There simply is no contemporary songwriter that speaks so plainly, yet so devastatingly, to the darker matters of the heart as Sharon Van Etten. Her intimacy is so palpable that the silence in the room once the record stops is jarring.

On Heavy Lifter they continue to find catharsis while moving in reverse as the bronzed halos of nostalgia meld with the intimacy of their blazed slow-core.

With these two albums [All Mirrors and Whole New Mess] she’s proven the vast range of her songwriting, and that she could go just about anywhere with what she does next.

With this effort Shauf successfully portrays the complicated smogarsbord that is youth by capturing in its crudest form at a party, with its hedonism and heartbreak, and in doing so propels himself miles ahead of his singer-songwriter peers who have tried to do the same.

Horse Lords fare even more impressively with the minimalism that sets in during the second half of the album.

With just one track over four minutes and only ten cuts overall, Light Upon the Lake is the kind of record you could easily find yourself blazing through three or four times in a row without even realizing.

Removed from the narrative of the series itself, every emotion is given the space to take its own form – and the result is as mysteriously powerful as the world that it hails from.

2018 is barely halfway through, but Harlan & Alondra will have to be crowbarred out of end-of-year lists come December. An absolute triumph.

Offering a stark depiction of inner-city life, the East London wordsmith expertly taps into the modern conundrum of social malaise, his unflinching lyrics touching on a gamut of hopes and fears that will resonate acutely with those struggling to find purpose or make ends meet in Tory Britain.

This album makes you work, forces you to hit repeat not to relive sweet, instantly gratifying thrills, but to let it root into your brain to understand it better.

Complex yet surprisingly accessible, Dan’s Boogie doesn’t necessarily break a huge amount of new ground. It does however, see Bejar successfully refining his craft even further with superb results.

The album details not just a break-up, but a shift in how relationships and human connection work in modern times.

While Crooked Wing finds These New Puritans at their most refined and fractured, the album won’t be for everyone. Its refusal to deliver easy pleasures might leave some cold. And for all its inventiveness, there are moments where the almost academic precision threatens to override the emotional core. Yet, it’s exactly what it feels like, a requiem for the mechanical age, a love song to decay, and a stark reminder of the beauty that can be found in the shadow of ruins.

It sounds like they’ve given kautrock an intense, life-threatening electric shock, while simultaneously floating through 41 minutes (or your entire lifetime, dare you interrupt the endless loop) with the elegance and unpredictability of a kite in the sky.

case/lang/veirs is an understated triumph, and a stunning addition to all three songwriters' discographies.

Be Your Own Pet burned out from having too much fuuuuuun, but by playing around with old influences, Mommy shows they're still nothing but a good time.

From the very outset, they exceed expectations, such is the quality and compositional depth of the material here.

It’s a work that’s in a constant state of flux, the flow giving and yielding just like our emotions. A sense of healing and growth radiates from it, with the sparkling pop feel of “Yellow of the Sun” bringing the album round to a complete and circular ending.

It’s The Avalanches’ efforts that make this album, although the deeper forays into hip-hop on "Because I’m Me", "The Noisy Eater" and even the poorly-received comeback "Frankie Sinatra"--much stronger in context--lend a nice variety and harder edge.

Off the Record is a magnificent treasure chest built for deep dives and repeat visits.

Young Fathers had nothing to prove in 2015, which makes White Men Are Black Men Too such a start to finish joy to listen to. Even the tail end of the record is packed with surprises.

She has a knack for building tension, crescendoing her voice and emoting her words to a point where it almost rings as euphoric.

While these tracks aren’t necessarily bad by any set definition, it’s worth looking at them through a critical scope and for grand moments like these that once carried so much weight early in their career, we have to begin asking ourselves just how many times can a group reduplicate their sound before their efforts simply become white noise.

Immerse yourself, revisit, peel back the layers and thoroughly dissect Thundercat’s artistry before reconstructing it again--you’ll find one of the year’s finest experimental pop albu

The Source is a work that showcases a great rhythmic and tonal diversity throughout, floating between a myriad of influences and arrangements.

It may be less vital and refined than Daytona, but It’s Almost Dry feels far more expansive and is arguably more instantly enjoyable than its predecessor.

Brimming with eclecticism and highlighting Bock’s emotional range, Giant Palm is a stellar debut and one of 2022’s more distinct releases.

Beyondless largely speaks for itself. It does what Iceage have always done best: it challenges everything you thought you knew about them. It could be viewed as their most accessible album yet (it features guest vocals from Sky Ferreira, after all), but it’s not as simple as that.