Isolation represents the different facets of Uchis: the survivor, romantic and the rebel. But she still manages to keep herself a mystery through moody metaphors and Uchis--who grew up in between Colombia and Virginia--has been largely underrated the past few years, but Isolation might just finally give her the attention she deserves.

Tackling topics like technology addiction (“Disillusioned”) and the deaths of celebrities (“So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish”), the band forges a sobering look at the world with the maturity that comes from being on a long break. Despite the changes Eat The Elephant is a solid return for the supergroup.

Liberally spattered with sonic exclamation marks.

While the record could have been a few songs shorter, Expectations is expansive in that it isn’t one big radio hit after another, which proves Rexha is opting for longevity instead of manufactured pop.

It's a one-tone listen. But that shout-in-your-face directness is exactly what makes Ultra Mono so powerful. This is rock music that compels you to pay attention.

Weird, wonderful and whimsical, McCartney III finds the walrus on inspirational form.

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.

His grievances on For All the Dogs seemed exclusively directed at women, causing some to wonder whether we’d ever see a return to his puppyish, boy-next-door type. Scary Hours 3 isn’t that, but it does even the playing field somewhat, not least by praising the women in his life and castigating the men.

It’s a lovely, laidback collection, with percussionist Willie Bobo adding a languid Latin feel, and multi-instrumentalist David Lindley excelling on guitar and violin, while Reid’s sepiatone delivery is expertly framed by master producers Eddy Offord and Tom Dowd.

Dictator is everything fans might expect from Malakian and more; a complex, thoughtful and invigorating album that nods to his own personal history and simultaneously links to the wider, tumultuous landscape of America.

Nothing revolutionary about From Zero, then. But certainly a re-energised return to business for a band that has been sorely missed.

A playful record that pushes in different directions without straying too far from the Seventies dancefloor brief.

At various points across the album, Doja Cat channels her predecessors. There’s a gorgeous D’Angelo croon to “Often” and on the punchy “Demons”, she emulates Kendrick Lamar’s silky, dangerous tones. Notably, though, there are zero features on this record. Scarlet holds up all on its own.

These dozen visceral tableaux of modern life are shot through with flashes of gallows humour and offhand absurdity that tempers the overall vision of a "newborn hell" peopled by "dumb Brits."

The Australian artist sounds like a brand new person, ready to make up for those years she played it safe. Produced by Thomas Bartlett and Annie Clark (St Vincent), Sixty Summers is a celebration of newly claimed liberty.

Save for three traditional songs, Strange Country comprises brilliantly-wrought original material haunted by themes of uncertainty, lassitude, jealousy and spite.

A masterclass in modernist antiquity.

It's been a long time coming, and all the more welcome for it.

The determination to include generous dollops of each member’s solo output means that the acoustic set sags badly. But the obscure material is welcome.

Nomad confirms Bombino's promise, but with a few added surprises.

Like their Discovery LP which laid fresh pathways for pop and dance in 2001, Random Access Memories breathes life into the safe music that dominates today’s charts, with its sheer ambition.

It's their most cohesive album in some time.

This is such an improvement on 2010's enervated One Life Stand that one can only conclude their various sabbatical projects have rejuvenated their creative juices.

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.

The Dream sees the band moving briskly through sensations, their heads stuck out the window of a speeding car, tongues wagging, sticking to whatever comes their way.

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.

The secret is their infallible way with a tune: tracks such as "Get Away" and the single "Georgia" possess a beguiling melodic charm that illuminates the lo-fi boy/girl vocal delivery of Blumberg and his sister Ilana, bringing uplift where once all might have been gloom.

Despite most of his well-known songs being crammed onto this album’s 2014 predecessor, there’s no dip in quality here as Richard Thompson revisits material ranging from Fairport Convention classics like “Genesis Hall” and “Meet On The Ledge” through to 2007’s “Guns Are The Tongues”.

It's far from a perfect album--there's a ponderous solemnity to "Ages", and Pulido so far lacks Smith's compelling, visionary focus--but Antiphon extends the band's engaging, mysterious charm.

They’ve made a relaxedly unhurried album that smacks as experimental. While not the instant grab fans may be expecting, this assured follow-up--like all good things in life--improves over time

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.

This is a polished, well-executed effort from one of the hardest-working men in music.

While The Breeders may not be reclaiming their youth on their latest effort, they’re not trying to: they approach All Nerve with the sensibility of a band that embraces how they’ve grown since their early punk days.

Mark Lanegan's darkly knowing interpretation is one of the highlights of this compilation tribute.

The piquant combination of Morrissey’s blithe aloofness and double-edged, acidly humorous lyrics with Johnny Marr’s endlessly inventive, precociously African-influenced guitar parts was rarely more effective than here.

Collins herself brings a demotic charm to whatever she sings.

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.

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.

It’s a 10-track album that encapsulates emotions and situations that are as versatile as her sound. Whether you’re reminiscing about late-night make out sessions in high school or surrounded by plenty of “cool” girls in your city, Soccer Mommy’s introspection is something that defies age.

It's a virtually faultless set, with plenty of neat touches personalising familiar material.

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

Plan B acquits himself remarkably well here.

Amongst the poppy organ and droning guitars, McClure’s managed to retain the ingenuous character of his debut, blending pop sparkle and melancholic indie charm in a way that recalls New Zealand’s legendary Chills.

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

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

As usual with Newsom, the deeper resonances resound louder with subsequent exposure.

Hawthorne's muse is steeped in '70s influences--notably falsetto and symphonic-soul giants like Curtis Mayfield and Barry White, while trailing threads of piercing lead guitar through songs like “Wine Glass Woman” and “Corsican Rose” bring to mind Ernie Isley's work on “Summer Breeze”.

Into just nine songs, BMTH have distilled a breathtaking demonstration of their ambition, their technical skill, and their awareness of the social climate.

The Spark is Enter Shikari’s most eclectic and accomplished album to date.

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.

T-Bone Burnett renders mostly old jazz numbers with a blend of period feel and modern fidelity, so they're "in the tradition" without sounding antique.

She tries her hand at new instruments and darts boldly between genres. As a consequence, Girlfriend can be a hard record to get a grip on. But it’s the ideal album for anyone else on the comedown from 2025’s Brat summer who now yearns, with Ives, to be “drinking up the day”.

Wareham's fragile delivery imparts an eggshell vulnerability to songs that track contemporary anxieties, such as "The Deadliest Day Since the Invasion Began", but finds its natural home in the lilt of the Incredible String Band's "Air".

There’s a calm, reflective quality, allied to an intense involvement, about both players’ solo work, of which My Foolish Heart may be Towner’s best since his sublime 1973 debut Diary.

Rarely have his revelations been as direct, or as personal, as on Carrie & Lowell, a cathartic exercise exploring the effect of his estranged mother Carrie’s death on him two years ago.

Though the elements don’t always hang together, there’s no shortage of intriguing ideas.

It’s a magnificent return to form.

The result is an album that in one swoop restores contemporary significance to the Presley brand.

At its best, it’s tremendous stuff, with droll, sardonic portraits of lovers and losers punched along by grooves that sound variously like the Spencer Davis Group produced by Holland-Dozier-Holland (“Shake It Little Tina”), Stonesy raunch pitched midway between rock, funk, soul and country (“Me N Annie”), and sundry suggestions of Elton John, The Replacements and Calexico.

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

It retains their signature blend of folk-rock songcraft and miasmic guitar-drone textures, but in a more purposive manner.

After bandmates quit and more heavy blows rained down, he retreated to a cabin, where these wonderful songs poured out. “Frontman In Heaven” is one of several which both mourn and resurrect the idiocies and potent faith of the rock’n’roll age.

In “God Knows I Tried”, a reference to ““Hotel California” conjures up the mood of sun-baked dissipation, while she grudgingly confirms the dead-end revelation of celebrity, “I’ve got nothing much to live for, ever since I found my fame”. It’s a disillusioned rejoinder to the burning urge for fame that stains youth culture in the 21st century, and as such, fits in perfectly with the album’s overall sense of exquisite decay.

That’s what listening to Tension feels like: 100 per cent “Whheeeeeee!”

With its serene harmonies and Byrdsy jangle of arpeggiated guitars, “Quiet Corners & Empty Spaces” heralds the most potent Jayhawks album in ages, with some of Gary Louris’s best songs captured at their sweetest by producers Tucker Martine and Peter Buck.

Those looking for a dramatic change from their previous work will be disappointed as there are few surprises to be found. Whilst this can sometimes feel like a missed opportunity, there is still plenty on here to intrigue. This is a brave, immersive and timely record.

At its best, it’s quite thrilling.

There’s a Gabrielle-style vibrato tremble to Sey’s voice on the warm “Poetic” and hypnotically anthemic “Hard Time”, while producer Magnus Lidehäll finds myriad means, from trip-hop beats to gospel choir, to realise Pretend’s character of the raw and the cooked.

Admittedly, with 15 full-length tracks, the record does run a little long. That said, there’s something alluring about such an unapologetic and candid album.

Balanced by bitter barbs at modern snivellers and shysters in Time of Dust itself, the result is a compact but concentrated dose of poison.

What’s Your Pleasure? reveals the magic that happens when an artist feels truly free.

What she's come to realise, finally, on new Florence & The Machine album High As Hope, is that her voice is just as, if not more powerful when she holds back.

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.

Not Your Muse is an album that will lure you back time and time again, as much for its technical brilliance as any of its other qualities.

This cohesive mood piece casts a hypnotic spell.

Despite her amateur standing--she never once supposed these tapes would be made public--there's a keen poetic sensibility at work.

This conflicting need for independence within affection, thrown into stark relief during her self-imposed exile, is one thematic mainspring driving this Short Movie.

Set to light, sparkling arrangements of banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, concertina, twanging mouth-bow and comically honking horns, these songs are populated with a bucolic menagerie of foxes, dogs, birds and little horsies.

Eels songwriter Mark "E" Everett has always trod a peculiar, idiosyncratic path that runs parallel to most pop music, but here he collides with it in such a tender, open way that the emotional hit of some songs is quite shocking.

This UK quartet conjure a beguiling air of eternal youth in all its charming contradictions, a sunburst of yearning, tedium and expectation.

Best of all, though, is the opener “Heard About You Last Night”. Though typically methodical, it glows with a kind of staid, epiphanic inner-beauty, the most elegant, graceful thing they’ve ever recorded.

Hold the Girl is eclectic and searching, a little glossier than Sawayama’s debut, perhaps, but also much more introspective.

This is a guitarists' mutual appreciation society affair that ought to be unbearable, but is actually gorgeous, thanks to the modest brilliance of those involved.

After releasing all the pent-up adrenaline in the album’s first half, Paramore’s melodies lumber likeably to a sludgier, shoegazier speed after that. But the band keep things interesting by accessorising that sound with a synth flute (on “Big Man, Little Dignity”); a rattle stick tap (on “You First”); a twinkling keyboard; and low horn effect (on “Figure 8”).

With Björk and Longstreth sharing lead vocals, and instrumental contributions pared back to just a few drones and pulses, the result is a fascinating evocation of Orcan existence, implicitly acknowledging the entire planet as a home.

The great thing about this album is that you can choose to fall down a nerdy rabbit hole with its creators and dissect all the movie themes. Or, you can just let it wash over you while you catch the odd breeze of reference here and there. And though it lacks the direct gut-punch of one of Stevens’ best solo records, it’s infused with the warmth of real friendship.

Songwriter Tim Elsenburg makes great strides forward with an ambitious cycle of songs about identity and history.

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

The album features slow-burning grooves that build steadily from modestly minimal to euphorically exultant.

Unlike I Love You, Honeybear and Pure Comedy, which were rooted in performativity, God’s Favorite Customer is sincere, raw and melancholy.

There’s a lot to unpack, but Welfare Jazz is a smart and rousing listen.

I suspect that those who’ve always found Harvey a chore will find much to mock. But her fans will be all in for this mucky pagan whirl.

On All Fours is undoubtedly an intense listen, with its blistering harmonies and Pendlebury’s low murmur. They’re good for a sharp analogy, too.

Each track makes unpredictable bedfellows of certain sounds; even the deceptively simple guitar ballad, “Gross”, drops a synth that sends ripples through Von Schleicher’s lilting top register. It’s a disruption that echoes the most prominent theme, the struggle to translate her deepest thoughts to a lover, and consequently find her own power.

Though it doesn’t deliver the promised 2020 twist on the Nineties formula, beabadoobee’s debut album is a terrific new addition to the “bubblegrunge” genre.

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 album feels baggy in places, leaving you wondering if they’re trying too hard to tick every box. But most of the risks the band take pay off. A very promising debut.

There’s a delicacy to his songs, lazily ambling along with just a few key elements allowed to flourish; the gentle, echoey guitar winding through “You’ve Got Your Way Of Leaving”, the fuzzy, Yamaha YC30 riff that “Abandoned Buick” is built on, the melancholic piano that appears on “Wildflower”. All of this gives his soft, lilting voice space to shine, and framed by such elegant, pastoral music, his delivery--and his lyrics--do most of the emotional heavy lifting.