Although the sometimes scattergun approach to genre-hopping has its drawbacks, what’s great about Policy is the future possibilities it allows Will Butler.

Overall, Cut and Paste is a fine collection of Oscar’s old lemons made into lemonade--it’s refreshing pop music, but with a floppy fringe and a tote bag.

When you hear it, you can tell that these songs were bursting to get out of Ware; that she’s delivered them with such nuance and intelligence lends considerable credence to the idea that her more devoted followers have proposed ever since Devotion. She is, by a distance, Britain’s most underrated pop star.

Snapped Ankles make music to soundtrack the apocalypse, and you can’t help simply sitting and enjoying the ride.

Overall, Have U Seen Her? strikes a great balance between rocking out with piercing, lacerating soundscapes and soothing nerves with heartfelt songwriting encompassed in diverse melodies. The balance falters at points but it’s never irreparable as ALMA rights it again with the natural magnetism of her music.

The nature of a double album means it’s either a glorious artistic statement, or a sprawling mess of self indulgence. An act such as DIIV is so unassuming that it couldn’t be the former, but nor is it the latter.

Ripe is much less coherently pieced together than a Field Music record--as much as one can be, finding something special in the loose construction around a common idea--but therein lies the magic.

On pretty much every track, the instrumentation is formulaic and predictable.

There’s nothing quite as personal as digging through someone’s record collection and God First feels almost exactly like that. From funk and soul to chilled out electronica, the entire spectrum of Steadman’s eclectic record collection has been mined here.

By taking a sharp turn into the light, the shades of grey of her older material have been splattered by blasts of glorious technicolour, a move resulting in her best album to date.

The intensely moving track ["Don’t Be Afraid"]--and the entire album itself--perfectly illustrates the idea that we all have a magnificent universe within ourselves just waiting to be discovered, and that we should never be fearful of uncovering exactly who and where we are.

If this album was written and performed by humans I would say that, at best, it's a gratifying listen of retro arcade game inspired electronic music and, at worst, a whimsical yet unremarkable collection of instrumentals. Good fun, yet a little inconsequential.

I Go Missing In My Sleep is certainly short on instant reward, paying out higher dividends with repeated and closer listens. While there are portions where the rewards don’t feel like they justify the effort, Wilsen has thrust their own marker in the sand with this debut and given themselves a wealth of directions in which to pivot toward for the future.

Adding to the growing list of albums with a deeply personal approach released this year, this might be the most heartfelt and longing. The matured viewpoint of a growing artist is worth the due diligence alone.

There’s a nice blend of folk, country, and while it’s a step in the direction for Mendes the Artist (and the Human), there’s a line between performance and genuineness. Mendes slightly oversteps it with an ill-fitting cowboy boot.

Whilst the narrative of Rise Ye Sunken Ships is gone, there is still a mood arc that runs through Augustines.

Too much of Quicksand Heart feels rushed, or perhaps consciously unambitious, eschewing bold creative strokes in favour of the kind of inoffensive consistency you might put on at a cheese and wine night to set the mood. Its best songs are worth a relisten; taken as a whole, though, it’s something of a disappointment.

All the component parts seem present, but they don’t quite add up to a greater whole.

Like many of Dawson’s projects, its effect is gradual but profound: it takes a little time to truly settle into Mogic, but it’s nigh-impossible to leave once you become accustomed to its mores.

Burhenn’s remarkable vocal dexterity that allowed her to jump tempos and genres so easily there is still alive and well on Lovers Know, yet embedded here in a dense synthpop milieu.

Absent any actors to push the narrative along, Here Come the Rattling Trees can drift by during its more passive instrumental passages, but never less than pleasantly so.

As a whole, Compassion is very impressive. It’s a largely fat-free collection of club-ready Danish synth-pop.

These songs remain uncharacteristically conventional in structure and instrumentation as a disappointing result.

Drenched in minimal, slow and moody arrangements, Badwater, like Speck Mountain’s previous efforts, gives no apology for its intentional pace. In fact it revels in it.

Outside the relative intensity of “City Dweller”, sample-heavy “Do My Thing” and “Pulse”, “Gently” and “Deep Breathing” provide musical sorbets between the action. It’s some of the softest production Saginaw’s put out before, and is a welcome break on the tightly-spun ep.

The themes tackled on BLOOD have been tackled a million times, so the album is much more reliant on how it tells the story than what the story is. Luckily, how it tells the story more than makes up for the story itself. Milosh’s vocals are as beautiful as ever, and the lush tones that paint the album wash over you like a silk bedsheet.

It’s a challenge and a pleasure; a banger and a crooner; a lover and a leaver, and easily the best album of TEEN’s career.

A welcome comeback.