If this is the end of whatever this is, they’ve recorded a superlative piece of work which leaves us on one hell of a high, despite it sounding anything but high itself.

The production on the album is very lowkey, allowing for Kehlani’s extraordinary vocals and vivid lyricism to take centre stage.

By the time the record reaches it’s 12-minute close “Angel”, it feels like a great release. You’ve been put through the ringer with the abrasive “Cook A Coffee” (with plenty of shots at a certain, now former, Politics Live pundit) and “Be My Guest” and made it out the other side. Sweatier and ready to take on the world.

This is a tight, focused, powerful effort by one of the most underrated bands in the world – and certainly one of the finest bands to come from these shores in the past twenty years. Night Network is a minor masterpiece.

It’s probably fair to say that if you’re not a fan of drone or ambient music then Centralia is unlikely to change your perception of the genres. However as a document of the music of Mountains, it’s their finest work to date.

Whilst Laurel Hell doesn’t necessarily feel like a new Mitski album, her talent as a songwriter is strong enough to support these new contexts to her storytelling. Her cleverly crafted lyrics captivates listeners without ruining her enigmatic persona.

If anything, Voir Dire is a record that pulls itself apart as it continues, subtly dredging the listener in philosophical bile and pause-the-track one-liners.

The vast majority of Music In Exile features the sparse but richly nuanced sound of a supremely well-oiled band with one foot in ancient traditions and the other firmly in the here and now doing their intoxicating live thing in a room whilst a recorder's switched on.

Its musical journey mirrors yeule’s life progression, pairing alternative rock with electronic glitch just as yeule couples their human self with their cyborg persona. This creates spectacular results, opening up to raw and honest emotion all while maintaining the mystery.

It could be a little longer, or more cohesive, but not everyone’s sophomore project is as risky – or, interestingly, as relaxed. Bird’s Eye is a gift, and Ravyn Lenae’s on her way up.

Slater is adept at wrenching every available feeling from a short stint of words, a talent that's gestated wonderfully as the band have found their feet.

Throughout Hopelessness, Anohni reveals multiple layers to the stories within her songs, and that the deeper you dig beyond the headlines and easily digestible sound bites, the more pain and deception you are likely to find.

The fact that the duo have chosen to deploy a stripped back approach to the album, and the fragile beauty this evokes, leaves little doubt that the pair are more than capable of weaving some seriously ethereal magic, even when they're miles apart.

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.

It's simply stunning.

In short, the world can never have enough albums like this. Not only have Public Access TV added to the run of great New Wave-tinged pop records of the past few year or so--from Phoenix’ Ti Amo to Spoon’s Hot Thoughts, what they’ve also done is make an album that sounds like the more metropolitan end of New Wave, encompassing disco, punk and 80s pop.

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.

Their ingenuity and introspection often serves as an antidote to brash, factory-made pop, making them crucial figures within the wider pop landscape. On A Bath Full of Ecstasy, Hot Chip remain as vital as ever.

Coope’s feminine and domestic aesthetic is cunningly invoked and then subverted across the tracklist – in parts charming, in parts unnerving, in parts invigorating – producing a record that’s genuinely unexpected and delightful.

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.

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.

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.

This album, as different as it is from the band’s other output, is simultaneously the most distinct Black Country, New Road has ever been.

Nikki Nack frantically succeeds on so many levels. Garbus ticks every box with aplomb and swagger, making a record that’s confrontational, boundary-bending, enigmatic, topical and sheer fun outside the usual channels.

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

This is Sunn O))) at their most playful, and Scott at his most enjoyable.

Heaven is a brief, yet indulgent series of funk jams and sultry, lo-fi ballads, fit to make leaves age into Autumn based on atmosphere alone.

With this raw collection of songs, Royal Headache have bared themselves to the world, and it's enthralling.

The tracks’ detailed arrangements are almost symphonic at places, but no matter how elaborate and eccentric they get, listeners are consistently guided by catchy ornamental melodies with which the album is replete. It’s this powerful juxtaposition that makes Age Of so compelling as an album.

By interrogating the strategies we employ to keep on living in an impossible world, this astonishing album has become one.

While the big-tent ambitions of Farm To Table make for some of Strange’s most exciting fare, they also narrow his range sightly, making the record feel in some ways more creatively restrained than his debut.

What’s makes PUP an engrossing listen, though, is also what takes it beyond a typical hardcore record: there’s sunlight that refuses to be shut out from the overcast skies.

Although this is hardly an essential release--few live albums ever are--it’s no victory lap or self-indulgent unit shifter. Its true value lies in its function as a worthy addition to the latter-day Cohen canon, as a reminder that he is still an active, relevant artist and performer, rather than a self-aggrandising nostalgia act.

In ten aptly small songs Adrianne evokes our ability to vanish at the feet of nature, creating a black hole all of her own that’s both comforting and suffocating.

With sonics so extraordinarily ornate and a soul-stirring sentiment to match, three men and their producer have successfully taken the listening world to church, and left it there waiting for its next sermon.

Rather than coming across as naïve, Shura has created something hopeful and delightfully light in this record, setting it apart from much of pop’s current offerings. It is the perfect soundtrack to the end of summer, and all the months after spent remembering it.

With Loom, Fear of Men have proven to be just as brilliantly complex as that natural wonder they so often invoke--deep, refreshing, mysterious, life-affirming.

The result is that rarest of things: an improvised album that sounds so perfect, you’d think it was all planned.

Futurology just happens to be their most daring folly yet.

It’s not as instantly accessible an album as the band’s relatively recent classics Majesty Shredding (2010) and I Hate Music (2013), but in many ways it’s a more important one. It’s the sound of an essentially middle-aged band firing out a clutch of missile missives directed at the dark heart of modern America (in the absence of many younger bands fulfilling that role) and carrying it off majestically.

It’s a huge, sprawling Britpop epic that evokes The Verve, Oasis and even U2 in its scope and power. There are walls of guitars, layers of backing vocals, thunderous percussive blasts.

It's not often you heard a near seven minute pop song that leaves you wanting more, but Mr. Twin Sister manage to pull it off several times over in just under half an hour.

Structureless, vindicating and yet jarring in moments, Two Star & The Dream Police is the sound of Mk.gee taking ownership of the musical world he’s been building for years.

Of The Earth is ultimately easier to admire as an audacious gamble than to love as a fully successful statement: sections of the album feels still under construction, an impression amplified by a handful of fully realised gems, like the hypnotic and haunting highlight “Light The Way”.

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.

The album is an unguarded, autobiographical account of Visser’s most precious and challenging moments. The music doesn’t just shine, it reveals the individual struggle of “growing up, moving on, and everything that happens in between,” says Visser.

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.

On first time listen, Star Wars feels neither utterly victorious nor rushed, vapid or misjudged. Whilst moments of majesty and bona fide alt-rock wizardry snake in and out of the occasionally throwaway, the overriding feeling here is one of huge relief and pleasant surprise.

Metalhorse largely succeeds in conveying the pushing and pulling through life.

While edgy, honest and witty observations are made about youth culture, there is a tendency to sprinkle moments of easy listening jazz throughout the record, which is a bit of a downer in a non gothic sense. Still, the brutal honesty and candor are present and much appreciated, one of the few characteristics that truly identifies a Mountain Goats record.

Stubborn Persistent Illusions finds Do Make Say Think returning as restless and reaching as they’ve ever been.

Cardamone’s crew are at their peak when moving between the simmering heat and the fireball, and these drawn-out song structures give them more space than ever to explore the tension between nervy build-up and cathartic release.

While this album may not be the all-encompassing assault that was the signature of The Plot Against Common Sense this is a record that shows a willingness to change, adapt, try out exciting new things that simply retreading that formula would not have done. Outstanding.

Echo The Diamond recaptures what made Margaret Glaspy so exciting. Her sense of drama is thrilling, and its quietest moments find the beauty in her raw, prickly vocals.

THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED's unrelenting refusal to quit, like The Armed, makes it a sonic treat and proves the Detroit gang remain unstoppable.

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

What they couldn’t manage in the past is having enough discipline to put their disparate influences together and make a consistent album. However, on Movements, those days are over.

At times reminiscent of the intricate indie on Doe’s excellent 2018 record Grow Into It, Allanic and co. working through their own peaks and troughs is what makes Rhinoceros so special. On this basis, their main point of differentiation is that they do it so well.

Singles “POiiSON” and “SEiiZURE” close out HiiDE on an undeniable high; a reminder that whilse BABii’s genreless electro-dance-pop hybrid may echo similarly macabre and mysterious predecessors, her high-concept, DIY approach reveals a strength of vision that’s all her own.

While it’s likely Perri has an endless queue of tracks just waiting in the wings, we have to applaud his efforts to refrain from gifting them all at once. By doing so, under his simplistic, unhurried touch, Perri humbles us once again, reminding us that patience is assuredly a virtue.

While no wheels have been reinvented, The Show is far from a bad record. If you’ve spent any time trying to imagine what a new Niall album would sound like, you’re probably pretty close.

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.

Had Primrose Green been recorded in the era it's influenced by, it could well be among the records Ryley Walker would now be drawing inspiration from; high praise indeed.

The versatility of Collapsed In Sunbeams is beyond comendable. Parks seemingly effortless lyricism and laidback melodies make her songs cosy in winter, and chilled in summer - always to be uplifting and comforting. Every track can mould around different settings and this level of versatility in a debut album is a rarity. Collapsed In Sunbeams is timeless.

The palette is wider and richer this time around due to prominent contributions of guests from different parts of the world. Even as electronics, strings and horns enter the frame alongside the ever-present banjo and different types of guitars, the music retains its spacious, uncluttered freshness.

A stunning release, Likewise is Quinlan’s proof that, either on her own or with her band, hers is a voice not likely to get lost in the crowd.

Life is weird and random, the smallest things sometimes having the biggest impacts, and Life Will See You Now celebrates that in glorious style.

Toumani & Sidiki feels like an freshly unearthed artefact, steeped in the influence of centuries.

If You See Me... has the potential to mark the beginning of something very special.

When you finally reach the level of brilliance you’ve been working toward for so long, The Window is exactly what it sounds like.

It all results in a moreish stew of hazy, swooning R&B that’s practically impossible to resist. Welcome to the party. Grab a drink and let’s watch the world go by.

Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace isn’t an easy sell at a time thoroughly infested with quick thrills and instant gratification. Give it time to bloom, however, and these tracks are infused with plenty of the qualities referred to in the album’s title.

Boy is intense, intrusive, brutally honest, compelling and mature if not ironically titled; it certainly bears nothing in common with infancy.

The band started with a really strong debut album, but Midnight Manor somehow takes this to new heights. You’ll hear the Stones, you’ll hear Lou Reed, you’ll even hear a bit of Alice Cooper in there - and you’ll come away having connected with a new, intensely fulfilling sense of cool.

Isbell’s ninth LP is a cautious refinement rather than a reinvention for the Americana icon – and as he explores a familiar set of themes, the lyrics can sometimes feel as though they could have been directly pulled from the cutting room floor of previous studio sessions.

That such revelations can be borne out of isolation should be a comfort to us all right now, and Cenzias is a record expansive enough to open up even the smallest rooms.

Profound Mysteries doesn’t quite have the timelessness of Melody AM, but it certainly lives up to Röyksopp’s reputation as a duo that has perfected the art of dishing out electronic hugs.

With most tracks comprising largely of delicate vocals and the mellow strumming of guitar, the album does not stray far from Paul’s distinct, dulcet sound. However, despite the sound not differing largely from her debut, each track on At The Party... presents a distinct purpose, yet when considered as an album as a whole each track seamlessly melts into one.

Horsegirl’s songwriting isn’t distinct enough to imply any hidden tension though, and back to back sweetness becomes a little sickly. It’s no surprise that the best songs here are the meaner ones.

Rage is, by turns, ridiculous, overly-serious, and self-satisfying. It’s also one helluva EDM record and an intelligent send-up of an otherwise difficult-to-work-with (and work in) music genre.

Pang is a remarkable debut album assured of its legitimacy and brilliance, one that should be celebrated for its shimmering beauty and the success of its authorial intent.

Shattered is a deeply comfortable and comforting thirty minutes of expertly curated rock-and-soul.

Godspeed continue to perform with a bold and alluring command and unlike their peers, a majority of their output lands on a much wider scale.

The sounds are pure alchemy and result is pure magic. The only complaint is the length--too short at just under a half hour.

Despite the odd misstep, it deserves to be lauded as the band’s finest hour as well as a genuinely bold adventure into the cosmos of heavy rock.

It could easily have fallen apart under the weight of the assembled egos, its car crash of dramatic themes or even just been doomed by the epic centrepiece of the album--the10-minute "Faustus"--but it doesn’t. The album works. And I daresay, it’s a damn sight more successful take on life, war, death and re-birth than Einsturzende Neubauten’s First World War-inspired album Lament.

Here, we observe Celeste widening her scope by lessening it, capturing new forms of light as a nascent force – one who has quickly catapulted her name into the stratosphere of what it takes to rebrand and revolutionize the club.

As a collection of tracks Holiday descends into a humid nostalgic reflection, yet each individual song is its own small pocket of joy.

Sparks’ avant-garde tradition is freshly lacquered on A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip, a track record injected with further potency during dystopic times. Jaunty melodies juxtapose with typical wryly wrought themes, levity undercut with social critique - the brothers’ inimitable style at its finest on an album that represents one of their most prescient and much needed.

On Some Kind Of Peace, Arnalds has once again crafted an genre-defining album that serves as a much needed moment of reflection.

Some of what emerges from this flood of archival activity is essential (unreleased 1974 album Homegrown, released June 2020), some of it is must-hear for even medium-level fans (Rust Bucket) and some is for die-hard fanatics only (Return to Greendale, a live rendition of 2003's tune-dodging rock opera that came out in November 2020). Young Shakespeare belongs firmly in the richly rewarding middle category.

Rashad’s gotten himself straight, and as a result he’s returned triumphantly from his 5-year absence with his best album yet.

Once again, the band finds healing and beauty in their own chaotic vortex, and once again they invite everyone listening to do the same, joining them on their most exploratory and cathartic ride yet.

With Tired Of Liberty, The Lounge Society have mastered the art of making music that conveys a message, and done so with incredible prowess.

It’s more than a taster but leaves plenty of room for development in the future, maybe experimenting with different instrumentation and letting the songs stretch out and breathe beyond their sub three minute durations. Until then, let Bubblegum ever so sweetly tear you apart.

Taking place in a world that requires you to understand the minutiae and dichotomy of love – where heroes and villains coexist – without this prerequisite knowledge, by the end of the flickering film, it may feel like a one-trick pony. However, if you've felt the cold light of day on you after your own divine tussle with Cupid, then this album will gently offer aid.

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.