It’s at times a brutal listen, but hidden between the hard knocks is the sound of a charismatic young artist who knows he’s making a debut album to remember.

Carly Rae Jepsen’s latest doubles down on one of her central messages as an artist--that no force is more potent than the emotions we feel. And while her third LP E•MO•TION certainly established this, on Dedicated, Jepsen’s infatuation with the rush of human feeling soars to dizzying new heights.

By harnessing their roots that made their debut LP, We Are NOTS, so celebrated, 3 finds the group adhering to a similar framework with its ten tracks. Nots underpin their hook-driven racket with themes of decaying existence and what it means to reemerge on the other side, liberated and ready for a fight.

Is it jazz? Electronica? Improvised music? Who cares. Far, far removed from the briefly interesting novelty or vanity project that the prospect of this record might suggest, Holy Spring is an intoxicating gem.

Going from strength to strength, the road that The Best of Luck Club brings will undoubtedly be filled with Lahey's sounds making people move, proof that she is indeed doing it right.

Rich in texture and enveloping atmosphere, Any Random Kindness unfortunately lets its lyrical content fall to the wayside. While this gives more space to let the incredible soundscapes breathe, it also feels like the real emotional punch to back them up is lacking.

Mac’s latest release is unremarkable in almost every way, it is powerfully inoffensive in its delivery, instrumentation and intent which makes it hard to engage with and harder still to enjoy.

While Hecker continues to be a paradigm in formulating how sound exists, he proves with Anoyo what it means to extend his means and throughout its cleansing spirit, Hecker evokes a bewitching status, serving as one of today’s continued and top creators of elysian odysseys.

Young Enough is a pop album that just happens to rock.

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

Even if dented in places by swings of irony (this is, after all, a band that named their first album Nirvana), there’s an undeniable positivity underlying 10000 that rises above the din.

The nature of the project is in a way their own noble experiment, ultimately finding them at their boldest and most assured to date.

PROTO vacillates between ecstasy and anxiety, collapsing one into the other, and perfectly captures the conflicted feelings many possess as we face the future. A crucial step forward, its approach demonstrates that maintaining human agency alongside radical, new technologies can produce both bewildering and beautiful results that perhaps nobody, not even Herndon, could have predicted.

Exploring his spiritual side, Kevin Morby has shown us the light, and it’ll lift you up, comfort, and enlighten.

Stylistically it continues the sounds explored on Cranekiss, perfectly fusing moody dreampop with massive pop choruses, although the monochrome of her earlier material still lurks darkly during proceedings, she splatters the pallet with sprightly moments of pop sensibility in a campy pop gothic stew.

Edge of Everything is not for the faint of heart: it’s non-conformist and confrontational. Being industrial techno there’ll be a propensity to dismiss this as the sound of pots and pans falling down a steel staircase, but delve beyond the layers of harshness simply reveals one of the best techno albums of 2019.

Run Fast Sleep Naked is pure escapism, from his grandmother’s living room to a studio in Tokyo, every track unveils a pivotal moment in Murphy’s journey and what could have easily fallen into the trap of being stuffy and overproduced excels in its minimalistic mastery and proves that Nick Murphy’s music is truly out of this world.

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.

Modulating between grandiosity and relative constraint helps to root the band’s sound in an eerily-wrought hinterland; a template that deters the fabled afflictions of second album syndrome, securing itself as a credible successor to their spry breakout debut.

Despite the subtle shift in tone from beginning to end, this record is consistently imbued with a shifting, evocative sense of place.

There’s are threads of heritage strung through Emerald Valley, not just in the vintage ‘70s/’80s guitar pop pedigree of the riffs and rhythms (“One Flew East,” “Break Me” and “Last Chance County” all from the second half particularly stand out), but also in Tucker’s lyrics and delivery, which are earnest and earthy without curtailing her natural dynamic.

Koenig’s apparent comfort in adulthood, the security and confidence in his newer lyrics--evokes this Facebook-notification angst on a grander scale, a musicalised alienation that prompts stark re-evaluation. It’s unfair to deny even our most beloved artists this progression and growth--they don’t owe us anything – but it’s difficult to be faced with a work that suggests they have grown past the confused state that we still feel rooted to.

On LOVE + FEAR, Marina shoots for stripped-bare big pop, and for the most part, she achieves it, but various clichéd lyrics occasionally stop her sincerity in its tracks.

It’s a dramatic stretch on life’s road map, on which Local Natives have captured their true spirit once again.

It stays true to the duo’s journey of experimental pop rock sounds, while finding energy in existentialism.

From low slung groovers, to blissed out chill-hop and Escherian piano pieces, You Can’t Steal My Joy is full of pleasant plot twists. While this means one thing the album does lack is a sense of cohesion, that’s a small price to pay for the sense of freedom and discovery.

It may make you feel many things but crucially Finn, the most human of story tellers, has created a record and a world within which you will never feel ashamed or alone.

At its best, Life Metal taps into our psyches and rearranges the elements. Sunn O))) have become experts in their harsh and unmerciful take on expanding sound, slowing it to a glacial pace, and finally rearranging it again until it’s unrecognizable.