It's music that slips between the generic niches favoured by broadcasters; but isn't that exactly where the most interesting music comes from?

Wild God can feel fathomless, but it leaves you buoyant.

[The] debut album sparkles with invention and throbs with emotion.

It's a relief to report that Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down is his best effort by far since Chavez Ravine.

Inspiration Information [is] repackaged with an extra disc of pieces recorded since then, which show his abilities undiminished by age.

Across 27 tracks, almost all with compellingly muscular melodies, she whips and neigh-neighs through every conceivable form of classic and modern country, roping in elements of opera, rock and hip-hop at her commanding, virtuosic whim. .... Cowboy Carter keeps on dealing aces.

The transitions here are remarkable; skipping a single track feels akin to jumping three chapters in a novel. .... It would be easy to dismiss this album as indulgent – particularly after Tesfaye gave everyone the collective ick in HBO’s ludicrous misfire of a series The Idol – but Hurry Up Tomorrow is impressive for its ambition alone.

For the most part, this is an album that restores faith in the sheer joy of music.

As with many great albums, successive hearings reveal more clearly the elliptical tunes at the heart of these eight quietly intense pieces, climaxing with the eight-minute “Age Old Tale”, a masterly band performance.

Max Richter’s only motive here is beauty, drawn from all corners of his musical interests, which are many and varied. The result is a journey that takes one from Renaissance choral polyphony to the inventive precocity of teen duo Let’s Eat Grandma, via Bach and Handel, minimalism, post-rock and electronica, with nary a misstep in sound, selection or sequence. ... A rare treat.

Music purists can entertain themselves all they like by debating whether this is “true” classical music. The rest of us can revel in what is possibly the best album of the year.

At times, Dog Eared can feel like being let into a luxurious, vintage cabin at dusk. Sheepskin rugs on wooden floors, low lighting, open windows. At other times, it’s at risk of becoming classy, crepuscular wallpaper. But given time and attention, the confident craft of the songwriting and mellow musicianship will sink their grooves into the soul.

Once I Was an Eagle is a work that demands to be taken as a whole, another reminder of the peculiar power of the album form, despite frequent premature declarations of its redundancy.

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

The result is a lush, immersive work which is sonically more homogeneous than her earlier albums.

An astonishing record.

Across the next nine tracks they deliver pounding pop thrills and arena-sized catharsis, in a style that refines their distinctive sound instead of pimping it up, Noughties style.

Freedom Jazz Dance features the entire session reels for tracks from Miles Smiles and Nefertiti, complete with studio dialogue, enabling us to hear Miles discussing and directing the music, ironing out details. ... The point when they all seem to realise, as one, what to do with “Nefertiti” is a moment of pure, transcendent joy.

Few pop acts are making heartbreak so straightforwardly danceable at the moment. All hail to Years & Years for continuing to hit us with those laser beams.

Her rap flow has a terrific tensile strength. When singing, she delivers as both a belter and a breathy balladeer. ... Special is good as hell.

Caustic Love may be the best UK R&B album since the 1970s blue-eyed-soul heyday of Rod Stewart and Joe Cocker.

The intimacy and evocative atmosphere of previous releases has been retained, but there’s a fresh, barnstorming spirit brought by the team surrounding the core duo of Joey Burns and John Convertino: where earlier releases sometimes felt too meticulously crafted, this one has the sound of a proper band, its members constantly egging each other into uncertain territory.

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

Songs of a Lost World is just eight tracks long, although it’s so immersive you’ll lose track of time.

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.

Wood is one of our finest songwriters, a brilliant exponent of the topical troubadour form, and rarely on better form than he is with None the Wiser.

The Roots' 13th album may be their best.

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.