Of course The Most Lamentable Tragedy is ridiculous. It's also dumb, intelligent, heartbreaking and life-affirming.

Their quality of music and precision is outstanding, and while referencing so many of our favourite artists from eras been and gone, they perform and compose in a new light with such integrity that makes them a step above the rest.

These songs have the funereal grace of David Bowie’s elegant final goodbyes (The Next Day and Blackstar), as well as Bob Dylan’s trio of reflective, mournful albums that helped usher in--and bring some clarity to--the fractious start of the 21st Century (Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft, and Modern Times).

They inject even their most aggressive tunes with so much joy it becomes something incredibly hard to resist. Even after endless listens, not one chorus, riff, meditation or croon falls flat and none of it feels like it could've come from any band other than this one.

Death is inevitable and we don’t know what’s on the other side, so while we’re here just put everything into it. Bestial Burden is the sound of Pharmakon doing exactly that.

Wonderfully fearless from start to finish, Donnelly speaks up for those who either won’t or can’t.

The divide between Hollingworth and Walton has never been clearer in Two Ribbons, nor the subject matter more intimate.

Rounding off with the fitful “Wildfire”, Shygirl closes the curtain on a remarkable musical universe that shows she’s one of dance music’s emerging greats.

Mohawk is an album that feels great, imparts wisdom, drops sweet details and encourages both fandom and participation. If there’s fault to be found it’s in the record’s brevity.

Stonechild isn’t as much a revelation as it is an affirmation of the truth – a truth which the singer bears out across the album in fragments, inviting her listeners to construct a full picture for themselves.

Their best work yet--there isn’t a weak track among the 11.

It is an unsparing, anguished release in which we see an artist laid bare and tapping into a more natural and resonant version of her sound and self. It is the fullest and most developed work from FKA Twigs to date.

Segarra reaches, with stunning empathy, into the lives of people struggling with specific or universal hardships throughout and yet, crucially, these songs would be killer without the stories at the heart of them.

What Farao does so well on Pure-O is to create something nuanced and interesting. With an extra bit of reverb here, a pitch shift there, she ensures that the stands out from other synthpop, which can feel clinical: too clean and polished.

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.

Every listen yields new life oozing from each beat - above all, Anywhere But Here feels like an album that will weather excellently as Sorry go onwards.

It is all bark, all bite and Power’s greatest and most consistent release under the Blanck Mass alias, bearing a message that is as crucial as it is necessary.

Clean showcases what it is to be stuck in a quicksand of self-loathing, and have it stop you from seeing your own accomplishments and more importantly, being proud of them. If Allison isn’t already chuffed with this debut, she should be.

Purple Mountains is a project born of perspective and circumspection, not self-indulgence or score-settling. It may not be the 2019’s easiest listen, but it’s certainly its most honest, and one of the year’s most rewarding.

The album marks a significant advance for A Winged Victory…, in accepting the challenge of unorthodox inspiration, and doing musical justice to it in highly convincing fashion.

This is an unusually difficult album to love, because its true beauty is obscured, deliberately so, by clouds of uninviting sonic textures, but hidden in the depths are incredible moments of clarity and intent. ... Probably Thom Yorke’s most beautiful work to date.

The truth is that they are both thoughtful, sometimes sentimental musicians, with voices that can sing of love and hurt just as much as eating croissants (“Continental Breakfast”) or friendly girls who insist on touching your face (“Untogether”)--and this is delightful.

Alongside a natural tendency to sustain tensions and avoid convenient certainties – what the poet Keats called negative capability – is a sophisticated pop flair. With I Get Into Trouble, Zietsch emerges as one of the more eloquent singer-songwriters of her generation.

A slab of seventeen tracks, the bands ninth album has managed to pack enough dynamic twists and turns to make it feel like a joy ride rather than a struggling amble. Given the weight that One More Time... holds, it's an impressive feat and one that feels significant no matter which way you look at it.

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

Whether it’s dark and driving or elegant and echoing, Vultures is at all points capable of igniting a spark in your gut that’ll burn until there’s nothing left.

V isn’t a huge reinvention, more a subtle reboot, and a move which has worked out perfectly. The Horrors are hardly new to making brilliant albums--they did that with their previous three--but V is better than them all.

An album that is truly magical, Man Made is a stand-out debut. After giving everyone a bite of the fruit with previous releases “Downers” and “Hu Man”, this is the full showcase of her impeccable talent.

On their tenth record, they’re back once again to thwack their guitars really hard while also putting together some of the lushest soundscapes and most rousing choruses you’ll hear all year. The band’s greatest strength is an ability to cover multiple bases while always sounding unmistakably Deftones.

Here she is not just a musician, but a generational talent capable of creating transfixing otherworlds and, with The Gods We Can Touch, an ethereal masterpiece.

For The First Time is ferocious and endlessly intelligent, highly considered and wildly improvised, eked out with bristling tension and set alight with a burning intensity and a knowing smile.

The prevailing feeling throughout LOGGERHEAD is one of punk, through its take-no-prisoners sound, and its desire to bring kindred spirits together as a community. “I think I’m just going through an exfoliation of my thoughts and experiences,” Romans-Hopcraft said last year, about his then still-in-the-making debut. Never has that sounded more urgent, more wholly unique, and more fiercely individual.

It really is a stunning record, a completely unexpected treat and an album of the year contender, no doubt.

Laufey colours both inside and outside her established lines to create a joyful tension on A Matter of Time. It makes for the boldest chapter in her artistic story yet.

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.

It’s beautifully crafted, and you’ve really not heard anything like it before.

She forges a mighty hammer and her album has a thunderous resonance for our times.

A concept album this is not, but the with the veins running deep with recurring themes, as a second album, Davies has managed to construct a weighty signifier of impassable change. ... Packing a punch musically; twisting and turning; immersing with piano interludes branching elegantly from the albums introductory roots (“All Shall Be Well”), the softest nature is held for later cut “5am” which feels as vulnerable as it does honest.

Wondrous Bughouse is a delicious collage: provocative, allusive and consistently engaging.

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

The Cleansing’s bounteous treasure trove delivers his most ambitious and potentially most rewarding collection of songs.

You Signed Up For This is candidly aware of the simple fact that you just don’t have everything right just yet. Combining this with Peters' constantly evolving and sharp song writing, and a braver, more mature sound, the singer-songwriter proves she’s one tough act to follow.

Unsurprisingly, there’s an overarching sense of melancholy, but the more you listen, the more you realise that she’s deftly poetic with her words in a way that’s clearly inspired by some of the great writers of the 20th Century.

Jones places a premium on tonal variance and equilibrium throughout Visions; it’s a wise chess move, ensuring an absorbing listen with every spin.

It can range from snarky and contemptuous to comforting and reassured, but every time you listen to The Overload you notice and feel something new.

Lovingly co-produced with Paul (Mansun) Draper, Davies is on startling form throughout, layering spellbinding vocal harmonies and turning her hand to a long list of instruments with names few will even recognise.

She’s delivered an album full of unrepentant honesty, decadent instrumental highs, and an unguarded emotional core. Few other artists can so perfectly capture the dizzying life-or-death stakes of those who love too young and too hard.

With clever twists of post-production, Makaya chops and resamples not only his own band but also choice words and phrases of each stanza, making the poetry a percussive element and drawing out emphasis. A decade after his death, Gil Scot-Heron’s final oeuvre has finally settled into something great.

Desire is the sound of a group who have thoroughly found themselves and sees them standing supremely confident, whilst retaining elements of older material including “Wonderful Life” and “Miracle”. Seemingly, 2017 is the year of the upbeat indie dance record, and it belongs to Hurts.

Everything Squared succeeds both on its own terms and as a reminder of how original the band was from the outset. Looking forwards and backward with equal acuity, it is a fine achievement.

As a collection of music, There’s A Dream I’ve Been Saving is excellent, but as a story it is a true revelation.

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.

Singles is an effortless wonder. Each and every track runs its course avoiding any pitfalls.

It combines all of Doja’s past lives with some more heavy-hitting punchlines. It feels like a stark departure from her previous commercial efforts, while still showcasing some clear hits like “Paint The Town Red”, “Gun”, “Go Off”

Everything Was Beautiful shows Spiritualized accessing yet another artistic plateau, forging an exemplary hybridization of unshakeable songs and sublimely assembled music.

Whip smart, furious and, most importantly, fun, Songs of Praise is the first essential album of 2018. And what an album it is.

For Ride to produce such a strong album is a wonderful thing. To compare this to their first two albums is silly--bands and entire genres were formed off the back of those records--but does Weather Diaries sit up there with them? Absolutely.

Future Nostalgia is an artist in total control. It’s built on such an addictive carefree spirit that it’s hard not to let loose and go with it. The greatest pop star of this generation? That’s for you to decide. But Future Nostalgia makes a very convincing argument that Dua Lipa just might be.

The result is a really excellent album: uncompromising, thoughtful, and with enough buried complexities to keep people arguing for years to come.

Black Noise dissolves existing genres and gives you a taste of what may lie beyond the system he’s fighting against.

It is an exceptional modern hip-hop album unafraid of exploring the darker sides of the modern rap persona, all whilst creating a rich, textured sonic environment within which it can be best ingested.

Committed to a style and substance that simultaneously looks to the past and future, the five-piece soundtrack their role as esoteric prophets of doom with a sonic credo that proves genuinely idiosyncratic in the current climate – sharp, wit-filled and uninhibited stuff.

It’s one of the most complex pop albums of recent years, and like any great steamroller mind, she can’t quite contain herself.

We’re left reveling in an album that is grand in ambition and execution – a sweeping journey of highs and lows worth celebrating.

Each track offers a different facet of the band’s sound revealing more with each listen. Dolores Forever may have titled their album It’s Nothing, but make no mistake - this is something special.

The record is quietly confident; Gunnulfsen can belt, but she doesn’t need to shout to be heard.

In Spades sees Greg Dulli synthesizing all of his musical and thematic elements seemingly into everything he’s ever wanted.

Fucked Up’s personal narrative draws an uncanny parallel with that of Dose Your Dreams. In creating a tale of dreaming big and clinging on to hope they are living out their own script, refusing to be bound or compromise in the creation of their art. The importance of dreams cannot be understated.

The result is a sequence that sounds more expansive and sublimely mapped, yet perhaps less combustive, less raggedly urgent. I.e., Monolith is triumphant on its own terms.

Despite the fact that the future caught up with them, this collection shows that there remains nowt so queer as The Human League.

This record is shamelessly Citizen. Each track holds its own distinct mood, along with the signature poised aggression that they've meticulously sculpted throughout their career. ... Their strongest work to date.

A truly enjoyable record, a durable collection of interesting and exciting pop music that is hopefully only the first of many to come from Christine and the Queens.

In.ter a.li.a is better than we dreamed it could be. Prepare to fall in love all over again.

Let’s Eat Grandma have made one of the most intoxicating, inventive and original records of the year.

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.

Blending the brash with the heartfelt is something The Smith Street Band have always succeeded in doing. Here they take that to the next level, deftly executing a record that’s as bombastic as we’ve come to expect from the band, and isn’t afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve.

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.

With nary a crack across the entire album, Bonar’s weaving of multiple indie rock subgenres--alt-country, dream pop, punk--is tight as it gets, yet she and her band consistently retain an air of restlessness across the album.

On Nat Ćmiel’s fourth album, styles perfected and popularised by subversive 90s acts – Massive Attack and Nine Inch Nails will spring to mind – provide the guidance needed to explore new soundscapes, encouraging the singer-songwriter to surpass all previous achievements.

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 results are musically elegant, emotionally eloquent, and absolutely vital.

The most wonderful, positive ending, a paean to the power of song and the song that closes this modern classic of an album.

As they continue to challenge conventions and push boundaries, while still being utterly and completely themselves, Protomartyr stand tall as a testament to the enduring spirit of innovation that defines Detroit's rich musical history.

Dilly Dally have crafted a well formed rock album that’ll surely go to make Katie Monks the next pin up girl of the anti-pin up girls.

It triumphs not as a continuation of a musical conversation that Isn’t Anything and Loveless began, but by forging its own distinct modern dialogue, one that at once sounds rooted in its own imaginative time and place, perhaps even dimension, with any telling outside influences dissipating as soon as the songs truly take their pleasurable hold.

The accompanying music speaks for itself, filling every inch of Second Line’s constructed microcosm with the metallic hue of fuzzy synthesizers, reverberating chimes, and booming bass. Richard’s voice floats through it all, shepherding newcomers with an intoxicating haze.

Lacking in the upbeat indie of his debut Dear, or the powerful emotional outbursts clustered in Birthdays, Monument is a heavy, but truly worthwhile, listen.

Williamson’s voice, writing, and sound have all evolved leaps from her previous albums, and Time Ain’t Accidental stands tall among masterful country-pop crossover records like Speak Now or Golden Hour that made their authors superstars.

On The King, Anjimile crafts a masterstroke folk album that binds differences through time for unparalleled emotional clarity.

Motordrome is a multifaceted delight and an early contender for pop album of the year.

I don’t know who needs to hear this… finds Tomberlin firmly stood in the language of her own making. She redefines song structure, alluding to the intrinsically mirrored fashion in which life pans out; like life, far beyond the close, these songs continue to spin.

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.

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

A clear cut statement on what it feels like to be alive in these troubling times from an artist who is carefully cementing himself as one of the most compelling and earnest young talents.

Tirzah has made 11 raw, honest, and beautifully unusual pop songs that will remain with you whether you like it or not, bringing you back time and time again, motivated by your devotion to this record.

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.

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

Moments of personal darkness are threaded throughout Hard Love, but the clarity and strength that Showalter finds when he shrugs off the gloom gives the songs a restless optimism tempered with a belief that the sun will always come up no matter how long your night has been.