Basses Loaded is excellent. Like every other Melvins record it holds its own identity while oozing the same sweet black guitar sludge they have re-perfected many times over the years.

It’s simultaneously unnerving and feel-good, witty and disconsolate. And though recorded two years ago, somehow it captures the essence of what it is to be a conscious entity negotiating the world in 2021.

The album is a gorgeous stew of musical openness and stylistic shape-shifting, without once abandoning the heritage that has birthed it.

A draining, breath-snatching release, nature morte satisfies on an intellectual level as much as one that is viscerally primal.

WOOF charms mainly by the dint of its barefaced cheek: a record like this has been long overdue, especially since the pandemic.

Characteristically, she doesn’t offer up any concrete solutions on Everything Perfect is Already Here. Instead, by listening to her music, and how she weighs every element with equal care, we’re able to stop and begin to find gratitude for the moments we might have once ignored, however fleeting they may be.

Lanegan blends his most satisfying and heady aural brew to date.

This is a very smart record, and one that bears repeated listening. The emotional maturity and frank lyricism shine through the electronic sounds and idiosyncrasy of her style, and ultimately good songwriting finds a beautiful symbiosis of sound and text.

Their bravest and strongest work to date.

One of Haines' best efforts, Nine And A Half Psychedelic Meditations On British Wrestling Of The 1970s And Early 80s is an album that does much to encourage the here and now as it does to paint an impression of a time long gone.

Blue Veil has a cinematic sense of tension that keeps the music from retreating into passive background music, but never feels overbearing. As much of a deviation as Blue Veil is from her previous work, Railton has lost none of the sense of control that sets her apart as a composer.

It is sparkling and wistful, and it's quite lovely.

Some listeners are bound to find this repetitive too, and nowhere near different enough from his previous work. Yet To Syria, With Love is also Souleyman’s heaviest and hardest record since Leh Jani back in 2011.

The five members of the Golden Quintet perform this suite with perfectly poised balance and musical integration, composer Smith's trumpet taking the obvious lead with crystal clarity yet never lapsing into solo virtuosity for the sake of it.

The album hits its stride by 'The Strange Attractor', a pulse-raiser that seductively conjoins steamy, tranced out vocal inflections to an urgent, vacillating tribal tempo.

Rather than simply throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks, together, the pair throw a lot, all while investing time and a marked sense of freedom to what each track could eventually become.

Hippo Lite is somehow softer, more palatable, indeed liter than DRINKS’s previous output, but not at the expense of the punchy attitude, the sense of humour, which has made them so captivating from the beginning.

The Men may not be here to change rock history but at the very least they deserve serious recognition for the fact that they keep doing exactly what they want, and that it continues to be as honest and as shamelessly exhilarating as the best rock music always should be.

At her brightest and her best.

The songs have all benefitted from these unexpected levels of time and space to add additional material and occasional re-writing. Pulling from the twin pressures of studio time and commercial schedule combined to give the songs a sense of gentle completeness.

What we're witnessing here isn’t radical reinvention (which is hugely overrated anyhow), but the continued refinement and mastery of a specific milieu, and the judicious introduction of new elements and a new collaborator in Arve Henriksen.

Put simply, Redemption is an impressively ambitious record, and its to Richard’s credit that she pulls it off as a cohesive piece of work.

Ballads Of Harry Houdini is more like a spiritual sequel to the rockier and cross-genre Highway Songs from 2016. It feels deceptively slimmer with just six songs, rather than nine. In fact, its total running time is ten minutes longer. Maybe more focused, then?

Using mournful drones, haunting vocal arrangements and the judicious inclusion of foley-type sound effects, Cotton communicates not simply the details of the story but the emotional journey of its characters.

The tracks crackle and shimmer with an abandon not heard since their debut.

Whether acknowledging unfaithfulness, fretting over her advancing years or giddily professing undying love, Lewis creates songs and characters as compelling as they come. A couple of duds and some overzealous production aside, that is still very much the case on The Voyager.

Self-assured and comfortable in his skin, Lee Ranaldo is properly striking out on his own and sounding all the better for it.

It’s all so assured, yet Fratti never returns to the same thought for long. It’s impressive for a musician who’s comfortable with her voice and instrument.