It may be shrouded in shadow, but Acts of Light is a hopeful record, rooted in intense feeling, nostalgia and desire to connect the past with the present. Woods’ talent for communicating these emotions commands a solemn and sublime respect.

While the record doesn’t necessarily uncover any new ground not previously telegraphed by its first half, letting the beat ride until the end of “Addict” will reveal a welcome surprise: you’ve been conned out of a half-hour.

The album both expands on the now expected lyrical themes (tackling corruption and injustice both generally and more specifically in the context of ever-messy Nigerian politics), and injects fresh energy, economy and verve into afrobeat’s typically unhurried, generously portioned polyrhythmic splendor.

On Hers, both the words and the music often make you stop in your tracks, raising a smile or prompting a gasp.

Their growth is obvious: the songwriting is more versatile and the dynamics more daring, the emotional range broader.

Enderness is a record you're guaranteed to want to return to again and again.

Strangers feels and sounds like a breakthrough album, a set of linked short stories set to music. Having built a head of steam with her previous six records, album number seven sounds like Nadler’s waiting game is at an end.

An album that is truly magical, Man Made is a stand-out debut. After giving everyone a bite of the fruit with previous releases “Downers” and “Hu Man”, this is the full showcase of her impeccable talent.

Mourn is clearly a band developing at a rapid pace while continuing to play with an ability, set of musical touchpoints and a belly full of fire that belies their youth.

This is the first New Order album for a long time that sounds like it could only have been made by them.

Fanfarlo may not be breaking new ground with this, but they’re building on their previous foundations nicely.

What’s most impressive about the Blind Spot EP is not only how deftly Lush have mined the sound that made them a real treasure in the first place, but that they’ve matured without sounding tired, cash-in or merely nostalgic.

The struggle and challenge presented here is worthy our attention if not for pleasure’s sake alone, but for the varied breadth of emotion that each mini soundtrack evokes.

A cohesive record, on Soberish Phair sounds polished, clean and equipped with a new arsenal of songs about breakups, addiction and small glimpses into her inner workings.

A muddled record that thrills and distresses, equally, in short bursts.

If it doesn’t quite hit the consistent highs of 2017’s Love What Survives, The Sunset Violent is a clear next step for Mount Kimbie. With limited features and a cohesive throughline, they’ve never felt so much of a unit, embarking on a trip together.

It’s a far more eccentric record than their first effort, stretching past the obvious influences that led to their pigeonholing as a shoegaze band, but loses a little of the unbroken, hypnotic atmosphere as a result.

New Moon is at times quite captivating and as rowdy as you need it to be, but its weaker moments consistently outshine its brighter ones, leaving the listener with an album half-full of both indelible sonic fury and equally forgettable missteps.

There is no chance of someone walking away from Eat, Pray, Thug similarly un-enlightened; the political suite, as mentioned above, is far too direct for that. What makes it unique, however, and uniquely Hima; to be specific, it's that it manages to be both obstinate and intelligent, outspoken but sly; one could not imagine anything but that rubber-and-sandpaper voice being as such.

With cinematic soundscapes of art-rock in tow, Headful of Sugar is a heavenly ride that actively embraces a full spectrum of feeling; from self-destructive tendencies to the saccharine thrills of youth.

Remain Calm’s 13 tracks pass in a brief 28 minutes, the shortest of these contorted vignettes lasting just the same number of seconds. Each is it its own entity, a different shade of light and colour, a different lifeworld entirely.

This is comfortably the most sonically-pristine album that Belle & Sebastian have made.

Iceage are therefore seemingly unafraid of experimentation and to play with sounds and instrumentation they discover in the process of creation. And Plowing Into The Field Of Love, acts as an extraordinary documentation of this process, where influence and intuition have come together in perfect union, allowing Iceage to expand without losing their core. In turn, they have matured to find catharsis in texture, dynamics and control rather than fast-paced adolescent aggression.

Songs Cycles certainly doesn’t represent all that Van Dyke Parks has to say about the state of the modern world, but the album does manage to assuredly illuminate Parks’ singular artistic vision and his enduring impact on the music of our times.

Invitation is a classic grower in the sense that, while it does have its weaknesses, repeated listens drawing out these details do overpower them over time.

There’s a tightness and economy to the sound that makes the album sound excitingly different.

It is not all perfect. Here and there, Mould switches onto autopilot and ends up filling up dead space in songs with half-arsed, Foo Fighters-ish powerchord passages, and the less said about the awful AOR dud “Let the Beauty Be” the better, But these moments are few and far between, with the bulk of the album consisting of straightforward, accomplished rock songs with enough muscle to anchor their poppy choruses and prevent them from floating off into Green Day territory.

The music itself is, in truth, not all that much of a departure from the trademark spiky, speedy post-punk that found a home on Light Up Gold and Sunbathing Animal. But the album’s covers, something hitherto avoided, offer a little respite from the repetition.