It’s simultaneously a gratifying and frustrating listen. A lot of the homespun charm of ‘Pretty Girl’ has been jettisoned. The synths have clearly been given an upgrade. The drums sound expensive. There are musicians here who can play, and are probably on union pay scale. But no amount of major label gloss or ill-advised interposing guitar licks can disguise Clairo’s irresistible melodic gift, and strangely haunting/haunted voice.

Ghost On Ghost might not be definitive--Beam gives off the impression that a genuine modern classic is not yet beyond him, something a tightening of focus might help him achieve--but this is big, beautiful music all the same. That he makes it sound so effortless is all the more impressive.

Hidden Fields presents a binary world of pure noise set against the briefest interludes of silence between the tracks. It's only during the quiet moments that you can comprehend just how vast this album is.

Wand are a special band, and the new emotional range suits them.

In an age of hyper-optionality these tracks are never festooned with excessive detail where a few stark gestures would do, and the results boil over with primitive playfulness.

Sticky Wickets dispels any thoughts or concerns that this is merely a novelty act and while not as instant as their debut, repeated listens definitely provide equal rewards.

Carter Tutti has never seemed crippled into one genre, and now there's an authenticity tied to a gravitas that sounds instantly advanced.

Mudflowers sees him reincarnating and embodying his city's passion for a soulful Americana that flourished half a century ago.

An album that is dense, involving and rewarding.

There’s a cohesion and a vigour to Tick Tick Tick that may make it Mallinder’s finest and most enjoyable record in at least ten years (take a bow Hey Rube’s criminally slept on Can You Hear Me Mutha recorded with Fila Brazillia’s Steve Cobby in 2012).

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

Gossamer has enough going on musically to shift the focus away from the occasionally mawkish lyrics.

Judging by the results of Juice B Crypts, this revitalisation of purpose feels very much like something radiating directly from the artists themselves. Hardly a complete renewal or about-face, but rather a refining of methodology and intent, a distillation of what made them so exciting to begin with.

Hype and arrogance created Watch the Throne and stifled the creative revelation it could have been. It would be nice if that could serve as a kind of lesson for the hip hop world, but somehow that seems unlikely.

With 1989 she has succeeded in leveraging the most cordial and familiar of pop music outpourings to something that feels like a statement, a work of note and the sinew of some kind of emotional connective tissue–binding tastemakers, rock critics, guys I work with and my 12 year old cousin; irrevocably and unexpectedly.

It is a proper bass album representing all aspects of the current dance music scene through a noble kind of austerity.

Taken from the album sessions, the organ-bolstered "Polymers Are Forever" combines classic FOTL with a worrying tendency for grandiosity which was emerging on Travels...; a stylistic development which, along with an increasing funk elasticity, is a far cry from Falkous's efficiently cutting Mclusky.

While nothing quite meets the precedent set by the first track, the album is a bracing adventure in texture.

Be Up a Hello is Jenkinson’s strongest album for a decade and is easily up there with his best work.

Sandwell District still seem eager to assault the biggest speakers in the darkest rooms and they eloquently marry the primal physicality of techno’s propulsion with its forward-facing techniques. It might not have the initial groundbreaking impact of its predecessor, but End Beginnings pushes the techno continuum on, inch by inch, bleep by alien bleep, beat by rib-crushing beat.

From the glissandos and vertigo of 'Milk & Black Spiders' to the jounce and yawn of 'Providence', in every note and noteless space you can feel it: the physical unburdening, the personal reckoning, the fatigue and reprieve of letting go.

All too often the album lacks the requisite light and shade to make for a consistently enjoyable listen.

This is a concise and clever record.

An immersive journey, to be sure, it’s one worth taking the time out for to experience in a single sitting.

If Nada! was the sound of punk rock overcoming itself, passing into its opposite, Love Will Prevail is the sound of it re-emerging once more, irrevocably altered by the journey.

It really does speak volumes about the groundswell of depth in his writing that a record with stakes this high don't feel like a step out of character, but rather a continuing stride through a storm.

This is perhaps Faust's most solid and coherent body of work since their 1990s resurrection. It roars with sadness and anger at a world's squandered opportunities.

Intermittently enjoyable, Wonderful, Glorious is unmistakably the work of Eels but unlike previous and successful meditations, their tenth album frequently feels like well-honed schtick rather than a worthwhile insight.