As both a candid portrait of introspection and an exciting step forward with his musical talent, Michael Kiwanuka's Love and Hate beautifully captures the artistic power of vulnerability.

The collaboration between the film and the music is so successful, in fact, that it is hard to describe the music without noting the scenes.

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.

Seven Horses is an ambitious soundtrack experience which works perfectly and will leave you moved, inspired, cleansed and a little afraid.

Home Counties have firmly asserted themselves as some of today’s brightest musical minds.

This is an album that rewards both careful listening and submission to its ravishing atmospherics.

Made In California does a great job of confirming just how much more there was to The Beach Boys than sunshine and girls.

While Shade certainly holds no surprise, it’s an album that brims with substance and Harris’ longtime base won’t skip a beat in welcoming these tracks.

Richard D. James is back, and he’s still absolutely untouchable.

Very few albums are worth such a long wait, though, but blackSUMMERS’night is one of them--it’s an album that should live forever, purely because it sounds so detached from time.

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

Toledo’s 13th album as Car Seat Headrest, captures inherent self-loathing and turns it into something to be proud of.

At times, Narkopop moves surprisingly fast and the senses struggle to absorb all the nuances of sound. Other moments are more traditional mesmerizing GAS offerings. Either way, it is a complex, beautiful and terrifying experience.

Running parallel with Aster’s allegorical fetishism of interpersonal decay, Krlic's music - even at its most choking and hopeless - feels luminous, making for a perfectly-poised accompaniment to one of the most challenging genre films in recent years.

There’s not an ounce of fat, not a wasted moment, not a single beat that doesn’t suit its purpose to the letter. It’s a monolithic testament to a rapper tired of being treated as both the victor and the underdog at once. It’s undeniably clear just which one he is here. King’s Disease II is a victory lap that nonetheless never lets up its pace.

Process is an impressive curtain-raiser to what is sure to be an equally impressive solo career.

The Night Chancers is Dury’s most accomplished work, its self awareness and innate understanding of genre and language shows the songwriter to be in the prime of his creativity.

These are world-class songs, thoughtfully sequenced into an endlessly replayable record. DEACON is, quite clearly, a complex, rich and elegant collection that points at one very simple truth: love is central to a life well lived.

Big Conspiracy is an album that certifies J Hus as one of the most influential artists in UK music.

Run the Jewels not only surmounts Charybdis, but does so head held high, able to be considered--and enjoyed--upon its own merits.

With every track a souvenir of good ideas taken up throughout an illustrious career, and every lyric a hard-earned proverb, Night Palace could easily be defined as Elverum’s wisest release. It contains the breadth of a career and of a life spent in dedication to compatible wavelengths, of sounds in the new.

On their new album, they maintain this dive into pop, but with songs that are nothing like as captivating as their back catalogue.

Marling has delivered Once I Was an Eagle with a charisma lacking in most of her peers, and the poise of a far older hand.

Showing no desire to even the scales or to polish the extremities of his vision, as we near the end of this decade (Sandy) Alex G has re-established himself and one of our most inventive and intriguing voices.

As a whole it's a fine addition to the Foo Fighters catalogue – but that’s not the point of this album. .... This is a reminder that the Foo fighters are a band bigger than any individual member - including Grohl. They're a rock band that, even when the going gets tough, know that there's a job to do and there's no better way to deal with life than throwing together some ringing chords and belting the dark clouds away.

Bird Machine is a resonant final word from an enormously talented singer-songwriter. While Linkous clearly struggled with depression, his music often feels as if it’s soaked in light and infused with love, even as it evokes melancholy and apprehension.

At times he delivers just that [a huge and definitive work].

Promises matches the patience required for the project’s realization. Built on a sparse keyboard figure, the composition at the core of the collaboration can initially seem underwhelmingly slender, even repetitively monotonous. Repeated listens gradually reveal a different story.

This is a record that throbs and vibrates with an infectious pulse even when the instrumentalists aim for the outer reaches of lightning-speed look-at-me flurries of virtuoso showing-off.

to hell with it feels genuine. A genuine talent creating music that is genuine to her and by showing the wide spectrum of her talent, PinkPantheress adds an extra sensation to her ‘viral sensation’ tag. Nestling perfectly within the current climate whilst also carrying its own charm, this is the start of something big.

This album doesn't feel so much like the work of a band trying to make a cereer-high album as much as a band using a great record to remind us why they've made so many in the first place. Most bands would love to end on a high note; DEP actually did it.

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

Taken together, it’s a sprawling, surprising album that proves a heavier sound looks good on her.

While The Patience is less conceptually rounded, and instead, a directive of bottled emotion and frustrations inevitably concluding with an artistic clarity, Mick Jenkins proves his worth goes beyond a label deal. Even firing loose cannons he’s a lethal voice with plenty to say.

Though it feels glued together by the seams, God Save The Animals, like the best Alex G efforts, eventually reveals an almost impossible cohesiveness – a slightly off-kilter haze where a smouldering heart shines for others to lean into.

Dogrel is evocative, meticulous and rich in a love for the character of Dublin, and all the little things that, past and present, contribute to that.

Elwan is pure rock n’ roll. There is an undeniable swagger and an unfettered attitude of resistance here; no pretension or theater.

An album rich in darkness and in texture, finding Low in experimental sublimity, further reminding us that their range has only gotten exceptionally larger and better over time.

Raven doesn’t feature much of the volcanic beats and unadulterated longing of its predecessor, but its minimalistic approach showcases an artist in the midst of her evolution.

While a full band surrounds him, all that functionally matters here is White. The tracks live and die by his presence, not unsurprising given that we’re dealing with a uniquely possessive auteur.

There’s nothing too complex about what Porridge Radio do, but they do it very well, and Every Bad is unlikely to wear itself out soon.

With the potential to be a divisive record amongst his fandom ranks, it pulls from Tyler’s cachet of sounds and themes but often doubles down while introducing new ones ("I Killed You"). In totality, it's as free as he's ever sounded. Where before he was a cultural antagonist, now he’s a matured rapper and entrepreneur with grander visions and grander fears – everything here fits that bill.

Producer Josh Kaufman - New York-based musician, Hold Steady collaborator and member of Bonny Light Horseman and Muzz - has elevated the album, finding the perfect mix of chaotic and smooth.

This longform escapade is the real McCoy, and where the magic happens. The honeymoon period is over.

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

The audience becomes an audibly thrilled fifth member of the band whenever Butterss and Bellerose land on a more steadily rooted groove, which renders the initially hushed, seemingly telepathic exchanges between the musicians into a collective effort to work up a muscular and hypnotic musical sweat.

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.

“Free In The Knowledge” is a truly heavenly ballad in the mold of “True Love Waits” or even “Fake Plastic Trees”, with a call of togetherness (‘’but if we’re together/well then, who knows?’’) that offers an unexpectedly moving breather from the angst in abundance elsewhere, as well as proving that Yorke can out-emote the legions of lesser songwriters watering down the formative Radiohead formula when it comes to warily optimistic heartache-meets-hope.

The artist’s love for effortless aesthetics may have ironically been brought into a confident big room setting on With A Hammer, but successfully merging thoughtful pop, trip hop, house and everything but the kitchen sink is surely anything but effortless.

They’ve pulled off possibly the most intelligent, involving and profound record since OK Computer.

This is a great entry point into the catalogue of one of Britain’s most inventive, iconic bands--but the shallowness of the record makes it largely unnecessary for anyone that owns the Original Sound compilations, or indeed the albums themselves. ​

Across a mere 20 tracks, In the Orbit of Ra acts as a receptacle for everything that was exciting about Sun Ra whilst somehow managing to be neither wilfully impenetrable nor disingenuously accessible.

Fish is his fortieth release where the folksy fingerpicking comes lightly southern fried and, lyricless, It’s virtuoso playing which tells Michael’s story

This retrospective gives the perfect platform for some of Brainfeeder’s forgotten gems to be rediscovered, too. The vivid textures of Teebs, Lapalux’s dystopian soul and Taylor McFerrin’s retro glow are a beautiful reminder of the unsung heroes that have helped keep the label’s sound moving forward. Not ones to dwell on the past, the second half looks to the future, giving fans a brief glimpse of things to come.

With Your Wilderness Revisited, William Doyle hopes to bring you along on a magic carpet ride through suburban England, where you will find new ways of experiencing pathways, front gardens and parked cars as though they were entirely new concepts.

[An] excellent record: the guitars throughout the album are aggressive and sharp-edged, the bass is consistently robust and roaring, and rhythms are serpentine and oppressive - barely a moment goes by that you aren’t feeling Shah’s own claustrophobia, the weight of her own aging bearing down on your shoulders.

While Forever Isn’t Long Enough doesn’t venture far off the beaten track with its lyrical content, the musical arrangement and writing on each and every song is a joy to listen to. Templeman’s songwriting is unmatched amongst his fellow 18-year-old musicians, displaying both a successful present and a bright future.

From its songwriting to production, its emotive lyrical content to considered vocal performance, it’s a home run of a project. Holly Humberstone is destined for great things, and this EP is just the beginning.

Worm Food takes the form of Skinner's most well rounded and experimental project to date.

Choruses could feel more anthemic; the rhythm section could punch you in the gut a little harder. But that doesn’t take much away from a solid record that should come into its own with a live crowd connection.

Their second full-length may be short, but it expertly treads the line between fantasy and realism, between pretension and honesty, and wraps it all up before you’ve had time to raise an eyebrow.

Fratti’s voice is honest, almost deadpan, in its delivery of plain and modest phrases – and scoops up to notes like she’s a radio starlet. But that familiarity is constantly unsettled by its instrumental landscape, where scratching strings recall the compositions of Tony Conrad, and song structure is thoroughly disjointed and unpredictable, recalling the arrangements of Marina Herlop and Meredith Monk.

Bruised yet defiant, fierce yet elegiac, Wasteland deserves to be counted amongst the genuine masterpieces to have emerged from the ongoing folk renaissance.

Similar to Charli xcx, Smerz’ downtempo songs might be more revealing than their anthems. T

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.

Scaring often feels more like a mixtape showcasing Peggy's inimitable skills as a producer, but its the addition of Brown's frenetic flow that elevates the patchwork quilt. It's his spiky wit and tonation which delivers a cargo-load of personality needed to spark the frenzy.

Over ten short years, Hyperdub has managed to cultivate itself a reputation for quality with such style and consistency that it is difficult to think of another UK independent label that commands such a universal level of respect from devotees of its genre. Hyperdub 10.1 is predictably solid evidence of this.

Much like Black Messiah, a slightly more heralded return of another long-absent polymath, it rewards repeated listens, even if they’ll barely bring you closer to actually understanding it.

This is, by a long distance, the most introspective work that Murphy has yet turned out, and you can feel very palpably the weight of all those anxieties he cited during Shut Up and Play the Hits.

Ultimately, Interior Live Oak hits the richly rewarding territory of classic double albums by making the listener wonder whether its impact would be even stronger were it slimmed down to a single album whilst making it impossible to identify which tracks could be justifiably ditched to downsize the proceedings down to a more conventional 40 minute running order.

It’s a heady, dazzling blend of pop, punk, dance, funk and electronica, moulded into a swirl of kaleidoscopic energy.

This is a record of patient, sojourning hope, so leave your adolescence at the door.

Anyone actively looking for flaws in Lost In The Dream, the exquisite new album from The War On Drugs, is quite frankly listening to the album wrong. And at any rate, they simply won’t find any, no matter how hard they search.

Blue Rev is a slightly disappointing return from such a brilliant indie band.

Owusu’s debut offering not only manages to deftly balance style with substance, but does so with a jubilance that gives as much reason to curl up your own most toothy grin. More importantly, it also offers moments of reflection.

In the past decade or so, countless bands have been brought up from the same well of tightly-wound, expressionistic rock (Protomartyr, Preoccupations, Shame, IDLES, Shame, Fontaines DC), but none hold the same uniquely fascinating appeal that Dry Cleaning have. Play New Long Leg loud, and play it often.

Algiers crafted a unified, cautiously optimistic record that rises above the vitriolic din.

This is a story-album: each track is its own world and, like any novel, it demands attention. ... Gold Record feels self-consciously like a classic country album, something The Bellamy Brothers might have put their names to.

On Happier Than Ever the tempo never quite reaches fever pitch; instead, Eilish is content with the tranquillity of tried and tested methods - tentatively pushing boundaries, rather than cranking the distortion up to 10.

In All At Once, the Garden State guitar heroes show they have as much, if not more, to say than ever before.

This time around, however, the influences are mashed together more thoroughly, creating a uniquely rich stew where country, soul, rock ‘n’ roll, gospel, folk and more exotic influences mingle freely.

Way Out Weather mixes various musical styles--folk, classic rock, psychedelia, space rock, dub hues, West African grooves, open-tuned raga drones--to arrive at a genre-defying, expansive sound that's simultaneously tight and totally, winningly loose, sparsely uncluttered yet richly textured in a way that rewards repeated spins.

Blending the raw energy of punk with the gritty realism of folk, the result being a potent double pint of catharsis and confrontation. There’s seemingly several albums worth of material on display, from industrial poetry to showmanship indie, held together by its narrative which howls to the struggles of the everyman, from the depths of addiction to the despair of a nation in decline.

Through this combination of the ethereal and the eccentric, Halo has curated a mix that twists neatly around her musical influences whilst lending an intimate sense of her own direction as a producer and DJ. It is a seamless collection rooted firmly in the contemporary which hints at a musician in complete artistic control.

Add a tad more polish--if they so choose--and it’s surely only a matter of time before they’re razing the main stages to the ground.

Ultimately, untitled unmastered isn’t TPAB, and anyone expecting something of similar cultural impact is only depriving themselves of one of the year’s early musical gems.

Whether Poison Season is approached as an exhibition of those many individual pieces, or as an ensemble affair weaved subconsciously together, that conflicted point of view leads the listener to treat the whole LP as an exploration.

A powerful tapestry of sonics ranging from mellow to rapid that permeate with soulful purpose, Dance, No One’s Watching is a joyful outpouring of enthusiasm which harnesses a deeper, yet fruitful, meaning.

SICK! carries the ever-popular lo-fi vibe as well as a blend of stellar hip-hop. Artists utilising lockdown as a creative direction is not uncommon these days, however Sweatshirt’s attempt carries a distinct sense of realness.

It’s an admirable pool of ideas, thrilling noises, rare, unpredictable melodies and a huge amount of imagination but to be brutally frank, it doesn’t encourage repeat listens.

It’s this ability to take the familiar and present it in dramatically different forms, with the potential for rediscovery that this allows, which makes Hitchhiker--faults and all--a must-hear for Neil Young fans.

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.

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.

In short, afraid may demand a bit more from the consumer, in terms of mindful listening, but variety and range (and intensity) are indeed present, even if more understatedly.

A work of breathtaking beauty capable of connecting us more deeply to our truest selves and to the world around us.

With so much powerful percussion on display, it takes a few listens before you finally settle down and appreciate the more intimate and painstakingly-beautiful arrangements that fall in between Stranger to Stranger’s colossal thunderclaps.

Ratboys have been a perennially underrated indie act for the best part of a decade, a steadily excellent band on the verge of proverbial explosion. With the hooks, heart, and heaviness packed into Singin’ To An Empty Chair’s 50 mins, their time could well be now.

It being one so vulnerable and exposing (including using his family for the artwork), stripping the skin down to the bone, is bold, beautiful, but most importantly, a reminder that an artist like Kendrick Lamar is once in a generation.