Ddespite being a classically trained multi-instrumentalist who self-wrote, mixed and produced the entire record, it is her hypnotic voice which carries you through this album of self-discovery.

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.

At its core, Lush is partly a remarkable debut, for the solid shape it's delivered in, mostly cohesive, conceptually speaking, but it's true that the cohesiveness of Lush lacks any true dichotomy to "spice" up the album.

Not everything on Hope Downs impresses, as tracks such as "Sister’s Jeans’’ and "The Hammer’’ fail to recount the warmth and vivid storytelling found on the rest of the album. Regardless, Hope Downs is a record that sounds like it was made in the Australian bush, and it’s when this sense of local experience is presented most effectively that it really starts to shine.

The album’s repeated motif of smoking and cigarettes as an addiction metaphor feels try-hard rather than smart. The best tracks are those that transpose the drama of Li’s best work to the album’s more explicitly pop context.

The lens of amusement and sympathy through which Rhys views the turning world around him brings new life to the lineage he draws and draws from.

Make no mistake, this is difficult to listen to. You will not be rewarded for multiple listens. It is what it is. It’s not enough, by a mile. West has clearly made this for himself first, and indulgence is deeply ingrained into the concept.

The result is not a focused or sharp record--but it doesn’t need to be. The allure of Noonday Dream comes in its willingness to swell and expand, before Howard sits up and starts kicking, slowly but precisely, to steer the track in a new direction.

Whether or not Joan of Arc are intentionally pulling back from some of the density of He’s Got the Whole, a bit too much space leaves stretches of 1984 less than solid in the process.

An ambient, compelling and unique look into whether contemporary life really has to be so empty.

The four-track offering is a rather wild journey, in that it refuses to offer anything up easily. Instead, it allows its intricate layers to build up to whatever it is they eventually come to stoke inside of you.

All of those tracks ["God’s Plan," "My Enemy" and "Wonderland"] feel sparse, built softly with a light touch, which is why the overblown, full-steam-ahead manner of much of the rest of the album is so maddening and--given their past pronouncements on big studios and producers--so utterly perplexing.

Hell-On is one of Case's moodiest solo records to date.

God’s Favorite Customer isn’t afforded the opportunity to shine with Tillman’s usual charming spirit--that’s not because the turmoil of heartache is too mundane a subject for the philosophically-minded Tillman to master, but because in order to master it, he needs to do more to whip up his usual reckless innovation.

The more you listen, the harder is gets to place this record in a rundown of the overall Warpaint output.

It’s truly a fascinating listen and shows Maus on the cusp of confidently venturing into unknown territory. Even if he isn’t fully there yet, Maus is able to generate enough to show that it’s within his reach.

At its heart, Tell Me How You Really Feel offers a sense of encouragement, finding reassurance in transience and seeking out a little beauty amidst chaos and turmoil.

In its brief seven tracks, Rausch barely makes it over an hour mark, but in that time frame, Voigt gives his listener a lot to unpack and offers the idea that he still has a lot more to say.

This is the most diverse record put out under the Parquet Courts banner. ... It’s no enormous stretch to say that Savage is possibly the finest lyricist working in rock and roll today, and he’s certainly one of our most engaging vocalists.

Sparkle Hard continues this unfeasibly strong run he’s been on and adds a little more bang for your buck.

This is an often-beautiful, fully professional work from an artist that clearly knows the toys his listeners will allow him to play with outside of his own sandbox.

It feels like a fitting release for the duo who’ve been going for so long. The search for new ideas is always on, and with this one, they’ve found a winner that offers something a bit different, while not alienating.

It’s an uneven soundtrack to some early morning hotel lobby fever dream where the house-band drown in tight-collared Paul Smith suits and over-wrought orchestral-pop mimicry.

They continue to test the waters, which in itself is admirable, however, the execution in reaching a pinnacle can get lost from time to time. I Have Fought shows the Body running roughshod and a band who will continue to push and who will never settle for less.

Here Lies the Body holds a sweeter and more sentimental Moffat than one might expect. Some of these songs could be parallel universe versions of Arab Strap tales; the scenes quite similar, but the perspective lightened, finding tender humor in human intimacy that’s tart but not bitter.

Dove is an album of texture--there is nothing as immediate as “Feed The Tree” or any of Star’s off-kilter, head-rush singles and there is nothing as hooky and bright as King’s “Superconnected”--there are layers and copious amounts of digging involved here.

The consistent rapport between Prekop, Prewitt and McEntire is more than enough to propel the Sea and Cake steady on their course.

Lost Friends is an essential first listen that is never too afraid of a huge chorus or a touch of slow burning intensity. Indebted only to themselves, expect great things from Middle Kids.

7 might not be their greatest moment (that right is still reserved for the utterly beautiful Teen Dream), but it is their most exciting.

Toward the song’s end, “Mad About You” takes a left turn into a blurry coda unlike anything else on Hollow Ground. It is a sign of stronger connections to the present that Clarke can turn to, having proven here beyond a doubt his prowess with the past.

Singularity may not be a huge departure from the sound that we’ve previously heard from Hopkins, but this record is a masterclass in musical sonics--a reminder that music should be absorbed, not left to simply pass us by.

With the exception of The Band-esque fable "Percy Faith", the more light-hearted material proves less memorable. Even so, The Horizon Just Laughed continues Jurado's recent winning streak.

Beyondless largely speaks for itself. It does what Iceage have always done best: it challenges everything you thought you knew about them. It could be viewed as their most accessible album yet (it features guest vocals from Sky Ferreira, after all), but it’s not as simple as that.

Koze’s superb imagination makes him able to mesh genres and styles that in the normal world shouldn’t work, but this is Koze’s world and we are just living in it--for now at least.

Rebound doesn’t represent an entirely successful experiment--especially when, on ‘In Between Stars’, things begin to sound suspiciously like Texas--but when Friedberger gets it right, the record soars.

It’s steeped in Haitian history, it’s an exploration, an education, and a hugely personal accomplishment.

It’s a soft reboot. It’s a new path to take. There’s the widest palette of any Okkervil River album, but it’s steady and doesn’t throw any needless curveballs.

What held together the sounds from her previous records for me were the classical segments, the overarching concepts, the storytelling and the interludes between songs (admittedly these aren’t enormously popular or easily translatable to a live show), which are completely removed here. Given the switch in tone, it feels like Monae is more comfortable in her skin and her sound, but is this a good thing for the music?

It takes from every era of the duo and amalgamates it in such a way that you it never feels forced or out of place. While we may miss those cutting riffs, they do more than enough to satisfy our thirst.

It was written and recorded in only a week and a half, and this is the beauty of it. Harris has managed to capture an emotion and deliver it in its rawest and purest form.

This is the most listener-friendly and accessible that Speedy Ortiz have ever been. But the band hasn’t left behind their heavy grunge sound, despite what many long-time fans will think when they listen to Twerp Verse. They’ve just given their sound a clever makeover, and taken the next step in their evolution as a band by doing so.

TRather than being a simple tribute, Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John is a stunning addition to the story of both musicians. Thankfully, there are hundreds of songs left for Hatfield to do on Part II.

Invasion of Privacy is filled with carefully crafted tracks which ably show her many sides. Cardi B knows who she is and where she came from and she isn’t trying to hide it from anyone.

The misfiring cover of The Beatles’ "I Want To Hold Your Hand" aside, Pinkus Abortion Technician is more than a legacy record for the band. It reflects their continued enthusiasm and well of ideas and, most importantly, their willingness to keep it weird.

On the whole, Freedom represents a watershed moment for Damon McMahon.

While the folk-essence lies below and often comes through in its truest form, the developments are clear and passionately welcomed all across Vide Noir. Where a band like Mumford & Sons abandoned ship from their beginnings to a mixed result, it sounds like Lord Huron have managed to evolve forward incorporating electric elements in a major way without forfeiting any kind of integrity.

Beautiful Thing shows the other end of Alexis Taylors talents as both a songwriter and a musician, and it’s time that more discovered them.

Ultimately, there is a place for this kind of music, but it feels horribly dated.

Very often Hippo Lite feels like wandering into Cate Le Bon and Tim Presley’s tossed off living room recording session. However, the pair have taught us the valuable lesson that weirdness needn’t be conjured under pretense from far out places while the mundanity of real life can prove far more potent.

There is a refusal to rest on any laurels here, and as a result 12 is a record that can sit comfortable alongside their most beloved albums. Quite why their brand of effortlessly delivered power-pop hasn’t taken hold outside of Canada remains a mystery, but anyone with an ear for a catchy melody, a sing along chorus and a chiming guitar will find plenty to love here.

Each listen helps to start piece together the overall shape of the album, something which remains a little shrouded throughout. But its length, and depth, is also Persona's strength. An album to get lost in and to discover bits of wonder along the way.

Its 11 tracks taking listeners on an rollercoaster of emotional peaks and troughs, and by the time the closing moments of final track "The Ocean Grew Hands To Hold Me" ring out, you can’t help but feel bruised, beaten and above all cleansed.

Overall Resistance is Futile is an interesting nexus of the Manics’ twin ambitions towards populism and complexity--and an encouraging sign that they are still progressing after over 30 years.

Ultimately, at minimum, The Lookout treats us to exactly what we’d expect from Laura Veirs in well-crafted and thoughtful songs delivered with a warm and reassuring familiarity. Those listeners tuning in a little more keenly and willing to try these songs on time and again, though, will undeniably be rewarded with some of the finer fruits of one of the most dependable singer-songwriters working today.

Pinned isn’t a memorable record; it’s a cacophony of ideas that don’t pan out. While it has bursts of substance, they soon trail off, or are abandoned instantly.

Gone are the peak-time weapons that peppered Drone Logic; instead Avery teases us with tension and texture, ebbing and flowing his way to something truly hypnotic.

Not as mourning as the drunken howls of Iceage and more biting than Shame’s riling observations, Nihilistic Glamour Shots is a disturbing and wholly invigorating release. It's a testament to a fascination with the corrupt and the abnormal.

An album both more mature and more realised than anything Hop Along have realised previously, Bark Your Head Off, Dog is a deft balance of quiet, folky meanderings and rousing slabs of indie rock, the two combining in to an amalgam that on paper, shouldn’t really work, but in practice cements Hop Along as far more than another quirky indie pop band, and elevates them in to another realm entirely.

What I Don’t Run does do is that it takes the already colourful palette that the group used for Leave Me Alone and expands on every aspect of it, imbuing it with the sort of fizz and crackle that you can’t fake--it’s only ever the product of a thriving live outfit. Hinds are approaching full bloom.

Geography has much that appeals, not least that it’s one of those rare records that doesn’t fit neatly in to one genre. With it, Misch has cemented his place as one of the UK’s top independent producers of the moment, and looks set to only grow in confidence.

Wye Oak’s forward-thinking approach proves they’re miles ahead of their peers in more ways than one, and if they can keep on moving, things are likely to stay that way for some time.

It results in a pleasant, but mostly quite forgettable listen.

At its best the record is a playful, pulse-raising thrill-ride; and you can see that musical dexterity on display here will be staggeringly impressive or bewilderingly inconsistent, depending on your taste. I guess Yesterday Was Forever, but tomorrow is where we’ll see the best from Kate Nash: this feels like the last step before greatness.

Wiry but not without weight, The Nothing They Need conveys an increasingly efficient model of Dead Meadow, saying its piece in eight unhurried, hash-hued visions.

Sex and Love is best when self-assured but not arrogant, and when Nielson offers up confidently subdued melodies which give space for his production to ring out.

What emerges from Cinema is an image of a musician who remained resistant to such categorisations to the end: experimental, curious and explorative, Czukay clearly didn't want to master just one style of music. He preferred to have a go at them all. Even when the results are messy (some of the light-hearted late 80's material hasn't dated well), Cinema proves the wisdom of this open-eared approach.

The richness of the source material and the deftness of interplay of each member of the band ensures that Your Queen is a Reptile leaves you with a sense of having been a part of something truly special.

Funny, raging, unpredictable and electric, this is a record that feels alive.

The bleak landscape around Dungeness can provoke contrasting responses, and both the sense of malevolence (it’s the site of a nuclear power station) and stark beauty are well reflected on this masterly recording.

It falls into a very similar trap to the band’s last album, which started with a track that sounded promisingly fresh (“The Singer Addresses His Audience”) before immediately lapsing into Decemberists-by-numbers (“Cavalry Captain”).

Castles moves from darkness to hope, and ends not with a conclusion, but possibilities.

Combat Sports reaffirms The Vaccines as one of the most exciting British bands around--and one absolutely still worth pestering friends about.

While certain songs definitively outshine others, they all contain their own character and energy resulting in something not only haunting and enigmatic, but something rather stunning.

Modest means and humble ends shape the character of No Fool Like An Old Fool.

Mr. Dynamite's expansive instrumental interludes sometimes disrupt the pacing and punch of the record, defying coherence, but this never seems like anything less than deliberate mischief. It’s merely a performance of the group’s own self-discovery, proudly extending and flexing their new cyborg limbs.

Though a record of torn emotions, veering from elation to desolation even with a single track, Reiði is far from directionless. Resolute in its delivery and steadfast in its ambition, Black Foxxes have delivered an album that’s both hauntingly fragile, aggressively unapologetic and arguably one of the strongest releases of the year.

Though much is often said about Sunflower Bean’s sounds of the past, Twenty Two In Blue is an impressive reflection of their formative years and a place to start talking about their future.

Delivered with a passion that feels like it could at any time escalate to a frenzy, Rosenstock laments the USA’s current situation in true punk style with his heart on his sleeve.

A record that feels so familiar but with just enough surprises to make it exciting too. The three year wait, then, seems entirely worth it; that scrappy Brighton foursome have grown into a bonafide anthem factory with plenty more still to come.

I Don’t Think I Can Do This Any More won't win over any of Moose Blood’s detractors, but despite those tracks featuring early in the album erring on the wrong side of over-familiarity, the band have clearly made a solid effort in developing their sound and maturing as an outfit. And though by no means a perfect album, it’s far less two-dimensional than cursory listens would have one believe.

Hot Snakes are as dry, dented and slightly demented as ever.

For die hard Reich fans, these recordings may not reveal anything wildly different than what has preceded in a vast corpus. Reich is a composer whose work contains great nuance, and it is certainly the case for Pulse / Quartet. These are recordings that demand a few listens, they are worth it. Allow yourself to get lost in them.

As well as some (comparatively speaking; nothing here is entirely unrewarding) misses, the instrumental cuts also provide the EP's highpoint in the form of the soaring, Can-inspired propulsive hypnotics of "Loop".

Boarding House Reach's overall flow--conceptually and creatively--is at times unsure and brilliant at once. This is no album of the year contender, nor will it rank too highly on White's saggish discography. Instead, it's thirteen songs of creative madness.

Imagination is what makes this record. There’s something about each one of these tracks that lulls out a scenario from the recesses of your brain, with each different sonic motif working around the others to complete a narrative, which fades out of your mind immediately as the song melts into itself at the end, like the disintegrating dawn reverie we all experience on attempting to remember a dream.

On their dense, careworn new LP (their fifteenth studio effort), indie stalwarts/college rock heavyweights Yo La Tengo have shown that can still bring fresh ideas to the table, despite the album being fifteen tracks long, and it being over thirty years since their first album.

Elegant and artful to its core, Where Wildness Grows is an impressive step forward from a band who seemingly have more to prove to themselves than anyone else.

It’s hard to find fault with an album that feels so consistently representative of the mind that bore it. Francis Trouble is certainly Hammond finding a version of himself that’s pushing toward the future while never losing sight of who he really is.

Whether it’s cheering the night off with friends and family or spent in reflective solitude, I’m Bad Now is something you want to experience and get lost in, and if you don’t come back for a while, it’ll be just fine.

All That Must Be is a record that frequently toys with this idea of transition; creating a constant balancing act between two forces fighting against each other. At some point someone has to give in, and this is the perfect soundtrack for letting go.

Toning down her wry wit and wrapping her songs around the common theme of reckoning with and rebuilding from loss, Historian offers a more cohesive testament to Dacus’s exceptional songwriting.

Despite moments of variance, Firepower still finds Priest as focused as ever. Although they don’t break the mould on every track, it’s important to remember that it’s a mould that they set, and Firepower fulfills as some of this year’s most prospering and ferocious heavy metal.

A masterclass in how to show exploration while never straying from the beaten path, Miranda is a mind most should look to. Rich in melody and promise, she leaves no stone unturned on her journey to the centre of the musical earth.

An album this strong, delivered this late into an artist’s career, would usually be given an ugly tag like “return to form” or something equally crass. However, in Byrne’s case, it’s simply a continuation of what has been--and will hopefully continue to be--a glittering career full of highlights and continuations of form.

If you listen to this album with your head, it is a politically charged rally to the people, but if you listen with your body, it is an album designed to make you dance--the hallmark of any release bearing the Kuti name.

It’s half magical, lush, and wholesome, and half redundant. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in repetitive cycles, not knowing when to quit. That moment has finally arrived for Titus Andronicus.

With Tearing at the Seams, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats have distillated the ups and downs life throws at you into a vibrant collection of many-hued vignettes; some make you smile, some make you well up, and some make for the ideal accompaniment to good ol’ sauced-up revelry. Whatever the case, they’ll all make you feel that thing inside you. Soul.

Rolo Tomassi are a band still looking to push themselves further forward creatively, while remaining just as focused on retaining the dramatic core of their sound that has long set them apart from any contemporaries.