Each track comes with a reminder of how trauma makes monsters of us all, but in the centre of it all Danilova’s strong, clear voice is the will to keep going.

Time Is Over One Day Old use a less is more approach, the understated subtlety of which results in their best album to date.

It’s equal parts silly, serious, camp, and on occasion mildly ridiculous, but remains wildly inventive throughout, it’s one hell of a party.

As well as succeeding in being both a culturally appropriate expression of catharsis, Care also pushes the band further in their musical development.

We’ve only got eight tracks here, about twenty or so minutes of music, but not a second of it is wasted, and just about every moment is brilliant.

Tempered with meditative calm, space and restraint are the dutiful catalysts of each blissful rupture and devastating pay-off.

He’s created an incredibly ambitious, soulful avant-garde debut.

Whether it haunts you, puts you in a dreamlike state, or simply makes you hum along, Beach Music is an album which should be listened to without hesitation.

Heavier than his last offering, this is an album that sees Maltese dissect his psyche during a particularly rough time, and lay it out on a plate. Matt Maltese is an artist bursting with true musicianship and this record demonstrates the versatility that underpins his enormous talent.

What it undoubtedly is however is a tentative sidestep, keeping one foot firmly in New York post-punk while allowing the other to wander towards sunnier, more refined pastures. An alternative route that, while not always trodden in style, Palberta have nevertheless proven they’re more than adept at taking.

Terrestrials sounds surprisingly cohesive considering the project’s improvised roots and slow development.

It grows immediately after every listen. Its effects have some kind of exponential growth in your head, where you can find yourself humming melodies that appear once or twice in one track. His songwriting is that infectious.

Comfort food is dubbed so for a reason, and Real Hair’s got my belly delightfully full.

Songs Cycles certainly doesn’t represent all that Van Dyke Parks has to say about the state of the modern world, but the album does manage to assuredly illuminate Parks’ singular artistic vision and his enduring impact on the music of our times.

Sure, it’s chorus-driven and a touch too slick, lacking the density and the ambition and the sheer bloody nihilism of NIN’s 90’s heyday, but Reznor’s not that guy anymore--that guy died with the heroin overdose. But there are more than enough moments here to suggest a maker not--whatever the protestations of one of its tracks--yet at peace.

Cut Worms, now Clarke’s third record under this moniker, arrives as handsomely as the tidal waves that ramble onto the shore: high-spirited yet uncompromising in their force.

Snapped Ankles make music to soundtrack the apocalypse, and you can’t help simply sitting and enjoying the ride.

It’s a rich tapestry of sounds that comes straight from the heart. That might be Marten’s secret ingredient: no matter how left-field the compositions are, whether warming or breaking, there’s always a lot of heart in the music.

It’s positively thrilling to witness a band perpetually committed to pushing boundaries and creating music unlike anything else released before it.

As the next chapter in an unimpeachably reliable catalog, Nicole Atkins couldn’t ask for anything more from Italian Ice, preserving her artistic hallmarks, deepening her emotional lyrical depth, while broadening her stylistic palette.

Young Enough is a pop album that just happens to rock.

You don’t have to be a fan of punk music or emo to be a fan of The Hotelier, you simply have to appreciate genuine, earnest emotion.

Fabiana Palladino is a near-effortless reinvention of retro pop, soul, funk, and R&B tracks with a glossy modern sheen, setting the stage for more grandiose statements in the future.

Ultimately, one of No No No’s greatest strengths is its lack of clarity.

The result is a record much darker in tone than previous outings, yet still harbours the sardonic wit that endeared us to them all those years ago

Strong as the songs are, it’s the rich musical settings that really hit hard.

Beatopia highlights an artist who has matured quickly, honing her initial work while impressively expanding her aesthetic scope.

Pinkshinyultrablast isn’t so much offering something new to or pushing shoegaze anywhere it hasn’t already been. They are flat out transcending it, offering a sound all their own that is frighteningly powerful and overwhelmingly beautiful.

As an elegy to Hayes, Era is a beautifully crafted tribute to their friend, but it’s also a statement of intent, which is to keep moving and create music that mixes the ups with the downs, euphoria with despondency, in a voice that is their own.

With Expert in a Dying Field The Beths have created a bundle of sheer sonic joy that confronts, but doesn’t succumb to, all those neuroses most of us know too well.

Horse Lords fare even more impressively with the minimalism that sets in during the second half of the album.

Sticking to their core tenets, This Behavior is perhaps the record where ADULT. get the weirdest and the most lost, taking their aggressive electronic soundscapes to a plain more immersive and menacing than they’ve ever been before.

Kagoule have captured the energy, thrills, uncertainties and anxieties of being a teenager and bundled it all up in an exciting debut album that thrills from beginning to end. More importantly they've done it on their own terms.

Protomartyr save their best for the final half of the album beginning with the buzz saw, fuzz chug of “The Hermit”, moving into the splashy moroseness of “Clandestine Time” and recent single “Why Does It Shake?”. But it is on “Ellen” when The Agent Intellect truly peaks.

Bewitched is a marked step up in every way. And, because of it, she’s more than the promising young star she was in her early career – she has shown herself to be an established talent.

Mourn is a hearty, eye-popping reminder just how far we have swayed from rock music’s embryo nowadays and how awfully contrived the revivalist stabs have been.

Masking our flawed humanity with flawless electro, the South London trio fork over a delicious portion of pessimistic pop, drizzled in scrumptious synths and glorious electronic production, but bypassing a sugarcoating of over-hackneyed hedonism.

For its occasional low ebbs, Oxymoron is an impressive display of bleak wit.

Ultimately Harry Styles feels comfortable and readily worn-in.

Somehow, With Trampled with Turtles combines the emotional heaviness and wounded introspection seamlessly with the palpable, communal joy of playing and singing music in good company.

Though taken as a whole, YU is a wonderful record. Okumu and Lowe are a dream partnership, and along with the rest of London’s modern soul players present on YU and hiding amongst other projects, have way more to give us over the next few years.

It would be wrong to view hopefully ! as a step back into Carner’s comfort zone based on a surface assessment. The live band used throughout the record gives hopefully ! a relaxed and blissful undertone, enriching the feeling of sunbathing or watching a sunset that Carner’s repeated mentions of the sun craft in the listener’s head. Vocally, the rapper pushes his boundaries more than perhaps ever before.

Heidecker has been releasing music for the past eight years in various forms, but it’s a blast to see him strike out on his own and create an album that is sharp, insightful, and often hysterical.

It’s something self-indulgent that few could get away with, but every song finds its place effortlessly. So, rather than feeling too self-indulgent, it feels far more like we’re the lucky ones SZA has chosen to share so much with.

It would seem that, even forty years on, the quartet is still brimming with dynamism and inventiveness.

While this might not be among the (minimum) of three absolute masterpieces he’s created over the last two decades (pick your own), it deserves your full attention, indulgence and sick laughter all the very same.

Twin Peaks somehow manage to translate the last ten years of American guitar music into a 40 minute package that will help you remember why you fell in love with all of the bands which ‘changed your life’ in the first place.

Fizzing with melodies, the dream-pop infused aura that emanates throughout is charming and vastly uncomplicated. Her vintage aesthetic sealing the deal.

It’s not packed with bangers, and the vocal tracks are a let-down, but as a fresh statement from a band that has promised and delivered much in the past, it’s exciting to hear them go down this route.

This is a strong record, and it shows that Ohmme have safely navigated the pitfalls of the dreaded second album syndrome. Here, they sound mature, focused, well-drilled.

Although at times Embracism feels like a meandering listen or musical stream of consciousness, Callinan’s songwriting skills have allowed him to find cohesion throughout its ten songs, a consistency that a less engaging personality certainly wouldn’t have struck upon.

The Rat Road is a record from not just a producer, but an artist, fully in command of his new direction.

Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent is a triumphant return from Capaldi. There’s plenty that’s consistent with his debut.

The album both expands on the now expected lyrical themes (tackling corruption and injustice both generally and more specifically in the context of ever-messy Nigerian politics), and injects fresh energy, economy and verve into afrobeat’s typically unhurried, generously portioned polyrhythmic splendor.

With just one track over four minutes and only ten cuts overall, Light Upon the Lake is the kind of record you could easily find yourself blazing through three or four times in a row without even realizing.

It sounds like The Family was BROCKHAMPTON’s most overtly challenging album to make, saturated with honesty even when it’s difficult. But there’s a sense that going out with intention freed them up creatively like never before.

On a surface level, the melancholy strum of a slow acoustic guitar can come across as another translator for yet more sad songs, yet Atwell tenderly works on herself beneath its topline, where more complexities also lie, refusing to change for the acceptance of others on tracks such as the steadily-paced "Fan Favourite", even taking on crunchy guitars in "Release Myself" for a change in pace.

Throughout Shadow Kingdom, Dylan is found virtually savouring the sweet taste of his lyrics, applying care, precision and masterful phrasing that renders the results really quite beautiful.

Sound Ancestors isn’t anything new from Madlib, but it only further cements his status as one of the great producers, artists, and minds in hip-hop

A work of great craft, multifaceted charm, and, yes, an alluring marriage of the visceral to the gentle, this album feels like the opening chapter of a thrilling career.

Its narrative arc and Hinton’s own emotional investment into the project elevates Potential over some of the more high profile electronic releases of the past few years.

After Laughter is a deep album with plenty to say. It’s easily the most honest and mature Paramore have sounded yet and also probably, one of the best pop albums you hear all year.

Eleven different audio artists form ideas, take chances and augment the backbone of a record which at its core, is Hubbert all over.

Where does Mountainhead stand in their canon? Only prolonged exposure will tell, but one thing is beyond doubt; it’s the best concept album you will hear all year about a subjugated society literally digging a hole that takes them further away from those at the top of the heap.

She releases something new, or as new as old can be, and the sun has more of a reason to shine; it’s a thing of beauty.

Ö is a raw, natural celebration of that trust. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it’s exactly what’s needed heading into summer.

Pompeii shows Le Bon happily wandering into the obscure corners of what pop music can become, establishing a well-earned spot as one of today’s most captivating visionaries.

In the end this feels like a record made by people seeking hope and escape while – like many of their audience – secretly doubting everything. It's fertile inspiration for music that twists Metric’s signature sound into new shapes that seem a good fit for the psychic terrain of the supposed swinging 2020s.

There’s a sensitive soul underneath Birthday’s hyperactive bounce, and it tends to come out clearest when Pom Poko find a sweet spot and stay there for a minute.

The album confidently moves between playfulness, tenderness, and grit – often all in one song, as with stand-out tracks “Lose Our Heads” and “Wake Up”. The combination of Jarvis’ gorgeous, versatile vocals, clever lyricism, and the killer beats provided by drummer Robert Mason creates something unwaveringly epic.

By the culmination of these nine songs, it’s hard to not be left with the impression that Bloom Forever is an album that Thomas Cohen really needed to make, and make public.

It’s a raw, cathartic, but incredibly gentle record that pushes through personal boundaries, and wonderfully reiterates the fact that it’s okay to be alone (even if you’re sleeping with your “key in the door.”)

Whether Potty Mouth are achieving anything new is besides the point--the important thing is that they feel fresh and relevant, whereas the punk of today has seemingly had its time, growing increasingly redundant and stale

Nothing continues his life’s work to twist and distort. To invert boundaries and genres and do more. Yes at times it seems like there’s a little something missing. Yes at times it could use something more. But there is and it could. It’s called Nothing. Sometimes that’s the point.

Green’s debut foray into a full-length project highlights and accentuates her brilliant ability of penning narratives and churning out infectious alt-pop cuts.

Swervedriver’s knack for making Americana-tinged rock from the outside looking in remains totally undiminished.

Loose Future embraces uncertainty and jumps headfirst into big emotions, but with acute self-awareness.

The Car flickers between solemn nostalgia but also having a blast – a journey which can be unsettling but fun and surprising in a way that you wouldn’t expect.

The result is the most substantial and satisfying Gorillaz album since the widescreen 2005 art-pop masterpiece Demon Days and its almost as impressive successor, 2010’s sprawling Plastic Beach.

Big Bad feels like the perfect distillation of the raw energy and menace that Giggs has brought to UK music, only this time it's been taken to a whole new level.

Even without the visuals, the mood and narrative of Vanbot’s journey are sometimes sharply articulated, sometimes mysterious--we can piece together a story, or just sit back and observe as it passes.

Williamson truly soars when her moving vocals combine with the vivid imagery that is painted through the lyrics.

This is not simply Koi No Yokan 2.0: if anything, its true parallel is White Pony, another moment in the band’s history that seemed to find them catching lightning in a bottle, condensing all of the elements that made their early sound so intriguing together with as-yet-unheard influences and producing a classic in the process.

Thematically the album's tight and the catchy hooks and danceable rhythms drip with just the right amount of psychedelic dance-pop sweetness. With infectious grooves, great musical phrases and smooth almost sultry vocals, it all makes for another Saint Etienne record that's extremely hard to dislike.

It may be less vital and refined than Daytona, but It’s Almost Dry feels far more expansive and is arguably more instantly enjoyable than its predecessor.

Homeshake widen their scope for their fourth record, Helium: a statement of identity. Homeshake’s sound on Helium captures the mood of our ears. hinting at zeitgeisty bedroon pop.

Blood Bunny is reassuring, and as a body of work is an example not just of someone going through this same turbulence, but flourishing regardless.

Ggood voice is nothing without good songs, and Rateliff comes with plenty of ammunition on Falling Faster Than You Can Run.

It’s not one for EDM purists or those who like their lyrics with any degree of ambiguity, but if you’re the kind of person who finds the very idea of John Grant interesting, you can revel in the fact that he just got a whole lot more complicated.

There are no full-force affairs here. Colt is a record that is to be felt however you see fit not to be simply thrust upon you. Relish in the relaxing comfort of Woods ethereal voice melting into this dark, stormy palace; it’s one that has been a long time coming, and leaves no stone unturned.

This is yet another reinvention for Crutchfield, but this is the first time she’s so palpably given off the sense that she’s at peace with her own thoughts: stronger and more candid for having figured out how to best to take care of herself.

Vu didn’t invent tragi-pop (she wouldn’t deny her numerous progenitors, from Cat Power to Julien Baker); however, her airy melodicism and meme-friendly lyrics, coupled with her technically grounded yet mercurial voice, make for a signature presence.

Ultimately, however, the highs triumph over the occasional coasting, even if it's hard to entirely shake off the feeling that there's a killer 12 or 14 track record to top off Wilco's return to studio form on 2019's Ode to Joy lurking amongst this bumper crop of Jeff Tweedy’s songs and Wilco’s telepathic dynamics.

It’s a perfect pop record, from start to finish – there’s not a single filler track, each is distinctive and shows off the band’s impressive range.

It’s not for the faint hearted, and its point isn’t to make you smile. But if you’re up for the challenge Damogen Furies is a steaming black shot of adrenaline.

Make time for this single-sitting long-player and you will be rewarded.

Overall, that combination of conversational, vulnerable lyricism mixed with impeccable baroque pop arrangements makes Older as unique for the pop world as it is beautiful. All in all, it’s a deeply honest album, both in its exploration of aging and in its rejection of pop cliches.

Nickel Creek’s great storytelling and vivid imagery, in most cases, never fails to enrich these anecdotes and reminiscences.