Performance is, thankfully, anachronistic to the point of absurdity--if you close your eyes anywhere in this record, you’ll be transported to somewhere deep in the '70s, where there are no genres because nobody really cares about that kind of nonsense.

For all of its positives there is the leftover taste that this is an album that will please die-hard fans, but will ultimately leave those outside of that pondering if it was really needed.

If the album’s mind is fixed on a future world, it is an open-ended one. The tendency at this point might be to assume that all imagined futures are dystopian, but the spirit of Don’t Look Away and the sum of the pictures and story fragments Tucker has strung together in the record are reflected in its title: the good, the bad, the beauty, the fear...don’t look away from any of it.

Like every Interpol record, listening to Marauder is a draining experience for the right reasons. Their sound is designed to deflate, to alienate, to offer no resolution, to poke and prod at your most depressive tendencies.

While touching briefly on new ground, The Long Walk is generally what you’d expect it to be, but with minor variations alongside the engrossing quality that make Uniform so distinct to begin with. It’s nothing too far off from Uniform’s standard layout, but right now it shows them precisely where they should be as a young band.

Guarded and beautifully measured, At Weddings has an absorbingly intimate quality.

Keeping the ratting trap beats across most of the tracks keeps the record bang up to date, but adding in flourishes of experimental instrumentation sees Ariana going so much further.

I have no doubt that Tangerine Reef will be a remarkable experience when paired with its visual stimuli, but without it, it is an album hard to recommend.

You have Gibbard’s forlorn yet criticising voice, the personal yet accessible lyrics, the melodic yet clashing guitars, which all create an incredibly atmospheric record, brimming with nostalgia, defeat--and hope.

They're far more adept at widening our eyes than most realise, with a vicious soundtrack to boot. This pair are one of the most exciting and forward-charging rock bands currently active.

They’ve slowly yet surely gathered momentum and a self-assurance which can be heard in abundance on the record: closer “Boring” is proof that Our Girl are truly in their finest form, producing a debut that is anything but.

Time has its highs and its lows. It’s an album that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The lyrics may be tongue-in-cheek, but the craftsmanship of each song is nothing to smirk at.

The songs are beautifully crafted, shimmering with an alluring magic and aura, existing in their own time and space.

There's an outlaw spirit to this record: when shit happens you just gotta get back on the saddle.

Less thematic or cohesive than other records, Smote Reverser is, quite deliberately, a record that sounds like an endless stream-of-consciousness, with no underlying nucleus that pulls it all together. Any of these tracks, each so distinct from the others, could potentially hold the charm of the record.

Queen includes 19 tracks, which some might consider to be too long for an album. But Minaj avoids boring her listeners by changing up her flow and the atomosphere of each track.

It will take you places. Places that don’t feel like they exist in our dimension, on our plain. This all just feels so brilliantly different and new; a very special debut indeed.

There are no bad songs on the record, just ones in which fewer ideas work.

Scott could have easily made another distorted, debaucherous project like his previous two albums, but by emphasizing his vocal performances and finding the best middle ground he ever has with his bevy of superstar collaborators, he’s made Astroworld a theme park worth revisiting whether you came in as a stan or a skeptic.

Hej! marks an evolution for felicita and, by extension, PC Music. It is a big twist away from tongue in cheek nature for which they are at times dismissed.

Tirzah has made 11 raw, honest, and beautifully unusual pop songs that will remain with you whether you like it or not, bringing you back time and time again, motivated by your devotion to this record.

Thankfully, despite everybody and their dog comparing Baxter to legendary musicians and writers, he has managed to make an album that not only does justice to those comparisons, but actually warrants them.

To its credit, a lot of the tracks on Physical get to the point at a much earlier stage in their development than they would have done on a FF record, but the creeping intensity of tracks like “Two Different Ways” or “Dial Me In” is missed as a result.

Equal parts easygoing and eternally troubled, upbeat and melancholy, silly and profound, Michael Nau & The Mighty Thread certainly sounds like the real thing, and it’s bound to leave you feeling pretty good indeed.

With Qualm, Hauff has further enhanced her reputation as a vital voice in contemporary dance music.

At 14 tracks long, Gate Of Grief is a long listen and, in truth, a lot of it sounds the same. But after a while those icy beats and warped vocals begin to sound more like a bony, deathlike finger tapping into our instinctive fears. If White Ring are hoping they can exorcise the past and begin a revived new chapter, this is a decent effort.

Phantastic Ferniture is pumped with enough care-free energy and catchy pop hooks to brighten up the darkest of days.

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.