In seizing control of the means of production, they’ve reached a new peak and have never sounded so accessible. This is music to cry and party to at the same time. They’ll eviscerate you and you’ll thank them for the privilege.

A tenth studio album that feels less like a late-career coda and far more like a daring new beginning.

This is the sound of releasing a lifetime’s worth of strife and unease. That sounds, it turns out, is pretty damn excellent.

Like all great works of art, Illmatic isn’t just about the story it tells; it provides us with a fully-fledged character study of the genius behind it.

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.

Some of the unexpected and as such extra-fresh thrill of the new of encountering Davis’s debut with the Roadhouse Band may now have eased into an instantly recognisable house style, but New Threats from the Soul provides another compelling flowering of a unique and idiosyncratic songwriting talent.

Creeper are so excellent and effective in their various, otherworldly melodramas because they have so much heart. At the core of whatever undead guise they’ve wrapped it in this time, it’s beating strong and steady.

[James] Ford's renowned ability to bring together ambitiously decadent ideas reigns supreme here. Helping orchestrate a throughline of this patchwork of ideas pays dividends as the grander character and geographical work of their past makes way for more personal offerings as they turn inward, processing the world they inhabit, rather than the one they've mused upon previously.

Blømi leaves solutions for our current problems back in the times where they could have been useful. This can only be music as morphine: a painkiller mixed with transcendental meditation.

Nastasia has turned her harrowing experiences into genuinely beautiful songs. At first, the bluntly matter-of-fact tone of the writing and simple melodies seem almost artless and first-draft rough. Over consecutive listens, the cumulative hypnotic pull and elemental, harsh beauty of the songs and especially their lyrics becomes evident.

WIMPIII culminates in a kind of languidness which shows that sometimes you have to let the songs lead you, rather than coercing them into something they shouldn’t be. There’s a coherence that exudes from the sparsity in the songs, and they’re never left feeling empty.

Incredibly enduring and undeniably influential, Anthology is a culmination of everything that prevails from this often omitted, golden era of music.

As a collection of music, There’s A Dream I’ve Been Saving is excellent, but as a story it is a true revelation.

With clever twists of post-production, Makaya chops and resamples not only his own band but also choice words and phrases of each stanza, making the poetry a percussive element and drawing out emphasis. A decade after his death, Gil Scot-Heron’s final oeuvre has finally settled into something great.

This is an album of Swift at her most knowing, pushing away the tabloid fodder that has often surrounded her artistry and magnifying the talent she's been honing her entire life. The melodies are full of warmth and round-edges, moving and twinkling on her whim as she indulges in one of the most most human and timeless past-times we have.

It might be the most accessible Swans album yet. The long stretches of abstract noise are draped over some surprisingly catchy hooks. A few moments might even qualify as singalong road trip anthems.

She’s delivered an album full of unrepentant honesty, decadent instrumental highs, and an unguarded emotional core. Few other artists can so perfectly capture the dizzying life-or-death stakes of those who love too young and too hard.

[The] band's most streamlined and forceful album to date.

It is true then, that Russian Circles are no longer pushing back the walls of post-rock acceptability, and also true that their albums don’t bite down as hard as they used to, but it is still definitely true that they wield the ability to compose the most beautiful, thought-provoking pieces of music.

On Song For Our Daughter Marling intimately portrays her subconscious, the one that’s paved the way for her to survive to this point years before these songs were recorded, in its brutal glory.

Future Nostalgia is an artist in total control. It’s built on such an addictive carefree spirit that it’s hard not to let loose and go with it. The greatest pop star of this generation? That’s for you to decide. But Future Nostalgia makes a very convincing argument that Dua Lipa just might be.

With a formidable knack for telling an engaging story in the space of a song, Divers is further proof that, as a lyricist, Newsom is second to none.

30 sees Adele settle into the maturity and wisdom that the album presents, and truly is a coming of age. It is a well-considered progression for her, and while there are some missteps along the way, it is so good to see her moving forward.

Despite its love for the retro, it's still a modern and cutting edge work that feels essential for the scene right now. It's great to see a band from the back-ends of UK hardcore make a statement as gratifyingly massive as this one, that will hopefully grant them the audiences they deserve.

Like her previous works, Loud City Song requires time and patience, but once you grasp its intent the investment will feel wholly worthwhile.

Embodying that impervious inner spirit that Kafka called the Indestructible, where the possibility of perfect happiness exists in spite of everything else, its calm resignation defines what A Moon Shaped Pool strives for. In honing that potential from start to finish, Radiohead have excavated their most accomplished album in at least 15 years.

The record is described as Gibbons’ “most personal work to date”, dealing with experiences of grief, change, and hopelessness – and it makes for a very conceptually decisive project, with a distinctive vocabulary of motion and stasis, weight and lightness.

Ultimately, MASSEDUCTION defies explanation and critique, rendering the critic a dead weight in the dust of its ever-accelerating sucker-punch of ideas.