Stylistically, this record is a strikingly bold step for the band and it is impossible not to feel Clark’s influence.

EMA is talking to us in Exile in the Outer Ring, and we ought to listen.

With skills and interests cemented across various styles, he’s figuring out in real time exactly what he does best – providing floor fillers to club crowds or elevating his performances through complex production. Perhaps when he sings, “Where are my wings? / they’re loading”, the artist is acknowledging that he’s still to assume his most resolute form yet.

Life Under The Gun is a flawed but enjoyable debut album.

Rewind the Film seems immediately poised for lost-classic status-- for all its clumsiness and flaws, it’s the kind of album that wants you to let it sink in, or even gather dust, until you remember it’s there.

It’s certainly the sound of the band taking a step forward and trying to find its feet, sliding a little on the frozen ground but still heading towards the sun.

Serfs Up! is almost certainly their most accessible, most coherent collection to date.

It is flawed--a few too many diversions and distractions, and one or two experiments that don’t really work--but the best thing about Monkey Mind In The Devil’s Mind is the simple way it frequently reminds you how good a songwriter Mason is.

Whether Potty Mouth are achieving anything new is besides the point--the important thing is that they feel fresh and relevant, whereas the punk of today has seemingly had its time, growing increasingly redundant and stale

The blistering sounds are as sabre-toothed as ever.

Even in moving away from indie rock for the time being, Bird keeps his literary flair with him in reappropriating the songs that he is covering. That is the one aspect that makes the whole album subtly magical in its own way even if it might not break as much ground as one would have hoped for.

Bobby’s Motel is a big, bold slap in the face right from the start. Manic Bobby greets you at the door, takes you by the hand, and leads you straight to the dancefloor.

Even more consistently inspired than Eitzel's previous two, excellent solo albums (2009's Klamath and Don't Be A Stranger from 2012), Hey Mr Ferryman demands that Eitzel is at last granted at least as much attention and acclaim as his fellow songwriting Mark, former Red House Painters-leader Kozelek.

It’s haughtier, humbler, more powerful, more delicate; it’s like Anna Calvi was dipping a toe in the sea, and now that she knows that the world rather quite approves of her, she’s ripped the ripcord and is delivering the beast within.

It stands as both a fascinating new direction, and a heartbreaking memoir of a period now sinking into the past.

Tin Star doesn’t play around with the formula, but it’s much better off rollicking through a hot-blooded, swinging set than it is attempting to be some kind of self-conscious alt-indie crossover.

This is immediate, incredible folk pop that pays homage to the godfathers, performed amid the disco balls of a train hurtling through time, by kids who love alternative guitar bands.

Whether you read the title as a refusal to die or a foolish attempt to cling on, it doesn’t matter; both are just as relevant, and Martha have gone some way to capturing as much of it as possible.

With The End, So Far, Slipknot haven’t reinvented themselves, but returned to their roots with an older, wiser and more concise outlook, resulting in a record that chews its listeners up almost instantly, and spits them out an hour later feeling beaten, battered and ultimately, cleansed.

It’s a stylish swerve dipping into luxurious large-scale arrangements with woodwind flourishes, haunting lullabies and even “20% adult contemporary”, showcasing their breadth of influence and genre play across ten tracks with more scope than ever.

Familiarity isn’t a bad thing when it’s done well, if we refer back to the four cycles of reformation, Doves land firmly in the bands who have their fire relit by a break category, The Universal Want is Doves in essential form.

At times, despite the fact that this is his 12th collection of compositions, it’s often as if Lazaretto is Jack White at his most vulnerable.

Music for People in Trouble perhaps doesn’t have the crossover appeal that Ten Love Songs had, and its head-on engagement with contemporary struggles will certainly not be for everyone. But for those who are done with escapism, at least for an hour or so, its sustained mood brings rich rewards.

What he does well here, and has always done well, is to embody traditional music; its harmony, its lyrical themes, and at the same time imbue the music with a vitality that never feels forced or disrespectful of its roots.

City Music is, without fail, one of the most quintessential albums of the year so far.

T2 doesn’t really incorporate much in terms of dance-friendly music, and it suffers, despite being a relatively strong collection overall.

If destruction is more your appetite, then Ghosts VI: Locusts provides an aural embodiment of the uncertainty and discourse.

While 2019's Anger Management showed her off as a maleficent talent with a taste for blood, Nightmare Vacation is Rico at her nastiest.