Tall Tales sees Pritchard and Yorke plug into the fragility of social structures built on sand, a subject that finds voice via a quasi-cryptic sidewind through vast digital and organic tracts – an at times menacing, evocative and hypnotically immersive statement on a freefalling societal state of play.

Like Chris’ persona, the album is lean, unashamedly self-aggrandising and thrillingly audacious. Here, pop is a transformative power. Subverting male privilege to her own advantage, Chris has built an album of tunes that could not only top charts, but also change worlds.

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.

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.

With Great Spans of Muddy Time William Doyle has now become his own man, capable of producing work on an equal level to those who have come before. It’s exciting to think of what might come next.

While Emperor of Sand is amongst their heaviest, proggiest material to date, it’s also the quartet at their most emotionally bare. Mastodon have dug deep into their darkest moments and have surfaced with one of the best albums of their career.

With Phantom Brickworks Bibio has not only created a record that stands apart from his other Warp albums to date, but has cemented his mastery of the atmospheric; creating an album that can imprint on a listeners’ surroundings like few others.

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

What makes Pussycat an unqualified success is how Hatfield has constructed it with multiple dimensions and, no matter the mood or approach a given song takes, she continually scores with material among the finest of her career.

Not a single moment is out of place. Everything is crafted to induce a reaction. ... Ada Lea has a musical mind that pushes so much further than just some melodies and words.

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.

An uncommonly diverse yet still seamlessly unified album that is audibly conscious of traditions without ever becoming beholden to them, Odyssey seems destined to be counted amongst the landmarks of the ongoing creatively fertile Brit-Jazz resurgence.

This is a damn heavy record, but with it, there's faith and optimism of equal measure.

An ouroboros-like reawakening that finds them at their acerbic and celebratory best.

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.

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.

It may make you feel many things but crucially Finn, the most human of story tellers, has created a record and a world within which you will never feel ashamed or alone.

Reflektor acts as a vehicle through which the band’s established flair can be refracted into a new polarising, pulverising shape.

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.

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.

Two Parts Together could be used to reference both dualities present here, that of the physical/metaphysical and the loud/quiet dynamic to Big Ups’ sound. Regardless of which one you choose, the band balance both almost to perfection, presenting both a musical and thematic journey that comes together to create a singular exhilarating experience.

From the folk twang of “First Time” to the torrential clapping on “Anything But,” this is a Hozier album to the hilt: considered, earnest, and moving.

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.

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.

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

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.

[An] intelligently-crafted album that repays repeated playing to appreciate its numerous qualities.

Super Furry world is a weird place, and the gift of hindsight simply tells us that the Welsh quintet were simply inviting us in the easy way. It also doesn't take much scratching at the surface of Fuzzy Logic to realise how insidiously bizarre it is. ... As with any reissue, the accompanying bonus disc of demos are a mixed bag; mainly straightforward runs of album tracks are interspersed with some genuinely interesting alternative takes of familiar material.