“Free In The Knowledge” is a truly heavenly ballad in the mold of “True Love Waits” or even “Fake Plastic Trees”, with a call of togetherness (‘’but if we’re together/well then, who knows?’’) that offers an unexpectedly moving breather from the angst in abundance elsewhere, as well as proving that Yorke can out-emote the legions of lesser songwriters watering down the formative Radiohead formula when it comes to warily optimistic heartache-meets-hope.

It's easy to get sucked into darkness and despair, Heart Under proves that so, but thankfully, Ball's voice oversees that listeners only merely toe into these bottomless, murky waters.

Big Time is really a remarkable and intimate display of growth on the part of the woman who made it, thread-bare and unashamed, competing with the new Kendrick Lamar album for new heights of self-flagellation, and glorious self affirmation; made all the more intense of course by that voice of Olsen’s, masculine and feminine at the same time, and frankly criminal wield with material this naked and bare.

On You can’t kill me, 070 Shake’s pursuit of new musical frontiers is as intense as ever and even though some parts of this project let down the rest, it is overall a thrilling experience that signals growth from an artist who has a lot more to give.

Love-burnt and ambitious, Drake has produced something better than its predecessors, but without the fallback of crowd-pleasers, it is hard to see it standing the test of time.

The addition of older tracks onto Home can constrain Spektor’s artistic growth more generally, like on “SugarMan” – which stretches food metaphors to their absolute limit and lacks the staying power of Spektor’s best tracks. However, at their best, the songs of Home feel akin to a warm hug on a cold day.

Household Name re-establishes the pair’s vitality to this extent, avoiding a potential slump in extending the countercultural charge that cemented the appeal of their previous LP's.

Without losing the sense of comfortable familiarity, and the nostalgia that comes along with it, Alexisonfire have signposted a new era for themselves as a band – and in doing so have let us know that they’re ready to roll with the times and the fast-evolving post-hardcore scene as it is right now.

Drill Music in Zion is strong but weighed down by its heavy message and repetitive structure, ultimately highlighted by lengthy runtimes.

Jurado has remained steadfastly allergic to any stereotypical singer-songwriter navel-gazing from day one, and perhaps it’s this aversion to familiar templates that both keeps the masses at an arm’s length and makes albums like Reggae Film Star so richly rewarding for those in the know.

It’s a staggeringly powerful, and admirably honest, piece of songwriting – one that leaves listeners wrestling with an indescribable sense of hollowness in its wake.

An electrifying and utterly unexpected treat, it’s packed with the kind of nourishing and warm music we would do well to turn to for sustenance and uplift when times get tough.

Arkhon is filled to the brim with so many eclectic ideas that, with a different writer or vocalist, could end up too cluttered. Album opener “Lost” and the closer “Do That Anymore” are so wildly different, but instead of being confusing, you’re thankful to Danilova for somehow piecing the two together.

From its overall sound down to its finer details, Gavin, Maskin and McPherson have hit the mark completely. It’s amazing to see a band that are so unapologetically queer excel at their craft and create an album that is quite possibly, if not certainly, their masterpiece.

A handful of the album’s later tracks, including “Sleep Paralysis” and the restless “Choose Your Fighter”, do perhaps fall short of other songs’ ‘absolute banger’ status, but nowhere is there an outright miss.

Ultimately In Amber demonstrates an unexpected mastery of dance floor inflected, gothic-folk tinged, post punk, driven by raw feeling and humanity. With topics as grave, the fact these songs only occasionally teeter on the hazardous borderline where meaning meets portentention is a mark of the sheer skill of those involved.

Ugly Season confirms Hadreas’s commitment to discovery and resistance to reiteration.

While the big-tent ambitions of Farm To Table make for some of Strange’s most exciting fare, they also narrow his range sightly, making the record feel in some ways more creatively restrained than his debut.

Foals manage to delight with invigorating innovation while simultaneously keeping their unique identity deeply engrained in a style that is as fresh as it is warm.

There’s no doubt that the wait for O’Brien’s debut has been worth it. She’s an artist who has a vision, and has not only executed it but found a new way of kickstarting the heart of a genre that quickly became a dead horse to be flogged whilst commanding a new space of her own.

Overall, this is a great project bursting with genre-bending sounds and heart-wrenching lyrics that perfectly capture the times.

Ultimately, however, the highs triumph over the occasional coasting, even if it's hard to entirely shake off the feeling that there's a killer 12 or 14 track record to top off Wilco's return to studio form on 2019's Ode to Joy lurking amongst this bumper crop of Jeff Tweedy’s songs and Wilco’s telepathic dynamics.

While McRae’s previous outings may have been more complexly assembled, her new songs are more immediately accessible. Stylistically and in terms of production, many of the tracks on I Used to Think I Could Fly are markedly unconvoluted and easily recallable.

Whilst he floods creativity into the engine of his tracks to generate a powerful sound basis, it becomes apparent that sometimes Alfie needs to be refuelled in the lyric department. ... Mellow Moon acts as Alfie Templeman’s experimental wonderland that shows there is nothing that will halt his creative output.

Through a dizzying blend of experimentation, innovation and stylistic idiosyncrasy Everything Everything have created another peerless record with Raw Data Feel, one which proves once more that the horizons the band chases are theirs and theirs alone.

MORE D4TA or MODERAT 4 is the sound of a group creatively recharged and at the height of their power. To this end, in almost every conceivable way, it's the Moderat album that fans have waited six years for.

EYEYE feels like a piece of magician’s silk that just keeps going and going, but it’s still the same piece of silk. Unlike Wounded Rhymes, this is not an album to put on at a party, but if you’re going through any kind of heartbreak, plug yourself into this immersive and impressive album and let it all out.

Whilst some tracks are arguably a bit forgettable, this album is still full of some brilliant moments.