This is ain't your average country record.

The LP is fourteen songs long, but never feels laboured. This is probably because in true indie pop tradition, most of the songs are under three minutes. With their jangling, sometimes-spiky guitar sounds and indie pop hooks; they wouldn’t sound out of place on the iconic C86 mix tape.

Ritter hasn’t just surrounded himself with some of the best musicians in the game for his milestone tenth album, but he’s found a way to reinvent himself while not forgetting where he’s come from. After twenty years, this pillar of Americana folk is as relevant as ever, and sounding better than ever too.

There are few albums that will make you experience so many emotions concurrently, and even fewer that will still give you chills hours later. Even though it may be tough to swallow some of the brutish feeling, it’s an exceptional record.

There’s a sense of exhaustion in Spectre, but it’s not an exhaustion with irony and a refuge in po-faced sloganeering. Rather, Laibach dramatise the exhausted nature of a political movement that seems unable to do anything other than follow the lines laid out for it by the social order it claims to oppose, or take refuge in a vague utopianism.

In Ferneaux is arguably Benjamin John Power’s most subdued effort under the Blanck Mass moniker. It’s a slower, more meditative affair which deviates significantly from its predecessors and whilst there are gleaming examples of Power’s sonic craftsmanship, they’re hindered by sections of profound aimlessness that move against the defined conceptual direction to be found elsewhere on the album.

Twin Peaks somehow manage to translate the last ten years of American guitar music into a 40 minute package that will help you remember why you fell in love with all of the bands which ‘changed your life’ in the first place.

Sometimes something comes along that seems to revel in nonchalant noisemaking; gives in to the din and just is. Effortlessly, thrillingly, brilliantly, Go Easy does that in spades.

Death Grips are at their best when they’re just being plain weird. Some of the attempts to fully reproduce various types of dance music fall a little flat – it’s a passable imitation, but the kind of people who like psytrance might not have much time for most of Government Plates.

It shows a remarkable advancement in the band’s no-holds barred approach to making loud music. It may sound much more slick. And the mix is a lot less noisy and raw. But don’t be fooled – the tunes are just as brutal and punishing as ever, while that superior production allows the tunes to breathe in a novel way.

In all Galipolli is the sound of one of our most talented musicians rediscovering his love for what he was born to do. It’s Zach Condon’s career highlight so far and shows that he's at his best when he enjoys making music and cares less about what critics and fans might think of it.

The underlying intensity to their music on previous records is stripped away, leaving in its wake a bland and largely forgettable experience.

Mess is characteristically confident and brash, but humane and enduring. In short, it’s up there with the rest of their unerringly brilliant back-catalogue.

It’s packed with humour, drama, anger and sadness, all brought together by ALA.NI’s artistic direction. ACCA is a one-woman show that will have you glued to your seat – your toilet break will just have to wait.

These ten tracks are an arrestingly assured summary of who they are now, while fully embracing their former selves.

It’s one of the most complex pop albums of recent years, and like any great steamroller mind, she can’t quite contain herself.

The Skrillex moment aside, there are really no glaring missteps here.

This record is intelligent, succinct in its ambitions, and more than anything, it’s pretty bloody cool.

On first impression, in|FLUX is almost alienating, an unsettling listen that does all but invite you back for more. But with determination, passion, and survival instinct – the very feelings explored at such length – it yields excellence.

Cole’s most affecting statement to date.

As introductions go, We Are Nots is a sharp gut punch of a debut LP and certainly merits attention.

While Strange Little Birds might not be Garbage’s most immediate release, lyrically it’s certainly their bravest and 20 years into their career, it feels like they’ve entered a new era.

As much as this is a horrific and challenging listen at times, Coming Apart is also an utterly captivating and thrilling record and...whisper it...could end up being the best music she’s ever put her name to.

It’s such an confrontational piece of work that you need to mentally prepare prior to the needle hitting the groove. Once it does though, you are dragged into Bo Ningen’s world, a place where the fusion of rhythm fighting against musical aggression has never sounded so thrilling.

An album that feels spacious and cinematic, genuinely human and loaded with emotion. It’s one of the classiest and most refined listening experiences you’ll have all year.

Although SASAMI is a debut album, it feels more like the work of an artist whose craft is already honed--and that's because it is. You can hear the decades of refinement in Ashworth's songcraft, which makes for an absorbing collection of confessional songs both incredibly personal and widely relatable, on an incredibly self-assured debut.

Never has Kesha's music felt this inspiringly rich. It has all the potential of once again making her a staple on the music scene, and this time even beyond pop.

Dalliance is a brief half an hour expression of energy, without too much angst. It will never be considered a highly innovative venture, but the five-piece do manage to include some interesting twists on an old formula.