In a Poem Unlimited lives up to its aim and its name. It’s a reflection of abuse that feels all-encompassing, and of this era. It’s a timeless gem of an album that is about as powerful as pop music can be.

For all the abrupt scene changes, Cocoa Sugar feels a self-contained universe. It gets straight to the point: human experience is messy. Young Fathers will always be restless and surprising, but for the moment it sounds like they’re right where they should be.

You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To exhibits a group confidently at their zenith with no signs of slowing down. Many predicted this could be the heavy release of the year – and it’s bloody hard to argue with that.

Badu collects good work, but the second half of the collection trails off; the whole doesn’t stand up to sustained listening without herbal aids (which, to her credit, Badu recommends).

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.

Overall, V feels like a consolidation of all of the strengths that The Horrors have built up over the last ten years, tightly bundled and perfectly accessible without sacrificing any of their artistic integrity.

Eusexua demands both surrender and celebration; it doesn't just embrace the thrust of commercial dance, it subsumes it into the chromatic, honed prism of twigs' artistry.

Heavy Heavy is rarely an easy listen, but it's never less than engrossing.

A confessional album that owes more to belief and soul-searching rather than a sense of direction, Lotus sees Little Simz blossoming from a dark spell into new light.

Many of Sharon Van Etten’s fans may be disappointed by the lack of sadness and darkness on Remind Me Tomorrow, and while there are still elements of both in the album’s undertones, there’s more of a hopefulness and sense of promise that suits her just as well.

Down By the Stream discusses bullying and abuse, while Blackpool Illuminations is a seven-minute track about Smith’s childhood at the iconic event. It’s structures like Where’s My Utopia? that make an album stand out, as does its sense of hope and perseverance, with the overall message that one’s struggles and emotions are valid.

Even more impressive are the melodies that stand out above all of the intricacy, making for an album that’s not only fun, but acutely detailed and instantly memorable. Exactly As It Seems is a beautifully peculiar, joy-inducing triumph.

This is a magical release with far too much on display to communicate; it’s worth trying though.

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.

Shade contains some of Harris’s most and least accessible work.

The result is a sparkling pop effort, with Campbell bringing copious quantities of the old Obscura glitz to the likes of the swooningly romantic It Can’t Be Love Unless It Hurts, the jazzy Home & Dry and, most poignantly, to the undiluted Americana of Alabama, a direct tribute to Lander.

Jericho Sirens is an incredible turn, and proof to the other half-hearted post-hardcore comebacks of the last years (looking at you At the Drive-In, Refused and more) that it is possible to still be high-quality and relevant. In fact, in places Hot Snakes' fourth album is so good, it even puts newer bands who have come up in the meantime to shame.

Process is an exercise in catharsis, a deep breath in that lays Sampha’s soul bare through gorgeous vignettes of his life. He worries, he regrets, he aches. He’s human.

Overall, TRU is a promising step for Ovlov, albeit one that doesn’t always succeed when it comes to standing out from its peers.

These are the most maximalist songs he has put to tape in years, stretching from sub-one minute sound collages to 12-plus minute prose poems. Melodic indie sits close to a black metal scream by Elverum’s daughter, which a minute later segue’s into louche lounge rock. The intensely personal blends with the political and existential.

Praise a Lord… is Yves Tumor’s most palatable music to date, and for those that have enjoyed the hurricane horror of their production previously – listen back to Noid with its blood-curdling screams and whirring sirens – the clean lines here will feel a little too neat. But with a new sense of clarity in sound comes a conceptual rigour.

It is intentionally playful and mesmerising. It’s in these moments, when Giannascoli flaunts his ability to turn the bedroom pop moniker he once personified on its head with studio trickery and letting his most outré ideas play out, that the record then rewards you.

Bird Machine is a worthwhile coda to Linkous’s legacy.

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

It’s these 12 weary waltzes and bright ballads, written gazing upon the sea from the window of his Cellardyke studio, that will find their way into your heart forever.

It’s his most sonically consistent record, with beautiful textural piano underlying almost every song.

Everything about Dogrel feels big, intense, bold.

Double Negative is a magnificent and courageous record, if you’re ready for it.

Across the record, Kelela’s striking and deeply affecting vocals are baked into sultry, hypnotic soundscapes that captivate and hold onto the listener at every turn.

With four years between their debut Rice, Pasta and Other Fillers, Every Bad is similarly anxious and seeking validation, endearing itself desperately to any listener who’s ever felt the same way.

One of the album's greatest strengths is how it incorporates these experimental choices into something very musical, although that does mean you do occasionally miss what's below the surface on first listen. Different things rise to the top the more time you invest in the record, so if it's not clicking with you immediately, trust that it eventually will.

She has made the excavation of her feelings around freedom, identity and channeled anger into a record that embraces fun and surprising musical juxtapositions.

Once again working with Americana producer du jour Dave Cobb, Shires uses this record to push her sound to another level.

HMLTD craft a compelling pox-ridden world of their own and leave just enough room for some bewitching ballads and ethereal laments amongst the chaos.

There is nobody quite like Christinzio, who finds room for brooding art rock (Fear Life In a Dozen Years), glorious melodramatic balladry (Going Out On a Low Note) and descents into impressionistic weirdness (It Never Rains In Manchester). His lyrics, meanwhile, imbue resounding sadness with rapier wit.

Sentir que no sabes is endlessly playful, Fratti using either her cello, or some out-of-nowhere sonic texture, to constantly colour outside the lines, conjure dramatic tension, and create real emotional resonance.

Ultimately, The Mountain blends darkness with light to explore the thrills of existence in Gorillaz’ own idiosyncratic way.

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

American Dream feels like Murphy's darkest record to date, and like previous LCD records, only gets better with repeat listens. In short, it's fucking glorious.

New cute or not, CHAI make a pretty strong blend of all the best bits.

The pieces as a whole feel fuller, and more ambitious than anything Roberts has done to date. It marks another stunning development in a series that remains essential listening.

These songs can be small, even womblike, but no less detailed or ambitious for it.

It’s a sensation that sneaks up on you, a kind of mania at once funny, alarming and harrowing, and it all adds up to something unlike anything else you’ll hear this year.

Blue Rev is a return that, in a strangely radical way, simply meets expectations. ... If you wanted to experience an etherealness that was anchored in experience, it was always Alvvays. And it still is.

The band’s impressive interplay and energy make these songs wonderfully replayable, to the point where the lyrics feel melodic and singalong worthy.

Ultimately, this is an important record at a time when galvanising young people to protest is needed perhaps more than ever. While it's presumptive to assume Algiers have succeeded, this record definitely won't hurt the effort.

While a little too knowing for some, Nerissimo stands as a fascinating example of two artists in full control, unashamed to lean towards the cerebral without turning the casual listener off.

This album continually bends and warps, jumps and starts, fully absorbing its antedecents and regurgitating a masterstroke of contemporary electronic music.

While the subject matter and style aren't vastly different to anything Kathryn Joseph’s done before, the progression here is more of a tasteful expansion of what came before it. In terms of finding new ways to express oneself with honesty while staying true to what makes you special, this album is a roaring success.

If The Dream Is Over put PUP on the map, Morbid Stuff might just see them conquer it.

The diaristic, stripped back process it was necessary to use to assemble 12 makes it a much looser, more instinctive listen. ... What we are left with is a record of endurance, struggle and the lingering ability to create something new. 12 shows a path can be made, even into that unknown.

As the title suggests, I Inside the Old Year Dying feels like a product of Harvey cocooning, burrowing into a space that feels protected and unhinged from relevance or topicality, as time and space wither. With that she has produced her most beguiling work.

There's nothing raw here; this is a band settling into their status as Britain’s new rock innovators. There seems little doubt that this will be their most influential record, and it feels reasonable to place them alongside the likes of Soft Machine, XTC and Spirit of Eden-era Talk Talk.

It's sombre tracks like The Laughing Man where Clark carves deep into the family tree.

It's a little front-loaded as the first three songs are by far the most immediate (except Witness and Pour Another) and memorable. But luckily, Tall Poppies anchors the closing songs with its six-plus minutes (nothing else exceeds four), painting a grim portrait of dreary, provincial life without being condescending (ahem, Model Village) or reductive (Glory Days).

Protomartyr galvanize themselves into a more driving and forceful mode on the likes of Don’t Go To Anacita and Male Plague, wherein lie some of Relatives in Descent's strongest hooks, and ultimately it’s the strength and clarity of the ideas put down that could make this their best record yet.

Overjoyed, Adios Amigo, and Rumer are worth the admission price alone. All told then, it’s a beauty. The album his fans have been waiting for. An album to bewitch people who don’t even know his name yet. Finally.

There are no split decisions here. Divorce have delivered a strong early contender for album of the year.

For those not attuned to Peggy’s ability to tap into the zeitgeist, All My Heroes Are Cornballs won’t provide a lyrical turning point. But as a showcase for his skills as a producer, it should win over even the most dyed in the wool critics.

The album does get a little bit repetitive towards its climax. Overall The National have survived their electronic ring of fire relatively unscathed.

Their newest body of work retains a fiery core, it also reveals a more pensive and reflective side to the band.

The xx are moving forward, but they don’t know quite where they’re headed.

As always Deafheaven are anything but ordinary.

Bolstered with warm tones of sax and synth, bearing colourful thumbprints of the past, Pompeii is certainly a success of Le Bon’s continual daring.

Can we still say ‘wow’? The evolution in Joseph’s work is restless and searching. This release is no different as it serves us another intuitive and unexpected turn in her style, instrumentation and vocals.

Altogether, Working Class Woman is an incredibly cohesive art-house album with a perfect combination of electronic music and spoken word, and if it doesn’t punch through the roof of clubs everywhere at least Davidson will be sorted as a kick-ass life coach.

Distinctive and likely divisive, some spots showcase the most original beat-work you'll hear this year.

Semper Femina continues her decade-long hot streak with another collection of finely wrought vignettes on love, loss, and the empowerment that can be found in both.

It was inspired partly from the loss of close friends, but the mood is rarely sombre. More it seems to have galvanised McCombs' focus, adding a heft of sincerity to his occasionally flippant style.

CMAT is a pop tour de force who knows exactly who she wants to be and has all the talent to deliver it.

The record is a bit slow to get going, and at times meanders into excessive atmosphere – next to The Slow's Bullet's ambient fuzz, the urgent jungle rhythms on Higher and Devotion in particular pop. But Avery is engaging with the art of the album as a sum of its parts, and from start to finish conjures a fantastical, dreamlike world.

Through it all, Let’s Eat Grandma encapsulate the agony and ecstasy of youth--and even more besides--in constantly dynamic ways that demand your attention. You’ll be all ears.

The production is pristine, while none of her lo-fi charm has been lost. My Method Actor is a triumph on all counts.

There's a great album in Fontaines D.C., and Skinty Fia takes them one step closer.

This is untethered, uncluttered music, made with real heart by an artist at her peak.

Every song on People Watching is carefully crafted to remain with the listener. The bittersweet lyrics intertwined with catchy heartland rock and seamless vocals make this album Fender’s best yet.

From start to finish Parasol Peak delivers a unique and fantastic experience that just has to be listened to in order to be fully appreciated. It's accompanying film is bound to be just as captivating.

The result is less revelation than stress test – a popstar proof-of-concept. In that, Thirlwall proves herself pop’s newest chameleon: brash, uneven and impossible to ignore.

Each instrument is put to use across multiple genres, experimenting with a collection of new sounds. The result is a moment of exciting expansion.

On i don’t know…, the intentionality and splendour that began to blossom on her 2020 EP Projections are now fully in bloom. Tomberlin holds onto the sonic space that allows her delicate vocals to fly but introduces a host of new sounds, too – pedal steel guitars, brushed percussion, woodwind, twinkling piano.

The album feels as much a personal exploration of Adigéry’s own heritage and life experiences as it does a commentary on social attitudes. But, most importantly, it establishes Adigéry and Pupul as a real force to be reckoned with.

It’s a richly realised record and one that is as powerful a statement in support of Case’s measured musical expertise as it is her long-established prowess as a lyric writer.

He embraces the role, plays up to it, uses it to bend and manipulate the parameters of modern rock music and has managed to create something bitingly acerbic and cynical, yet achingly sincere. Again.

Arguing which record between this and U.F.O.F. is better is pointless. They are two sides of the same sovereign coin, all it proves is 2019 is Big Thief's year.

Rodriquez’s most cohesive and ambitious work to date.

Fir Wave should represent a clash of styles – between Peel’s 21st-century toolkit and Derbyshire’s early-70s equivalent – but instead, there’s a deep sense that the two women, generations apart, are in tandem.

Barrett has moved away from the big city, but small-town living has inspired his most accessible work to date.

Home Video is intimate, occasionally discomfiting, and, most of all, brave – the sound of an artist choosing to be at her most vulnerable, in front of a bigger following than she’s ever had before.

It's a mature album that is more likely to make you lean in to hear (as with the loud/quiet dynamics on Become The Earth) than beg for your attention. But there's ample reward in giving a little time to Feist.

Lonely People With Power is their most sonically-rounded record, probably their heaviest and quite possibly their best.

Reflective and funny, Yo La Tengo would be forgiven for recording endless victory laps at this point. Instead, they continue to defy.

Whether shouting over martial drums, whispering behind thick, smoky synths or rapping against a razorwire guitar, URGH is an exercise in harrowing noise; unapologetically visceral and all the better for it.

BadBadNotGood have packed more than a dozen little viruses into this disk, and once you hear it, you’ll be spreading the ill, too. Beyond the voices, the music is rich, textured, melodic, and always groovy.

I Don’t Live Here Anymore, is their greatest and grandest statement yet. Adam Granduciel’s obsessive nature when it comes to making records has paid off as the Grammy winners' fifth studio album is another triumph in sound.

This is a stunning vocal experiment, one that constructs immaculate, dreamt and abundant worlds.

Although refusing to be pigeonholed, the album hangs together effortlessly and each part feels as vital as the last; despite its 17-song length, it’s hard to imagine Yanya’s vision without each one of these tracks.

Where Ugly Cherries felt spontaneous and carefree, Pageant feels more mature and considered.

It’s here to piss off metalheads, push boundaries and showcase that BMTH are certainly not one-dimensional.