What makes Pageant a great record, and a convincing document of queer life, is the balance between earnestness and droll humour, a push and pull that can be traced back through the work of Rufus Wainwright, Pet Shop Boys and The Smiths, right back to Susan Sontag's definition of camp as an expression of this duality in 1964.

Like the other aforementioned boxsets from Cherry Red, they eschew the ‘hits’ to get down to the obnoxious and primal heart of the genre, this is geeky crate digging in CD form, designed to entertain and educate.

The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess is a little lacking in vision and coherence, but this first glittery collection of pop songs from Chappell Roan drips in charisma and hedonistic pleasure. Let’s drop the ‘star in the making’ label – she’s already here.

Even though many breakup references are scattered throughout Crushing, a strong sense of emotional progression is also woven in, flipping the narrative to be more positive in parts. Vivid lyricism personifies the album title in each track.

EHAO is about as good a compilation of modern rock songs as you’re likely to find, but one can’t help but wish they’d had the devilish urge to include some of their most adventurous cuts in the place of their already well-known and mildly overexposed tracks. ... The only new track included here is the rather wonderful “No Bullets Spent”.

It boasts some of her strongest singles ever, and, coming at the end of a four year break and a two year pandemic, it’s not the theatrical Welch who shows up here; this is a woman and a songwriter, no forest-sprite.

San Fermin is a classical album, fitted with an accompanying tale of love and heartache. San Fermin is also a folk-pop album, set in a world of brilliantly beautiful classical instrumentation and composition. It sits perfectly in both of these guises, and for this, Ellis Ludwig-Leone deserves all of the praise in the world.

Any Human Friend is an explosive body of work, one that isn’t afraid to discuss sex and female eroticism with a microscopic lens. Peeling away the layers to reveal an intrinsically human record.

The Age of Immunology is, simply, a masterpiece.

Yellow has the cosmological foundation, but Thackray sounds nothing like the spiritual jazz artists of the twentieth century, nor like Shabaka Hutchings. She’s a unique voice in the London scene, and, as Yellow shows, her range is vast.

Trip9Love…??? feels just as symbiotic in that way as previous cuts 2018's Devotion and 2021's Colourgrade did, but this time, they’re so emotionally vivid that it’s disquieting to feel like a fly on the wall. Once again, they leave the listener submerged.

This is a powerful, brave and endlessly rewarding album made by a band who have risked it all to make a giant leap towards fulfilling their potential.

[A] fine album. If melancholy had a soundtrack, it would be Mint Field’s De Las Luces.

It Won/t Be Like This All the Time (IWBLTATT) is another dauntless step forward, unflinchingly embracing the core aspects of their sound, while boldly incorporating loftier ideas. It is not some grandiose attempt at a knockout punch or some cheap leap at the mainstream; you cannot fake sentiment, or force people to feel something. IWBLTATT is a laser guided arrow to the heart; an enveloping noise that chips away at you over time.

Many of these songs have been in the band’s live repertoire for years. But after recording them on lo-fi equipment and scrapping the results, it turns out to be a great pleasure that the band decided to embrace the opportunities of a new studio environment and produced the fantastical and empiricist take on their trademark noise rock sound.

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.

This being a Spiritualized record, you should know exactly what to expect. ... The only minor gripe that you could have with the project is that it’s nowhere near as vital as Pierce’s recent collaborative record with Föllakzoid.

WARM sees this industrious figurehead of intelligent American rock return to a form where he can balance these two extremes effortlessly and make the deeply personal sound thoroughly universal in a manner that is unlikely to leave cold anyone with a heart that is still beating.

An electrifying and utterly unexpected treat, it’s packed with the kind of nourishing and warm music we would do well to turn to for sustenance and uplift when times get tough.

The album’s strength is drawn largely from these expansive arrangements, which make use of sparsity and density with equal power.

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.

Light Up Gold isn’t total hedonism, but as riotous, guitar-led escapes from the drudgery of the day to day go, it’s more than enough fun to convince you to go along for the ride.

For all the tragedy that’s to be found within Singing Saw, it is a warm, welcoming album, every second of it informed by a knowledge of the transience of all things.

She subverts expectations and embraces contradiction, creating fascinating sonic concoctions with familiar ingredients, all brought together by her twisting melodic sensibility.

No One Was Driving The Car represents a strong return to the guitar-driven, fictional, but nonetheless moving terrain of La Dispute’s third (and best) album following the more personal and pastoral Panorama.

If you’re ever walking by rundown buildings of the same stature, listen to Shaking Hand and let the colour in the mundanity reveal itself to you.

With the totally triumphant Course In Fable, Walker has devised the ultimate two finger salute to anyone who has ever pinned him down as an artist chained to vintage inspirations: this exciting, moving, beautiful and complex album sounds only and exclusively like Ryley Walker music. Listen to it with the attention it so richly deserves, and rewards.

This isn’t a perfect album – far from it – but it is stylistically consistent, thematically coherent and beautifully composed.

The studio cuts from this era on What's Your 20? provide a reminder of the huge contribution that the late multi-instrumentalist (and Tweedy's occasional co-writer) Jay Bennett made to Wilco's gradual shift from sour-breathed earthiness to more experimental, sophisticated and unsettled sounds.

It sits balances between a '70s and '80s sound, yet is somehow incredibly modern in tone. This is something IDKHOW do remarkably well.

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.

Like the tightrope act of love itself, Love’s Crushing Diamond perseveres through calculated effort never to offend or betray the trust of its betrothed listener.

Duffy has sculpted an album that vibrates with courage, tenderness, and a sheer insistence to feel. Blue Reminder is not just another indie-folk sojourn; it’s a declaration of presence.

Listening to Anicca is like watching the sunlight burst through a stained glass window: everything you hear is bathed in light; warm, soft-focused notes swirl together in a wash of colour – the perfect soundtrack to brighten any setting.

As Albarn croons, “Every generation has its gilded poseurs” and The Ballad of Darren prove that Blur are some of the best ever to do it.

As opposed to the rich, twisted dreamscape of Ignorance, Stars is a record of dense and oblique beauty.

Whilst there’s a great range of material to lose yourself in here, it can at some points feel a little like (Whirring Marvels In) Consensus Reality is composed of many different albums – switching swiftly as they do between ideas from song to song. Your mileage will vary, and the excited mixture of material did little to affect my enjoyment of the album, but it’s worth pointing out nonetheless.

A dazzling introduction to new fans, and a crystal clear familiarity for fans that have been here from the beginning.

Something To Give Each Other isn’t changing the game or reinventing the musical wheel, but ask yourself: does it need to? It’s exactly what it needs to be, and it's done so incredibly well.

Cool World is instrumentally gripping, vocally enthralling, and lyrically calls out the horrors of late-stage capitalism.

Be it a preemptive rebuke or not, Snares Like a Haircut is assured on its own terms, showing No Age comfortable with music for its own sake.

While it’s unlikely to have the same impact as In Colour, as the next step in the development of an eternally unpredictable artist, it’s a rewarding and frequently electrifying listen.

Humanhood spotlights a restless artist as she strives to reconcile minimalism and maximalism, all the while addressing the mysteries of self, other, and the world.

It’s a deeply engaging, consistently great release from a uniquely interesting artist. It’s just a damn shame that he’ll never get the chance to do it again.

With their newest offering, the trio traverse an incredible diversity in sound. ... The band’s ability to switch effortlessly between energetic, grunge-fuelled rock songs and sweet, emotional poignance, is something to be wholeheartedly admired.

If this all sounds a bit linear, as though Etch and Etch Deep moves like a standard plot, well, that’s because it does. There’s no film to accompany it, but that doesn’t mean Haiku Salut’s second album doesn’t make for a fantastic score, providing a subtle emotional guide as it moves from point A to point B and each stop along the way.

Silent Earthling is clearly an experiment in how to expand on a sound that is already protean and expansive by nature. It’s a difficult job, and that’s clear from listening to the record, but such is the breathtaking nature of Three Trapped Tigers that it is highly doubtful many will mind.

Before the Applause is a shattering listen, a confrontational record which violently switches genre with each song but somehow works marvellously. It's hands down the craziest album you will hear this year.

Lotz knows how to craft her work, using every moment to her advantage resulting in an album that’s an absolute indie-emo masterpiece.

The Imperial is far from a standard rulebook-revising nostalgia turn. Both the stark realism of the romance-averse blue-collar settings (here, the narrators are too busy hustling for a living to croon sugar-coated rhymes about romantic ideals) and potent musical left-turns (such as the stripped-bare minimalism of the weary-beyond-words "Roll Back My Life") make The Imperial sound thoroughly authentic, as opposed to a trip through someone else's back pages.

There’s a confidence, an appealing weirdness to Twin Heavy which looks keen to stretch the limits of the genres it might be categorised under. Completely unrestrained in his approach, and with a noticeably slick evolution since 2017’s People and Their Dogs, Willie J Healey seems set to continue in his upward trajectory of…wherever it is he feels like going next.

We see a spritz of various weapons in her arsenal, and though they may be brief snippets, they ensure that we’re not fatigued by her noise. Instead, we’d actually quite like more. A lot more.

For the most part in fact, the album’s production is curated with Cudi in mind, a sonic bag of treats for those who vibe to the gloomy, celestial exploration of his early material as well as the rap rock stylings he has demonstrated since. ... Whereas the beats on ye sounded rushed and underdeveloped, the beats on KSG have some meat on ’em, crafting a sonic mood board that evokes thoughts of psilocybin mushroom trips, spiritual healing and yes, ghosts.

They’ve slowly yet surely gathered momentum and a self-assurance which can be heard in abundance on the record: closer “Boring” is proof that Our Girl are truly in their finest form, producing a debut that is anything but.

The difference on Trouble Will Find Me is that everything feels clarified through a decade of wisdom, with volatility frequently superseded by sensibility.

Letter To Self feels like the kind of showpiece debut release that could put them over the edge. It’s a thumping statement that can challenge and charm in equal measure.

It is the sound of an artist finally getting to let loose and say the things that have stayed locked up inside for too long. In turn, Teitelbaum offers an exciting introduction to a talented songwriter and a thoroughly rewarding debut.

While the two records share an airy, ethereal DNA, The Practice of Love is a far more palatable, more replayable affair – it just doesn’t seem to hit as hard as its sister, but very few albums do.

All in all, Stage Four is an exercise in catharsis and self examination of what it means to lose someone close to you, but instead of being dragged down into a spiralling bleakness, it's is an album that ultimately feels resolutely life-affirming.

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

Though Dust often feels like it’s dreaming, you’re nevertheless consistently reminded of its complexity and Halo’s deep cognisance of the musical language.

In the nebulous field of psychedelia, there’s plentiful room for a band as immediate and audibly exhilarated as Virginia Wing.

Chasescene will delight existing fans and lure in fresh blood with equal measure.

Like every great record, For Melancholy Brunettes fits well in its release’s social sphere. These poignant songs are as relevant as ever in the United States, now equipped with an insatiable leading figure who has become a patron saint of noxious male authority for the impressionables. It’s only a shame that the music, albeit beautifully composed, doesn’t feel as forceful as the subject.

It’s a scintillating sliver of glass to the senses – a defiant, desolate, and darkly beautiful album that commands multiple listens and highlights once more that Forest Swords is and always has been at the top of his game.

With strident chords, spiralling melodies, and a shiver inducing delivery, No Shape might spend a lot of its time searching, but in being open about that the record presents Perfume Genius at his most realised.

This is lightless, horrifically bleak electronic music, but it still sounds human despite its lack of words, melodies or analog instrumentation; there’s a tangible personality to it that’s all its own.

She has a unique capacity to include all the world’s issues in the album just by slipping in an occasional nugget of truth that punches the listener in the gut.

Room for the Moon appears to have it all, whilst remaining cohesive — it’s an eccentric entity in itself, but also the work of one.

Red Moon in Venus marks a consolidation of Kali Uchis's talents, a work that manages to experiment whilst distilling her artistic essence, and flexing just quite how good she is at it.

Jenny Hval remains one of the most powerful, honest and funny performers working in music today, and this dissection of her self and her work is fascinating to the point of obsession.

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.

On It Is What It Is, Stephen Bruner’s eccentric hyperactivity is on full display, bouncing from jittery bass chops to fat West Coast funk. He balances the spacey jazz fusion of his early records with the signature neo-yacht rock perfected on Drunk (2017).

Although unfailingly accessible (“Anima” in particular is impossible to shake off once heard), this is a refreshingly strange combination of psych-rock dynamics, pop-savvy hooks, homespun electronica and ancient-sounding melodies.

A reflection on the band's past achievements and the clearing of the rarities cupboards: cut out a handful of one-laugh oddities tossed aside with punky abandon, and Alpha Mike Foxtrot beats most bands official catalogue.

Western Stars is simply a classy record from a man growing increasingly comfortable with his status as an elder statesman of classic rock. And I absolutely cannot wait to listen to it in a car.

The first five tracks are thrillingly and relentlessly inventive, but then comes a handful of weaker numbers which don’t deviate all that much from the Kanye blueprint (at least as much as you could trace such a thing through 808s and Twisted Fantasy).

Miguel writes nothing but memorable melodies and his songwriting is the engine that makes Wildheart all work, that takes his affinity for funk, psychedelia and Prince, and turns them an album that feels totally of the moment.

From low slung groovers, to blissed out chill-hop and Escherian piano pieces, You Can’t Steal My Joy is full of pleasant plot twists. While this means one thing the album does lack is a sense of cohesion, that’s a small price to pay for the sense of freedom and discovery.

As a group, Everything Everything has always worn that indie art pop weirdness on its sleeve and its still refreshingly intact here, Re-animator is yet another flamboyant feather in the cap of a band that refuses to phone it in.

This is one of those rare records were extra additions aren't just unnecessary; fine as they are, the fuller arrangements of some of these same songs included here as bonus tracks suggest that Fay has cooked up material of such elemental and fragile beauty that any additional noises could easily scare away the magic.

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.

While Jessica Pratt’s already-absorbing sound has been made fuller and richer on Quiet Signs, there’s still a charming simplicity to it all. And what do they say about simplicity? There’s a certain beauty in it. Here it’s ethereal and exquisite, with a magic that weaves its way into your being and transforms the world around you.

On What’s Your Pleasure? though Ware sounds simply like a serious star, on an album where she finally has the confidence to commit to her most theatrical tendencies and cut loose at the same time. The effect is liberating in the way disco always intended.

The Last Dinner Party don’t leave one dramatic stone unturned. Pleasurably satisfying, you can’t help but come back for more.

Teeming with overt-love metaphors, insatiable lust and uncaring attitudes, Wet Leg walked so Moisturizer could run, and boy, did she run.

It’s hard not to lavish Owens with praise here, but atop Inner Song’s exceptional track list and an underlying message based around acceptance and healing, Owens uses those experiences to expand into a wider array of exploration and storytelling.

It’s a tremendous listen and a wonderful demonstration of her talents nonetheless.

It’s in the album’s quietest moment that Dean delivers her most compelling performance yet.

The most impressive thing about Introducing Karl Blau is how easily it could find itself slotted in the second-hand racks between Charlie Rich or Glen Campbell.

Olsen is a unique songwriter of incredible complexity and fearlessness, and despite her ostensibly considerable inner sorrow, she manages to deliver an album that is as equally exultant as it is despondent.

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.

Don’t be fooled by the dry, lilting manner of delivery behind these tracks - each one holds up to close inspection and there is charm to be found in them all.

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.

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.

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

The immense variety on this record does not come at the expense of cohesiveness nor its ability to progress the themes of the ensemble’s previous work.

All Nerve won’t please anybody looking for the reckless abandon of old, but surely nobody who ever loved this band will be in that frame of mind. Instead, they’ll be ushering these old favourites in from the cold with warmth and empathy. This records sounds like a quiet defeat; really, it’s a triumphant cacophony.