This is state-of-the-art pop music with an irresistible sense of rough and tough feminine glamour. Do not miss out.

Lighthearted and wild in places, intimate and revealing in others, Ugly Cherries is whatever you want it to be.

Factory Floor’s music is distilled down into three elements. Rhythm. Synths. Vocals. That they make something so evocatively alienated, so compulsively unknowable and so bleakly irresistible from simply this is a sharp, uncompromising, emphatic victory.

It is characteristic of the Brewis’ distinct methods that Open Here can feel so cumulative yet still reinventive.

Ghost Culture is a house fan's Alice in Wonderland experience--everything is curious, and nothing is quite what it appears to be. But everything is delightful.

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.

They just make fantastic, intricate albums that sound like they’re not even trying. Spoon are a band with nothing to prove. They Want My Soul proves everything.

The Golden Age is undoubtably the work of a mature consciousness.

This is a story-album: each track is its own world and, like any novel, it demands attention. ... Gold Record feels self-consciously like a classic country album, something The Bellamy Brothers might have put their names to.

Here Lies the Body holds a sweeter and more sentimental Moffat than one might expect. Some of these songs could be parallel universe versions of Arab Strap tales; the scenes quite similar, but the perspective lightened, finding tender humor in human intimacy that’s tart but not bitter.

A Deeper Understanding doesn’t seem to arrive at any conclusions or answers to the questions of self and suffering that Lost in the Dream addressed, since they are inherently unanswerable. For The War On Drugs though, the importance has always lied in the journey, and this powerful record proves that the band has no signs of stopping along the way.

Less antagonistic than Gore and wandering down considerably fewer stylistic avenues than Koi No Yokan, Ohms plays instead like a spiritual successor to Diamond Eyes. Like that record, the production is polished enough to see your face in, and like that record, there’s a sense that the arrangements are being granted plenty of room to breathe.

Palace show they have matured-yet-remained faithful, and expanded-yet-honed. So Long Forever is an album from a band who know what they want, and how they want to get there.

Con Todo el Mundo feels like a record to be enjoyed in transit, towards somewhere sunny, optimistic, exciting.

Even though it’s Feist’s barest full-length, it’s also her most playful, her most consistently inventive. On the surface it sounds wafer-thin, but at its core there’s no shortage of heft.

From low slung groovers, to blissed out chill-hop and Escherian piano pieces, You Can’t Steal My Joy is full of pleasant plot twists. While this means one thing the album does lack is a sense of cohesion, that’s a small price to pay for the sense of freedom and discovery.

Lotz knows how to craft her work, using every moment to her advantage resulting in an album that’s an absolute indie-emo masterpiece.

Carry On The Grudge could so easily buckle under the weight of expectation. As it is, it feels like the most natural of follow-ups.

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.

Yes, notes and chords are fun and all, but these songs are precisely-controlled messes, and beautifully so. Simply put, Heron Oblivion is a guitar-centric record for those who thought Marquee Moon was too linear.

She has created an album so unquestionably true to her quirks and personality traits that fans are offered a true insight into her process and psyche. This openness means they will be invested for the long run. Substance over streaming.

As the concluding part of that elongated trilogy, Heartleap is the most magnificent and worthy of valedictions.

Power is a rampaging success at being theatrical, dramatic, grandiose and, simultaneously, tasteful.

Burgess’ omnivorous pop palate leads the music through baroque flourishes, residual California vibes, and a laser battle reminiscent of Joy Division’s “Insight” in the sunny swell of “Warhol Me,” with equal aplomb. It is a kinder, gentler rock and roll, perhaps, envisioned by someone who is convinced that “the future is friendly.”

Though it lacks in the experimentation of Atrocity Exhibition, it compensates with cohesion and undeniable quality. As a presentation of Brown as an exceptional rapper, it ticks all the right boxes.

This is one of those rare records were extra additions aren't just unnecessary; fine as they are, the fuller arrangements of some of these same songs included here as bonus tracks suggest that Fay has cooked up material of such elemental and fragile beauty that any additional noises could easily scare away the magic.

Musically, Good Sad Happy Bad is both challenging and engrossing.

Your Hero Is Not Dead shows Westerman not only invigorated, but willing to stretch his range. Working again alongside longtime friend and producer, Bullion, Westerman, here, surpasses his early work with curious abandon and confessional songwriting.