A couple of contemporary artists with a similar method come to mind: Caroline Polachek and Christine and the Queens. Like their celebrated works, Hit Me Hard and Soft is equal parts nuanced and multidimensional.

Calling this album consistently satisfying might come off like a dig. Quite the opposite, actually. It's the mark of a classic.

This record is a creation: you can hear the adventure in it.

Souls may be sold separately on the trail for gold, but respect is earned, and Freddie Gibbs continues to rack up the points with another stellar entry in an almost-infallible collection of projects.

Modern Baseball have found strength giving a voice to their disillusionment. With the daring demonstrated here, they'll be singing their spirits sounds for a long time to come.

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.

An album that sees Years & Years revisit the musical, lyrical and aesthetic concerns of their debut and refresh them with unprecedented confidence and self-knowledge.

Rage Against the Machine’s Zack de la Rocha, Travis Barker, Diane Coffee, the filthy-mouthed Gangsta Boo...they all contribute to the depth of RTJ2 but never outshine the stars of Render and Meline, despite all giving the best performances of their careers in some time.

Sure, his prowess in mope-pop makes for a voyeuristic listen, but on Shortly After Take Off he invites us to take a twitch of the curtain obscuring the life of Brian from the outside in, and it’s a spellbinding and utterly wonderful thing.

The result is a seamless psychedelic synthesis of pop noir, ghostly '60s girl group sounds, Lynchian-style atmospherics, ambient washes and dance floor undertones, there’s nearly always a subliminal sense of unspecified menace or is it simply the deep disorientation that love and desire brings? Surrender and immersion are the only sensible responses.

For all the thrills that Pixx’s precocious ambition offers on Small Mercies, it’s Hannah Rodgers’ vulnerability and restless search for comfort within herself that drives it.

If you’re looking for an album with a coherent, tangible theme then perhaps this isn’t the one for you. Instead it’s a coagulation of the weird and the wonderful, and just a snapshot of the immense power of FEET. Complete madness, but so much fun.

The record may be 24 tracks long, but it is delivered at such a speed that it packs its punches long before the ice in your drink has a chance to melt.

As with David Bowie’s entire career, he’s once again given us enough to keep us wanting more, while reminding us of all the inspired gifts that came before.

If A Black Mile to the Surface was the band’s first record back following a rebirth of sorts, then as far as the difficult second album’s go, Manchester Orchestra have absolutely nailed it.

The album fades out gently, a dissipation of tension and emotion that you don’t realise is cathartic until it’s over – for this reason, Big Sigh doesn’t just feel like Hackman’s best, but it feels like a distinct chapter marker in her catalogue. She closes the last decade stunningly, and nudges open the next.

It’s phenomenally exciting to have that sense of danger back in music. It’s subtle, malevolent and utterly charming noise, and if Glass Animals turned out to be buttering you up with a cannibalistic lick of the lips, you’d let them gnaw away.

The album’s strength is drawn largely from these expansive arrangements, which make use of sparsity and density with equal power.

It looks at dodie from every angle, finding her at her most broken, joyous, angry and reflective, among instrumentals that capture the same conflicting pulls. Where Build A Problem succeeds most is translating these struggles into towering drama, making music to listen to closely, feel deeply, and champion loudly.

Never before has one of her albums been so vulnerable and reserved. ... This album drips with drama, humor, and naturalness, making Warm Chris a sincere take on life.

It's a fully-formed debut that demonstrates Giannascoli's talent for a variety of genres, pop bedrock and his own idiosyncratic experiments. As non-debuts go, they don't come much stronger.

With this raw collection of songs, Royal Headache have bared themselves to the world, and it's enthralling.

Deafheaven are the masters of tension and release, and this record reinstates that less is, in fact, more.

THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED's unrelenting refusal to quit, like The Armed, makes it a sonic treat and proves the Detroit gang remain unstoppable.

As with the best pop albums, it sounds like a greatest hits record. The songs flow into each other seamlessly as well as standing on their two own feet, which is an astonishing achievement.

If this is what burgeoning motherhood looks like, then it is not a manufactured, diluted, and palatable version of oneself. Rather, it is an extension of an existing strong character, and in Kehlani we celebrate the power of a mother who isn’t afraid to say what she really thinks.

Throwing in references to various Farrow and Ball paint colours, Asos, estate agents, and thoroughly unsavoury characters such as Heroin Stan (stabbed his mam), this is middle-aged angst set to music. Both World of Twist and Earl Brutus have a classic album to their name, and now, so do The Pre New.

Kill The Lights is one of the best albums to come out so far this year, and you can listen to it four times in an hour and still not be bored. That’s great songwriting.