyfields,” the joyfully silly “Sh’Diah” chorus) as if waiting for the school bell to ring.

A blunt, bold album on which Hackman’s beatific voice sits atop methodically messy instrumentals.

The sheer ambition on We Are Not Your Kind is just as staggering. ... This may be one of the band’s most personal records, but the rage they capture is universally felt.

The Big Day is like a lot of weddings: too long and occasionally a little dull – with one or two unforgettable moments.

With tracks that frequently dart from sprawling, psychedelic pop to scuzzy post-punk and rock references, the record has a superb dynamic that holds the listener’s attention, while the band navigate through a single, tumultuous relationship. By the end of all that, you feel like they deserve a pint.

On Everything Hits at Once, the Austin-formed indie veterans have compiled a glimmering collection of songs that date back to 2001’s Girls Can Tell, or are as recent as to come from 2017’s Hot Thoughts. There’s also a brand-new song, closer “No Bullets Spent” (built using parts from “Dracula’s Cigarette” of their Get Nice! EP), which is a low-simmering take on power and corruption.

No one will be celebrating Duck for breaking new ground, but long-term fans won’t much be complaining either.

There is no song on Fever Dream that is likely to eclipse, or even cast a shadow on the success of “Little Talks”, but this is a soothing, affable record nonetheless.

The Lost Tapes II sounds like an artist rediscovering his love for hip hop in the most joyous and satisfying way.

A thrashing, crashing metal record with brief dalliances in solemn balladry (as on the stark, compelling “Never There”) and even Imagine Dragons-style stadium pop (jarring album closer “Catching Fire”), it is a noisier, more impersonal record, and one that aspires to a thematic breakthrough that it never quite reaches.