The Lookout perhaps does not give up its pleasures as easily as some of her earlier records. There are triumphs here--not least the title track which marches along at a sprightly pace graced by some lovely violin sounds. But there are also songs that worry at their subjects, circling and darting in and out of the light.

At times, these eccentric – and often downright baffling – transitions in style and tone can be disorienting, but they also speak to Cunningham’s dexterity as an electronic auteur, and his refusal to play by the rules.

In its 13 tracks and just shy of 40 minutes, Wide Awake! shows perhaps the band's broadest emotional range to date with a healthy dollop of anger on display (see Violence or Before the Water Gets Too High).

An album of just Danilova's entrancing voice would be sufficiently good, but ARKHON shows a restless creativity that warrants all of your attention.

Starting where Enclave left off, Guerilla succeeds in its aim of delivering an aural interpretation of both the physical and emotional trauma attached to conflict.

Good at Falling has a feeling of the relief that comes after crying. It takes a moment to sit in sorrow, to feel every inch of it, only to find it washed away by hope and gratitude.

Compared to Tillman’s previous releases as Father John Misty, Chloë and the Next 20th Century feels like an immense achievement musically, while not wholly dropping the cynical and whimsical elements of his songwriting.

Despite its name, there’s nothing ambiguous about Tune-Yards’ return. They’re back with bombast and the permission to take a breather if it all gets too much.

Citizen of Glass delivers an ambitious and accomplished collection of pretty, ornate artefacts.

Allison’s debut Tourist in This Town shows she certainly has the potential to go it alone too, provided it’s on her own terms.

The Arctic Monkeys of old are long gone and so too should any expectations of them returning to dirty dancefloors. With The Car, the band become increasingly comfortable in their lounge-laden musical attire.

At times it feels like a strange fusion of medium and message but it’s a triumph that Catholic Action manage to imbue an increasingly staid format with some revolutionary zeal.

Over the course of their unabashedly DIY-sounding debut – whether that sound is merely an invocation rather than authentic, you can’t deny that it nails it – these songs walk the same line of art rock as Goo and Dirty-era Sonic Youth.

While Deafheaven's change in direction isn't an unwelcome one, there isn't quite the same rush as their previous best efforts, as they adapt to their new surroundings. Minor gripes aside, Infinite Granite proves Deafheaven's mettle and shows you don't always have to shout loud to hit hard.

Slowdive are scene vets that have seemingly perfected their sound, but still have enough drive to keep nudging it forward, one shimmering soundscape at a time.

On this latest opus, Washington and company are a tightened-drum of an ensemble that effortlessly flit between an intense focus and a playful freedom, and the results are stunning.

The risk of taking that deliberately vintage tack is contrivance, and though this album tows the line occasionally, it never disappears into itself.

The Nashville Sound isn't a bad record by any estimation, but there are flat moments.

Capping off a decade where he has announced and solidified himself as possibly the country’s finest songwriter, Richard Dawson has produced another record of incredible melodic talent, compositional nouse and gloriously empathic writing.

Vagabon is a record both stripped back yet electronically rich, genre disparate, but ultimately inclusive. A rewarding listen, it's an achievement beyond comprehension.

Cool It Down is topical without getting too deep, and fun without overstaying its welcome, but even for a band as mercurial as YYYs, it feels a little too ephemeral.

While Romare is a master when it comes to constructing unique and unusual sounds in his music (the opening of his old single Roots for example), sometimes this can be more abrasive than enjoyable--New Love, we're looking at you. Overall though, this is a warm piece of percussive and melodic greatness.

Goodnight Summerland is musically, lyrically and thematically enrapturing. It is a record of pure beauty and elegance, brimming with beguiling melodies and dazzling progressions.

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.

Only occasionally does the grandeur threaten to run away from them, as on the over-blustery Pale Kings; otherwise, their form is more or less impeccable, with the swooning vocal melodies of Backchannels and the off-kilter creep of Filaments among its standout elements.

While the material is scarce, the quality is a renewable resource on par with a nuclear fusion plant. Choruses hum, drumlines bounce, and there's always enough subversion for leftovers.

Angry, acquiescent and apathetic all at once, Running Out Of Love is an ideal album for our anxious times.

It’s invigorating and profound, mapping a sonic current which traverses moments of gently unfolding beauty (The Quietest Shore) and even brassy grandiosity (particularly on the widescreen projections of Exquisite Human Microphone).

Slowdive represents an awareness of legacy, and the importance of not pissing all over it; to that extent, it’s an essential addition to canon.

Nothing about this album is ordinary and nothing can be taken for granted – least of all the artists themselves. Get Tragic is a powerful album, raw in its unflinching honesty, experimental in its lyrical and instrumental balances, and deeply moving in its frank exploration of all that Ansell and Carter have made it through to reach this point.

The vocal melodies exuded on the album are irresistible. Paired with lush instrumentation, Sink Into Me is in a word, gorgeous, and the perfect soundtrack for a meander in the sunshine or a mellow morning in bed.

Raspberry Moon brings out the best of what the Hotline TNT project can offer; it's an emo-shoegaze-indie-noise-pop melting pot that hits just right.

Human Performance might have sacrificed the band's rickety immediacy, but they compensate with wise, grass-stalk chewing authority and grubby, plentiful hooks.

Like much of Callahan’s finest work, this is an incredibly contemplative yet focused collection of songs from one of the most talented raconteurs of his generation.

Tenderly, expertly picked guitar supports the voice: Byrne doesn't so much sing as exhale and her unforced delivery serves to mesmerise.

Slocum’s lyrics give this tight 27 minutes of music a literary might beyond this band’s years.

Love What Survives offers a scattergun approach to ideas, sounds and voices, and it could be their greatest record yet. With a looser grip, Mount Kimbie dip and dive through myriad musical worlds.

With fearless approach and razor sharp delivery, Adore Life is so bruisingly intimate that it feels like a surgical hand taking grasp of your gut. When Savages speak, you listen.

Whilst their run-of-the-mill, dream-pop contemporaries experiment with a range of distortion pedals, this band continue to show that use of every crayon in the box (or, rather, every seat in the orchestra) can create a true masterpiece.

Still, the beating heart behind The Kid is the curiosity and delight that Smith brings to her meticulous electronic compositions.

Tying everything together is the mood of the whole piece--it’s a pastel kaleidoscope, summery and light on its feet throughout. But broadly, you can hive off Koenig’s songwriting predispositions into one of two categories--60s-indebted pop, and R'n'B-inflected experimentalism.

You're hearing a songwriter who seems to know exactly what she wants to make, and has all the tools to do that. A glorious, glorious album.

While it may not break entirely new ground, this album’s embrace of mordant textures and restrained warmth – weaponised on album closer and sonic bath David – cements it as consistently compelling and quietly brilliant.

Sparseness can often lend a chilliness, but Rundle’s work here can be grippingly hot and suffocating – the feeling of air being sucked out of a room – as she recalls past traumas.

Things start promisingly on opener Special, with the equally rip-roaring Fantasy shortly after. The problems emerge in the album's latter half, starting from the latest single Tonight, which feels sadly very safe and leads to songs that wouldn't feel out of place on an early 2000s generic pop-punk album.

This album seeks to ask questions, to entertain and to create. While the destination may be nebulous, Deerhunter know that the enjoyment lies within the journey. The slow, crumbling decline of civilisation has rarely sounded so good.

With a multi-layered narrative, Levy sings between abstract and Auto-Tuned clippings of her purchasing a dove, and in this proves the success of her experimentalist artistry. By welcoming the world into her record, Alexandra Levy has created something much more whole and warm than perhaps it might have been.

Viagra Boys are still copping from the William S. Burroughs playbook when it comes to surrealism and degenerates, but there's a confidence and heft throughout Cave World that keeps it sounding fresh.

Although it's easy to mock Peel's grand idea to create "a seven-movement odyssey" what we should really be doing is praising one of modern electronic music's most enquiring and captivating minds whose skyscraping talent shows no sign of coming down just yet.

With The Departure, Wilson has indeed crafted a constantly captivating experience that's rich in both sound and spirit.

Mid Air is a must-listen for anyone looking for a sentimental electronic dance anthem or for a song to say the words we are sometimes afraid to say.

There are memorable lines galore if you can keep up with Lunny's runaway train delivery.

While Nearer My God isn’t always successful, the imagination behind it is more than enough to give it your time.

La Dispute are titans of their scene, but they’re also lyricists of the highest calibre, writing songs many will confide in. Album number four isn’t a drastic change in direction, but it reaches heights when their powerful words lash the mind.

Characteristically textbook Death Cab – dolloping shimmering guitars atop stomping percussion, as decadent choruses burst through nostalgic lyricism like an uncontainable smile. Their knack for spry, melancholic indie-rock remains unrivalled and makes for yet another memorable release.

Dead Channel Sky’s brilliance is front-loaded. .... This vitality soon becomes mired in conceptual slog – testament that clipping. are capable of greatness but struggle to stay consistently great.

While this may not be the most cohesive record that Spoon have ever produced, it is one brimming with ideas (one might say overflowing), and serves as testament that more than 20 years into their career this is still a band with plenty to say.

001 is at its best when collecting material made just before Strummer's death, including a duet with Johnny Cash on Bob Marley's Redemption Song and the heartbreaking folk rag of Silver & Gold.

It’s great, difficult, enjoyable, rewarding, prescient--a notable work of art. It wouldn’t be surprising if the years to come recognise it as such.

It’s noisy, it’s militant, it’s human, and it’s a time capsule for the year you’re already burning an effigy of. Get it while it’s hot.

It’s excellent, and filled with momentum, even if she could have gone a bit more ethereal on the 'ooh-aahs' at the end – we know she has it in her.

This is an acutely refined album fuelled by energy and agitation from a group way ahead of their age.

There are more moments where the album feels driven by synths rather than drums. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the trio shine most brightly when this is reversed; the incessant drumming on the closer MYSTIK charges the entire track with the feeling of take-off.

The Ones Ahead carries a resolute message of hope for the world, backed up by Glenn-Copeland's evident wisdom.

Being Funny... serves not only as a reflective and refined record, but a showcase of The 1975's almighty journey to their peak, and how much they still have to offer.

Produced by Remy and recorded live with 20 session musicians, Heavy Light is rich, textured and sonically huge.

Rather like Bruce Springsteen's lo-fi masterpiece Nebraska, Wolfe re-creates a sparseness (albeit with modern production methods) that shows off her best assets, doing more with less.

We may never get another album as breathtaking as Wolf Parade's debut, but it's great to have them firing on all cylinders once again.

Le Kov is a cinematic and atmospheric collection, crisply produced while also maintaining a sense of mystery. Its cosmic blend of psychedelia and strong synth-pop sensibilities once again bring the listener firmly into Gwenno’s psychological territory.

Baloji often presents a grand, cinematic vision here that can be thrilling in short bursts. Taken as a whole though, the sheer scale of 137 Avenue Kaniama can be a bit exhausting.

Experimentations galore, Sundara Karma’s second album is one that works well, as tracks blend into each other despite jarring soundscapes. But there is no track that appears a clear standout, and therein lies the failing within an otherwise bold record, as no one track roots you in your place wanting more.

While IRL is satiny and consistent, sonically and lyrically you’re eager for some bigger swings. At times operating in truisms, you await unspooling of edgier insight. IRL is like a path reflecting dappled sunlight: we can see patches of brightness but its full light is obscured.

Sophie Allison, aka Soccer Mommy, just keeps getting better. Her latest record surpasses any expectations set by 2018’s Clean, which set her apart from the crowd with its effortlessly cool pop energy, razor-sharp riffs and wise takes on adolescent turmoil. With color theory, Allison revives a fiery and rebellious noughties aesthetic, upgraded with enchanting sonic clarity.

WOW blurs the line between intentional and incidental noise to celebrate the sonic richness of everyday life and the ability of sound to trigger memories.

On Pirouette Model/Actriz continue their tightrope walk over chaos and introspection, desire and vulnerability, with camp aplomb. Another vital record from a trailblazing band.

Elegant and focused, the album was written, recorded and produced in the same bedroom as his first LP--with the same supersonic attention to detail. It's only his ambitions that have changed.

[Producer Kurt] Ballou’s signature crushing heaviness may have become a cliché in some circles, but paired with Wolfe’s beautiful voice and brilliant writing, it's a match made in heaven.

Sometimes though the more minimal vibe that runs across Broken Politics feels a bit too languid and relaxed. Tracks can float by too easily, while the clattering air horns and steel drums of Natural Skin Deep feel out of place on an otherwise low-key album.

It's a study of musical form that is innovative in its approach and experimentation.

Horror is an impassioned journey, beautifully crafted and brightly euphoric.

Ace manages not to overwhelm its simply lovely melodies under sweeping layers of orchestration. With moments of sheer, sunlit beauty unfolding unexpectedly among the churning winds, Madison Cunningham shows us it’s well worth weathering the storm.

The record proves to be slightly more interesting in its lyrical content than its musical content, but that’s more a compliment than a dig. It plays the softer than silk, pseudo-gospel rock style of boygenius with heart and emphatically hits every pacing beat on its checklist.

Bark Your Head Off, Dog is another great Hop Along album, intimate and grand in a way only few can do.

If you’re looking for another Bros or Good Girl / Carrots, it ain’t here. What there is, ten tracks co-produced with Animal Collective bandmate Josh Dibb, is worth celebrating. These are meticulously crafted songs performed by one of modern music’s most distinguished vocalists.

Witty, odd and carefully drawn, Woolhouse nails whimsy without once hitting twee.

It’s Johnson’s voice that takes centre stage, however (clear, plaintive and inviting, as though the ghost of Grant McLennan had dropped by to give some pointers), and as he explores the concept of closure through relationship breakdowns--painting the very notion as mythical, unattainable--you ponder why the time is apparently right for Piano Magic to call it quits.

Ultimately IV is Part Chimp 101--a righteous addition to their canon whether a newcomer or long-time devotee.

There are curve balls--Rise sounds like The Lighthouse Family (!); Leatherette like an outtake from Madonna's Ray of Light--but this is business as usual for Gilmore: great lyrics, good melodies and production chasing today's radio. But you can't help feeling there’s still a great album to come from her.

The album caters for all – there are heavy tracks for hardcore fans and songs with a more approachable indie feel for those who need a gentle introduction to the ways of the Wolf. So sit back, relax and scream to your hearts content.

In lesser hands, it might come off as an overwrought and incongruous addendum, but the piccolo and flugelhorn, rolling funk and string quartet that have peppered the album demonstrate that the band aren't simply flirting with new directions, but wholeheartedly embracing them.

Damned Devotion is not an album you can play once and get a grip on. She remains sultry, she remains a late night proposition; this is music geared for the come down, but for all that there is reinvigoration here.

Dead Magic, though, is utterly derivative of the very few albums in this genre ever to succeed, and lacks all of their spark and life. Above all else it is unbearably, irredeemably boring.

Compared to some of their previous works, it’s an album that also feels somewhat gloomy with Isaiah Barr’s thoughts on issues such as gentrification and eviction distilled into dark and often murky compositions. ... Despite this, Lower East Suite Part Three still manages to capture contemporary urban discord.

In a still monochromatic genre, Mother of My Children presents a vital, bold debut and, hopefully, a sign of further change to come.

It’s an album that’s at times danceable and at others meditative, but always filled with emotional honesty.

For a band at this stage in their career, Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs is a surprisingly solid return. Die-hard fans will love it regardless, but if you haven’t checked in with AK3 for a while – now's the time. They still have their spark.

Overall, The Bad Fire proves this legendary group can still produce moving, intelligent and vital work even as they embark on their fourth decade. As their lockdown-inspired success proved, Mogwai remain a guiding light in dark, troubling times.

It could read as overstuffed – and at times, it can feel that way – but the sheer force of performance and skilled production more than carry the album.