It’s swift, at just 24 minutes across nine songs, but The Afterparty is Lykke Li at her very, very best, which makes her recent claim at an LA listening party that it could be her last, devastating. It might only be May, but it's already a serious contender for album of the year

Poem 1 is a return to form; so much more focused and well-defined, but moving forward too, showcasing herself as a great songwriter amidst the ambient wash of her earlier work.

Aldous Harding's fifth album doesn't deviate much from her winning formula, but there are small flourishes peppered throughout to keep it feeling fresh.

The sound is raw and grinds with edgier and harder beats, perhaps signalling a new direction for the group’s versatile beatmaker, DJ Próvaí. .... A well put-together album, thanks in part to working alongside super-producer Dan Carey.

It's a decisive success from one of NYC’s most distinct exports – though its head may sometimes come before the beat, it is no doubt an impressive achievement.

By key change three, your tolerance for theatricality may be tested, but Friko’s affinity for arresting melodies makes every twist and turn genuinely exciting and, with its wild, youthful spirit, their second record is the perfect soundtrack for the open road.

Altogether, it has the faintly dispiriting sheen of something commissioned by its own success. Ware is deft enough that the album still plays best when it coalesces her 2010s crooner poise with the 2020s reassertion of her pop bona fides.

Where WU LYF once teetered on the cliff-edge, barking every utterance like they knew it might be their last, they're now sure-footed and comfortable, speaking with a conviction that can only come with experience.

Closer Scorpio Purple Skies, a near ten-minute drone glistening with the lap steel of John Also Bennett, gestures to something more elemental and cosmic, the mythic and the earthly folding in on themselves.

The trick that Johnny Lynch, aka Pictish Trail, has pulled on us all, however, is that beneath the froth and the dayglo is a set of songs that truly shine, sticking to your ears like Silly String, getting tangled in your brain and your heartstrings.

The title track, Cruel World, is a brilliantly deceptive slice of sunshine. .... Elsewhere, the album is quieter and less sure footed.

Picton has led out of this gathered ensemble a record that lives and breathes, and can be lived and breathed in.

What unites it all is Eisenberg's ability to roam freely without ever losing the thread – it turns out the confidence was warranted.

While the coherence of the record sometimes lends itself to monotony, the darker sonic undercurrent, coupled with a newly found more intricate and explorative sonority, has a sensation of quiet and dreamlike absorption.

The duo commit to a kind of 90s-coded insouciance: lethargic vocals draped over a club-ready chassis and an occasionally unconvincing refusal to try too hard. For a band sold as the city’s next great party-starters, a lot of 'Ö' feels oddly undercooked.

It sounds uniformly excellent – often radiantly sunny – but for an album concerned with wheel-spinning, it spends a lot of time doing exactly that.

The titular track shines a light up to the album as a whole – fun, endearingly cringeworthy, luxury pop music.

There is no definitive answer in life, but this record is an incredible ride in questioning it.

Blunt colloquialisms can detract from philosophical musings, and sunny chords sometimes overshadow introspective lyrics.

Yes, it’s different and experimental, but those risks mostly pay off, and the DNA of Dream Nails, the thing that makes them so special, remains at their core.

There isn’t much depth to the lyrics. This album is about feel. ... For once this is a Ladytron album to listen to in the sunshine.

The result is a melodic and chilled-out collection that ripples with sonic goodness.

She blends traditional folk with experimental elements and psychedelic inflections so deftly that it is impossible to imagine it to be the product of anything other than years of dedicatedly honing her craft; the ten songs on Hard Hearted Woman might be the most potently distilled version of it yet.

With the release of PLAY ME, Kim Gordon has mastered a modern mixture of distorted guitar and intense trip-hop beats. Gordon’s lyricism throughout the album is more politically confrontational than her past two solo records.

A deeply profound album that’s dense in multitudes, allow yourself the time and patience to bask in Andrew Wasylyk’s latest compelling body of work.

There is a certain messiness that he has managed to pull together throughout the record, giving an overall impression of authenticity, as well as multiple formidable creative sources colliding.

This aching vulnerability is seared across the album, building upon the elegant orchestration of her previous LP to create a rich, sultry infusion of vintage pop and noisy indie-rock, easily matching her best songwriting to date.

Amid dense waves of sludgy guitar the classically trained singer manages to make herself heard, hinting at the resilience required to endure in a world that demands too much. Then the album exhales, shifting from confrontation to contemplation. What follows is a gentler, but no less affecting suite of slowcore ballads.