There’s no fuss in the instrumentation, either, mostly just gentle picking or brisk, deep thrums on Wall’s acoustic guitar, which are bolstered by icy laps of pedal steel and the occasional harmonica. It’s effective in the simplest of ways--and allows the listener’s imagination to do the rest

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

The live recording of this record really helps deliver that communal feeling. They feel so present and close that listeners might feel they’re violating the pandemic rules.

Sensitively produced by Marta Salogni, the result is both seductive and hypnotic. .... I may already have found my album of the year.

So although Cave’s adept grasp of vocal expression, from aching melancholy to erupting hysteria, guides the narratives of these songs, this is not simply a singer backed by a band, it’s a unit striving for collective expression, by whatever means possible.

It’s excruciating in its honesty – even for Lenker, who’s hardly known for shying away from her feelings. Now she bares her pain with complete abandon. It’s quite extraordinary.

There’s barely a moment on Distance Inbetween that doesn’t ooze new-found strength and inspiration.

Taken as a whole, it's a marvellous piece of work, boasting a rare congruence between lyrical themes and musical evocations, and fronted by one of the most broodingly characterful voices in rock music.

Skin is brilliant across the board.

Sometimes I Might Be Introvert is the most thrilling album of the year.

At the height of his powers on this long-awaited follow-up to 2022’s Reason to Smile. .... Don't Look Down is a superb album, his best to date.

As with Visions, this third album sees the band hopping between styles – folk, garage rock and shoegaze – only now they’re steering deeper into the corners and controlling the skids.

Love Is Dead continues to ask questions of the world, but realises they’re not always black and white, or in CHVRCHES case, light or dark.

Traverses Eighties-indebted dance, swirling alt-pop and homespun lo-fi across a tight 10-song track list. There are reprieves – where the energy quietens to syrupy, fluid ballads on which Zauner’s voice lolls as opposed to skips – but the emotional journey is always upward.

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.

The whole album is a terrific reminder of the intense, personal connection Swift can conjure in song.

It all adds up to probably the best Stones album since... well, since Some Girls, actually.

From the lovely momentum of “Carousel”, complete with fairground chimes, to the shivery, spellbinding flair of “Forget-Me-Not”. She’s as compelling as Julie London on “Silver Linings”, as heart-rending as Sam Phillips on the bold, surprising “Sabotage”. It’s sublime.

Even among the country music gems already released this year, Stapleton’s feels like a small miracle.

Prelude to Ecstasy gleefully delivers.

Just a series of great, swampy soul grooves, fronted by the most arresting new voice you'll hear this year, and the kind of natural songwriting that seems to contain the entire history of Southern music within its staves.

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.

It's simply marvellous, an unalloyed joy from first to last, with Robbie Robertson's finely wrought storytelling songs augmented by a few well-chosen covers.

Elwan (Elephants), perhaps their most powerful album since Amassakoul, confronts their situation head-on, in songs musing on the values of ancestry, unity and fellowship, driven by the infectiously hypnotic cyclical guitar grooves that wind like creepers around their poetic imagery.

The result is probably the best work of the singer’s career, a wide-ranging survey of contemporary shortcomings in which the frequent bursts of offhand spite and bitterness are perfectly balanced by the warmth of the folk-rock arrangements.

Whether The Horrors will willingly pursue that same trajectory to its logical conclusion seems doubtful, but for now Skying finds them breaking free of old bindings, eyes set on the wild blue yonder.

The more languid, erotic performances are balanced by ones on which Deantoni Parks' drums dictate the mood through their rattling, martial bustle.

Norwegian singer Ane Brun's quietly involving music occupies a spectral space in which her delicate, tremulous voice reveals shared intimacies with a rare poise.