III is Banks’s most cohesive album to date because she’s no longer restricting herself to exploring one feeling at a time.

As a listener you want the artist to sound comfortable in their own skin. But by the end of Case Study 01, it’s hard to be convinced that this is really him.

A slow-burning triumph.

He drifts like a spectre through a labyrinth, exploring his favourite themes of sleep, reality and the subconscious. The tones here are stark and bleak, compared to the claustrophobia of 2014’s Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes. ... By the end of ANIMA, you’re left wondering about those dreams that are just out of reach, but also what we risk losing when we look back.

A viscerally entertaining album that never lingers for more than four minutes per song. Rock’n’roll isn’t dead: it’s just been sleeping.

On False Alarm, though, they offer something that proves they’re still worth paying attention to.

For all its glimmering synths and the robotic pathos of Taylor’s idiosyncratic vocals, this is a record with both heart and soul.

This is music that sounds as fun to make as it is to listen to. The energy here is thrilling, the strong rhythm section provided by former Detroit garage band The Greenhornes’ bassist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler. ... Help Us Stranger has been a long time coming, but it was worth the wait.

The emotional cohesion the record loses in its shifting cast of singers/songwriters/genres it makes up in DJ-savvy textural variety.

On this album, you find yourself drifting in and out. She tackles trolls, racism, overpopulation and the internet age. You crave solutions as each track closes, or perhaps more of those sublime, witty character studies she offered on Let Them Eat Chaos.

Where most rock superstars sink into trad tedium by 69, Springsteen is still crafting sophisticated paeans of depth and illumination, a rock grandmaster worthy of the accolade. A must-have for anyone who has a heart.

It is an intriguing, often brilliant, though occasionally awful record.

This is an album that shows a band who’ve grown stronger and unafraid to flex their muscle.

There’s a focus on tribal percussion and a multitude of vocal techniques you don’t expect on a pop album: folky vocables, angular melodies, overdubbing, a male choir. This is more enthralling on some tracks than others.

The album loses some momentum around the more generic “Strangers”. But even with that song, the harmonies are hard to resist. It’s the best pop comeback – and likely one of the best pop albums – of the year.

Kind Heaven is an ambitious, engaging record by an artist who clearly still has plenty of fire in his belly.

It’s their most poppy and psychedelic-leaning work to date, bursting with colour and fuelled by a multicultural band featuring Elenna Canlas on keys and backing vocals, and Ish Montgomery on bass.

The result is a quintessentially London record, as dark and moody as it is brash and innovative.

The arrangements are suitably bombastic: there’s a theremin camping up the pub piano on his cover of Laura Nyro’s ”Wedding Bell Blues”. His version of Bruce Wayne Campbell’s (aka Jobriath) 1973 glam stomp “Morning Starship” really sells the wry/cosmic lyrics about a girl picking a rocket’s lock with her hairpin. ... Morrissey’s take on Joni Mitchell’s “Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow” is leaden jazz karaoke, stripping the original of all its haze and drift. The electro-stomp/harp, fading to reflective piano fade-out of his reworking of Melanie Safka’s ”Some Say I Got Devil”, makes a joke of his lifelong self-pity.

Flamagra--a playful yet melancholic, skittish yet meditative 67 minutes of cosmic genius--is one of Flying Lotus’s most accessible releases.

The production here is superb. Tyler has never been one for traditional song structure, but on IGOR he’s like the Minotaur luring you through a maze that twists and turns around seemingly impossible corners, drawing you into the thrilling unknown. ... This is Tyler’s best work to date.

An album of polished pop. Perhaps this will put her at the top where she belongs.

I Am Easy to Find feels like an old friend you’re pleased to keep around--even if, had you been introduced today, you wonder if you’d have been compelled to make the effort.

Always exquisitely unbothered, the indie-rock poster boy now sounds like he can’t be bothered.

We have to wait for the final, title track for the end of suffering. That Carter’s young daughter Mercy is on the recording ramps up the emotion and hopeful vibe of this acoustic ballad. It’s a much-needed resolution to an album of full-throttle catharsis.

This deathly intrigue is drawn from Lenker’s own personal traumas, which she successfully spins into something that feels universal. But you don’t come away from this record feeling downcast. It’s more a reminder of how fleeting yet beautiful life is, and an appeal to make the most of it.

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.

Love is a pleasant although occasionally overly earnest capsule collection of pop sounds where Diamantis proves herself to be the master of the “brief pause... and gentle drop” technique. ... Her voice skitters across songs with a frostiness reminiscent of Madonna’s Ray of Light era, and sometimes it feels like a lecture being delivered into the mirror: everyone’s just like you, no one’s happy, enjoy your life.

“Paradise Is Under Your Nose” is the stand-out, a stirring folk lament kept on track thanks to the vocal duet with co-writer Jack Jones of Trampolene doing the heavy melodic lifting and some keening fiddle from Miki Beavis, but there’s only so much the Puta Madres can do. As with most Doherty releases, it’s back-loaded with meandering, semi-bothered filler.

It’s stuffed with generic accounts of relationships, life on the road, times with the band.

The pace drifts towards the second half, where the five-minute-long “Missed Calls” drags. But there’s no doubt this stop on Soak’s journey is one worth spending time at.

It sounds like The Cranberries found some kind of closure in this last record. Hopefully fans will, too.

At an age where the pressure is on to have everything worked out, Harding sounds delightfully free.

The album has an unpolished feel – a diamond in the rough – with its analogue sounds and snatches of conversation from the recording studio.

The band’s best work to date.

Wonderfully unsettling.

This is a polished, playful album, though it has a DIY edge to it.

They’ve formed their own blueprint in which the messages they purvey and the grandiose shows they stage are our main point of interest, but the music, production-wise, falls a little by the wayside when it comes to breaking new ground.

Their mega beats endure on No Geography, but this is also a stupendously successful splicing of past and present.

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

For the most part, Circa Waves prefer to channel youthful disillusionment with an aggressive guitar line (bound to open up one or two moshpits) than any grand lyrical statement. They’re not trying to set the world to rights so much as offer fans an outlet for escapism. It’s refreshing.

A very credible record with no real mistakes--but no real personality, either.

Titanic Rising isn’t Bob Seger meets Enya. It’s better.

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).

Deforming Lobes is unpredictable and invigorating--the best representation of Segall’s restless creativity to date, not to mention the most fun to listen to.

Everything is more direct: the vocals are bolder and higher in the mix, the instrumentation sharper, the lyrics more personal.

It is further evidence of his mellifluous voice, somehow both relaxed and urgent; of his muscular grasp of his genre; and of his willingness to push its boundaries.

For someone who claims she has no words left, she manages to say rather a lot.

There’s been a lot of hype surrounding her since she made it on to BBC’s Sound of 2018 list. Miss Universe justifies it.

Here, Lewis does what she does best: adds the glossy sparkle of Hollywood and a sunny Californian sheen to melancholy and nostalgia, with her most luxuriantly orchestrated album yet.

Brian Jonestown Massacre’s 18th album might not be breaking any ground, or sitars, but 15 years after Newcombe nearly destroyed himself, it’s good to hear him sound so self-assured.

Lux Prima is an accomplished record--proof that two wildly different minds can work seamlessly together.

It’s an album that takes the sombre mood of today and translates it into downtempo music that’s both refreshing and thoughtful.

Walker drizzles bluesy, Hozier-like soul bombast and nebulous folk tunes with Bond strings and EDM sizzles; tracks so thin and flavourless they go down without chewing.

One of the most thoughtful, moving and necessary albums of 2019 so far. ... Tracks are at once astute and deeply personal in how they capture vignettes of everyday life and spin them into important lessons.

There is no earworm melody as insistent as “White Flag” here, but melancholic opener “Hurricanes” and single “Give It Up” boast that same persistent emotion. And, of course, there’s that voice: steadfastly pure and mellifluous, just as it sounded 20 years ago.

Sigrid has a raw energy and emotional briskness that can make you feel like you’re doing aerobics in neon leg warmers atop a pristine mountain. Pure friluftsliv.

Merging their asymmetrical early math pop with the deep space atmospherics of Total Life Forever and Holy Fire, plus added innovations – ambient rainforest throbs on “Moonlight”, deadpan EDM on “In Degrees”, Afro-glitch Radiohead on “Café D’Athens” – they’ve created an inspired album of scorched earth new music that, in all likelihood, will only really be challenged for album of the year by Part 2.

In a Galaxy is a record that takes you far beyond the borders of the world you’re familiar with, and into something altogether more colourful.

When I Get Home is an album, yes. But ultimately, it’s a sleepy, uplifting antidote to the often painful reality that black people, particularly black Americans in Solange’s experience, have been increasingly facing in recent years. We’re in the midst of ever-escalating chaos. But here Solange has come, offering us a chance not just to rest, but to relish in that languidness.

What Simz does here is phenomenal. This is an album--and artist--to cherish.

Andrew Hozier-Byrne’s second album Wasteland, Baby! is still stuck mid-sermon, albeit emaciated from surviving solely on stale communion wafers.

Strange Creatures is certainly packed with musical ideas.

Grunge-rinsed, feminist-flipped, upcycled Fifties guitar an’ all: Crushing is a triumph.

This is a record that expands the idea of what Sleaford Mods could be.

Lavigne might not have found a musical identity that truly becomes her, but Head Above Water is an effective, and occasionally affecting, album.

So thank you, “Ari”, for a lovely listen. I have to confess, I’d like a bit more vocal grit. Maybe that’s up next.

With the help of stellar producers like Cadenza (Kiko Bun), Swifta Beater (Kano, Giggs), and Nyge (Section Boyz, Yxng Bane), Tracey incorporates electronic music, rock, garage and even country on his most cohesive work to date.

Nesbitt is back with her second LP, switching to a brand of soul and R&B-fused pop that feels bang on time, and suits her far better. The Sun Will Come Up, the Seasons Will Change has slick, polished production from Fraser T Smith (Adele), Lostboy (Anne-Marie), Jordan Riley (Zara Larsson), and Nesbitt herself.

The self-titled record, a loose but beautifully crafted collection of folk-rock songs, explores the kinds of anxieties intrinsic to the modern age--the longing to be at once noticed and invisible; the paralysing effects of limitless information, and the desire to do good versus the desire to be seen doing good.

Mostly this standard boyband fare, reheated, and topped with modern pop sprinkles. It just feels so unnecessary.

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.

Amo won’t satisfy all of BMTH’s fans, but it’s certainly accomplished, catchy and eclectic enough to bring in some new ones.

Heard It in a Past Life is evidence of Rogers’ ambition and potential, but it is proof, too, that you can’t bottle lightning.

The good news is that the perma-brilliant James Blake has flooded his fourth album--Assume Form--with euphoric sepia soul and loved-up doo-wop. His trademark intelligence, honesty and pin-drop production remain intact.

Already Disappeared, which was co-produced with Cate Le Bon in the sprawling desert expanse of Marfa, Texas, is not an easy album. It’s often bleak and experimental: Cox’s vocals burst through like distorted, burbling fragments of static, or appear muffled amid the instrumentation. This is a new side of Deerhunter that gives the listener much to contemplate.

Gunn has created a work of quiet, understated charm. But as far as helping him break out as a distinctive artist, it’s less likely to make its listener sit up and pay attention than lean back and close their eyes.

“Seventeen” winks at the inevitable, then celebrates it. Remind Me Tomorrow is best in thrall to this untouchable energy, when Van Etten and her band sound ecstatic despite their worldly wisdom.

Essentially, this is yet another album of formulaic EDM pop and Latino R&B dancefloor grinders, more market tester than art.

The first 12 songs glow with standard praise for a natural, respectful love (rumoured to be about his on/off model girlfriend Gigi Hadid) but things take a darker turn after Malik’s mythical musings (over muted pings of electric guitar) on “Icarus Interlude”, which concludes with him singing that he “lied to the liars”. Both sonically and lyrically, things get more interesting from this point.

Live albums, never quite being able to replicate the atmosphere of a show or the cleanness of a record, can be hard work--but Springsteen on Broadway is an enthralling listen.

Satisfying and wholly enjoyable album.

SKINS is another fiery blast of catharsis, a largely metaphor-free space where depression isn't hinted at poetically but invited to throw down. ... There are no songs as refined or showing such potential as ?'s “infinity (888)” and “Moonlight”, and many of them feel like half ideas.

DUMMY BOY is an insufferable 13-track farrago of anything from rock riffs to calypso drums, all pinned by 6ix9ine’s obsessive use of the “n” word, along with every other negative trope found in the gangsta rap of the early Noughties. ... Avoid.

The result should be something that feels rooted in nostalgia, but in fact these songs sound and feel as modern and innovative as they did when first released decades ago.

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.

Given the stuttering, protracted process it’s been through to get here, it’s a surprisingly coherent record. ... For the most part, though, Phoenix is worth the wait.

Oxnard isn’t quite the epic final chapter .Paak clearly craved for his trilogy--it certainly fails to compare to his 2016 breakthrough masterpiece Malibu--but you have to wonder if he really cares that much. On so many of these tracks he sounds restless, like he’s already thinking about moving on to bigger and better things.

Ultimately, despite a few high points, LM5 is so scattershot, both thematically and musically, that it’s hard to find much to grab onto.

For all its gloom, Merrie Land is an entertaining and theatrical album, with vocals that capture the social observation of early album Parklife. It’s also an immensely clever feat of word painting, never relying on lyrics alone to reflect the sense of anxiety.

Delta is good but not great.

Walls is unchecked, indignant and raw, and though it ends with a note of despondency, it is a triumph.

Simulation Theory seems to fall into two territories--songs are either half-hearted nods to the best of their heavier rock-opera back catalogue, or futuristic, electronic pop-heavy tracks that borrow from bands more adept at that particular sound, and the vast majority of which are burdened with Bellamy’s political paranoia. For a new listener, it’s baffling. For a former, diehard fan, it’s disappointing.

Origins is further proof of Reynolds’ pop songwriting capabilities and also his ambition when it comes to pushing the messages that matter onto the charts. And there’s no doubting his sincerity. It’s a refreshing quality in a pop frontman.

Bar an impressive freakout on “I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel to Be Free)”, his piano playing rarely warrants centre stage. But his character--a kind of suave jazz-bar lech--is the heart of the show. ... As cash-in celebrity Christmas covers albums go, Goldblum’s has a lot of spark, and even a little soul.

Olympus Sleeping feels dated, and a little forgettable.

NAO has hovered around a near-perfect brand of sultry, neo-soul-inflected R&B. Four years later, and she seems to have mastered it.

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