It’s something self-indulgent that few could get away with, but every song finds its place effortlessly. So, rather than feeling too self-indulgent, it feels far more like we’re the lucky ones SZA has chosen to share so much with.

Still, despite its light-handed approach, Carrie & Lowell strikes with a sort of urgency unparalleled across the composer's 15-year career. Each song feels like a demon Sufjan simply had to face sooner than later.

By trying to escape the constraints of the tradition-bound folk orthodoxy, Lal and Mike Waterson managed to craft an album of songs that sound like long-lost standards.

No Cities to Love confirms that whatever alchemy seems to occur whenever the three sit down to make music together remains untouched by the passage of time. To put it simply, Sleater-Kinney have now made eight records, and they are all very, very good

Punisher triumphs in the joy and pathos that’s to be found in returning to its stories, where like Donna Tartt’s A Secret History, there’s always new depths, clues and answers that make you want to dive right back in.

Where some vault tracks felt like they muddled the existing story in past rerecordings, the vault tracks on 1989 (Taylor’s Version) give it more colour – a kaleidoscope of stories and feelings that mirror the sounds heard and explored throughout.

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.

It contains both her gentlest, most fantastical production and her saddest, most miserable lyrics. The commendable combination, as well as the new musical directions, reestablishes her artistic identity the same way Bury Me at Makeout Creek and Be the Cowboy did.

The fact that GLUE isn’t just another album in Boston Manor’s discography rings out. It's a portrayal of moral depravity, a reflection of modern society and a call to arms for change. A bold and brazen album that will joyously haunt you.

It's a bravura performance from all concerned; for all the album's unquestionable strengths, you may wish for a drop more of the same raw sawdust-kicking passion and bite during some of the more restrained proceedings that follow.

As they did with the fiftieth anniversary edition of All Things Must Pass, Paul Hicks and the Harrison family have delivered an excellent reminder of the greatness of George Harrison after and, in certain instances, the equal of his musicianship in The Beatles.

With this album, they’ve crafted something that is still powerful, vital and confrontational, but balanced between fury and finesse. Constant Noise is more enveloping, mesmeric and, at times, beautiful in its mannered rage.

Glory welcomes everything whether ecstatic or low-spirited, knowing that time, the inescapable spectre, will take it away and leave behind a masterpiece of memory such as this record itself.

Pratt has long been a consummate texturalist; mining the pop playbook in resourceful ways, she’s now an exemplary tunesmith as well – the result is sublime.

From the descending, soulful lines on “Backwards” with its urgent pulse to the glassy textures of “Vera (Judah Speaks)" with a club energy always moments away from being revisited, refreshingly, Yesterday Is Heavy never lets you veer too far from the present tense.

It’s futile to pick highlights from an album that is so uniformly inspired that even the one far-out diversion from the heartfelt script (“…And The Sea…”, a woozy instrumental featuring Michael Head reciting from James Joyce’s Ulysses) works perfectly.

It’s a most welcome and inevitably stunning missing chapter from one of jazz’s finest quartet.

There really is a veritable deluge of ephemera attached to the deluxe editions of this release, so there is certainly plenty for fans and collectors to hunker down over. Be warned though, there is plenty of dross to wade through until you’re able to reveal anything of true value.

The sleek and luxurious Through The Wall, doubles down and delivers the purest distillation of her vision so far, and on top of that, it’s one of the best pop albums of the year.

Brief moments give breathing space in a record that’s suffocatingly intense. PSYCHODRAMA isn’t an album to stand up and rejoice to. It’s a sit-down-and-consume, a listen-and-learn. In doing that, you appreciate the blood, sweat and tears that have gone into the prose. It’s an overwhelmingly powerful 51 minutes of music unlike anything released this year.

Their debut album – aptly titled the record – is here in all its poetic, cutting glory; and it’s been entirely worth the wait.

Jansch's future Pentangle bandmate John Renbourn guests on second guitar and the guitarists' mainly instrumental, jazz- and blues-influenced duo album Bert & John (also from 1966) closes this hugely impressive set on another high note.

Woods presents a complicated dynamic but a contented one. He’s a man ill-at-ease with his profession, his place in the industry and within society, but at least he’s another great album closer to being comfortable with himself.

If you’ve heard a previous Moctar record and pieced together the best bits, you’ll have an imitation of Funeral for Justice’s righteous glory, but if you haven’t, use this record as a roadmap in discovering the previous odd-decade of Moctar’s talent.

There is a vitality and clarity of spirit present here that is at once immediate, intimate and irresistible.

Extensive, charming and compelling--Savage Young Dü is one of the best archival compilations of the year.

Those who never warmed to the sharp-elbowed vibe won’t find themselves wooed by a new angle, but for everyone else St. Vincent is close to definitive.

The Dusk in Us continues to show the depth that Converge can hold below the abrasive sounds. They don’t create chunks of music to be instantly digested, they create art which is meant to take you prisoner in a darkness that will ultimately show you more than you ever realised.