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.

The duo’s knack for high five-worthy boasts and massive one-liners remains undiluted. However, RTJ3 truly excels in some of its darkest moments.

Plowing Into the Field of Love was a champagne swilling, country honky-tonk left turn; and now comes Beyondless, a record altogether more iconic sounding, but no less strange. ... Iceage continue to be one of the most exciting bands in music.

She can’t do any wrong at the minute; this is timeless songwriting, and Tigers Blood is a worthy successor to Saint Cloud.

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.

Singularity it feels like he’s levelled up the melding of two worlds: ambient and techno. Hopkins’ signature deep tissue massage bass is stitched together throughout, with unreal moments of musical beauty making Singularity a simply stunning album of emotional highs and lows.

LC! demonstrate once more that they are masters of drilling down into the minutiae of life, spotting the danger ahead, while remaining powerless to make better choices.

It’s sentimental, it’s oddball and it’s beautiful. In other words, it’s Grandaddy at their finest.

While this album could be characterised as a return to 'normality' for Dirty Projectors, such a label has no bearing on a group this relentlessly imaginative; a creative rebirth would be more accurate.

This is the band's darkest material yet. Opener, The Supremacy of Pure Artistic Feeling is an instant statement of the band's simultaneous deviousness and gorgeousness, which is a feeling that never really lets up over its 40 minutes until the seemingly krautrock-influenced The Right Kind of Adult. Come join the family.

Memories Are Now is a gorgeously delivered elegy to heartbreak and loss; powerful, perfectly executed songs to bring comfort and strength to the weary, broken and scorned.

Wall of Eyes is a kaleidoscopic, mind-altering pronouncement: The Smile are not a band of their component parts, not echoes of their previous ventures. They are something exciting, ambitious, and genuinely brilliant; a sentiment delivered so resoundingly by their work here that it will leave your ears ringing.

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.

Small Changes seems to reach the listener’s ear with its patina built-in. A boundless effort that, while revelling in its musical referents – Sade, Gaye, Withers – stands tall, ceaselessly, beside them.

The musicality of It’s Real is deliciously idiosyncratic, yet refreshing and musically progressive.

Beautiful Thing, though, is more of a straightforward float through space, with a starry, galactic feel to the album.

More candid but just as magical, City Music is another magnificent record from Morby.

An album that functions seamlessly as a listen-in-one-sitting affair, with enough memorable stand-alone moments to keep the club contingent happy, Bicep's debut is a clear front-runner for best house record of the year.

By the time Continuum 10 closes the album with a flash of rapture, and a gentle piano progression that signals the closeness of the next rebirth, it feels like your soul has been thoroughly cleansed.

A beautiful record; you just wish the vocabulary existed to do it justice.

Bazan’s wit and compassion shine throughout a dark voyage such as this; as one witness to a brutal suicide turns to black humour, while another, in contrast, valiantly tries to retain their emotional openness in a job that often requires distance.

Atomic picks up where the krauty electronic wash that coloured Rave Tapes left off, and sees the band brandishing some of their most compelling work to date.

The queen of Dollywood has more than earned her place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with this stupidly fun and over-the-top love letter to the genre.

If previous releases made Laufey Gen Z’s jazz-pop queen, A Matter of Time affirms that title.

While it's a million miles from the techno of Holden’s earlier career, its rhythms and hooks are infectious. The Animal Spirits is, put frankly, one of the most complex, immersive and impressive albums of the year.

Not only are Ty Segall fans likely to be pressing this on people for the next few months, it also might be just about the best album he’s put his own name to.

It all speaks of erudition, repetition used and abused in a dizzy concatenation. 25 25 is music as heartbeat (and screw the arrhythmia). Essential.

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

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

For his fifth album using the How to Dress Well moniker as an intravenous exploration of the hold that music has over our fragile human hearts, Krell has perfected his process.

I Am Easy to Find is littered with these ambitious flourishes, all of which add up to make a much broader and more pointed statement of offbeat intent.

This is still the band we fell in love with over a decade ago: confessional, honest, enthralling. It's just that this time out they're sleeker and sharper than before.

Meek’s vocals have always been quality, but on this release he has truly reached another level. The soft breathiness is used to the greatest emotive evocation yet, and the controlled manner in which his voice breaks cleanly into the following note in a way inimitable to few others than teenagers (certainly with less class than Meek) is impressive to the point of awe.

It’s Dalt at her most exposed, and somehow, her most inscrutable. .... A cinematic exploration of the self that reveals the human psyche as a strange and uncanny landscape.

This music is experimental and diverse in its sonic scope, but each unique sound is in service of its greater whole, making for a record that is undeniably the vision of a singular artist, a true auteur.

On their debut album, I Love You Jennifer B, the duo show their beating heart, without sacrificing the chaos or creativity. ... It’s a labyrinth of a pop album.

hopefully ! is a new sound, but the album is just as beautiful and personal, showing Loyle Carner’s progress not just as an artist but as a person.

Overall, POST- is a moment-defining record both for Rosenstock but also for wider popular music and culture; it's equal places angry and fun, something we could all do with in 2018.

Fiery hip-hop instrumentals, creamy rhythm and blues balladry and classic lounge vibes are explored with equal excitement--and pulled off with equal panache.

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.

It feels like a cathartic release, where she faces her fear of disasters head-on – through floods, tornadoes and burning cars – and she firmly places us within that world right alongside her.

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.

If Jenkins is the poster child for anything, it’s that there’s always a place for yourself in the vastness of time and space. It’s a striking, and very human, proposition throughout the record that grief and anticipatory awe can exist as a singular emotion, in a blip on the cosmic scale; the overwhelming ego death of human self-importance and the perfect realisation of its own in-spite beauty, that love and death are on the same spectrum.

So Much Country ‘Till We Get There is barely 15 minutes long; it is scarcely believable how much promise they’ve packed into it. Believe the hype.

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.

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.

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

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.

Everything about Dogrel feels big, intense, bold.

While not as sparklingly euphoric as their previous album, 2013's Fetch, their long-expected return is a collection of brazen, seering energy beams, like being hunted with a dragon’s breath shotgun in Akira’s Tokyo.

A Firmer Hand is an album in which Hawk daringly takes a searchlight to the complexities of the relationships with men in his life ('friends, lovers, family, colleagues') and, by extension, to the complexities within himself. The result is dazzling.

The Prettiest Curse is their finest work to date – full of assurance and poise, and still an absolute riot.

An album of impeccably considered concepts championed by songwriting that refuses to let the Dublin outfit down.

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.

A truly singular statement that vividly captures a century of folk, classic rock, and mid-century electronica.

It is a record that dives deep into the listener's soul and unconscious, burying its soundscapes and frustration there, creating a rewarding progression in their sound.

It’s a confident, competent step forwards from a sure-footed talent, earning its repeat listens through mature considerations. And there will be repeat listens--just you try not to.

These lullaby-like compositions mask a quiet rage throughout, reflecting the internal discord of those who live with abuse. ... Ever the documentarian of devastating emotions, Joseph's latest release sounds newly communal, with a sense of gathering closer those who share the same pain.

A masterpiece that puts MØ firmly on her own pedestal as an individual artist rather than a recurring feature.

On the whole it finds the sweet spot between chaos and structure, silliness and depth, and it’s a banger.

A nine-track tour de force laden with biting observations and curious characters.

The extremes of emotions are covered on Masseduction: the highs and lows of love, heartbreak and just general life. It is the closest we’ve ever been to Clark, and it’s probably the closest we’ll ever get.

Ornate, sometimes grand and shot through with their distinct brand of colloquial folk rock, Weem is beguiling from the first listen and only gets better the more you cosy on up with it.

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

Ultimately, >>> is yet another excellent record from Barrow and co, one which will surely delight for quite some time post-release.

The album is truly extraordinary – it is a once-in-a-career masterpiece that synthesises difference through abstracted self-observation. It is a vehicle for making meaning, an invitation to try again.

A masterpiece in wistful, cathartic electronica, his seventh studio album Fragments.

Blissful, elegant records like this do not come about by chance.

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.

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.

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.

Endlessly innovative--check the skittering, robotic violin on Red Trails, played by Sara Parkman--Plunge befits the return of an iconic creative voice. Dreijer’s politics are written on her body, and she’s asking you to dive in. You won’t need telling twice.

A stunningly controlled and moving work, for fans of ambient and instrumental music Temporal is a must-listen.

Minor Victories is frequently beautiful, and it’s the subtle application of the abrasive (on tracks such as Out To Sea) where this project really comes into its own; a few listens in, and captivation becomes its own reward.

So pretty, so welcoming, so ridiculously clever.

Not to Disappear is shattering throughout: a brooding sound board, crackling guitars, unsettling beats and Tonra buried in there somewhere, documenting unspeakable hurt, graphic and unfiltered.

Hope is the longest VW song ever at eight minutes, but it never meanders despite its repetition. Instead it points toward the restless creativity that the band have never lacked, and that Only God Was Above Us demonstrates all too clearly.

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.

Kae Tempest fully opens up on This Line Is a Curve and it continues to blossom with every listen.

Allison paints a full emotional landscape of this chapter of her life that’s as complexly nuanced as it is brilliantly captivating.

Out of My Province finds Reid on magnificent form. ... For all the emotion she conveys and coaxes from the listener, she sounds like she’s been singing these songs all her life. Like all her thrilling and incredibly distinctive inflections come as easy as breathing.

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.

Migration is the acid test for electronic music in 2017, and sets a standard that will be undeniably difficult to beat, let alone match.

There’s no question DePlume is a remarkable saxophonist, his orchestral arrangements with International Anthem labelmate Macie Stewart are stunning, yet the appeal is a tenderness for the listener.

Yellow brims with kindness and connection through its musical messages, reminding us refreshingly of what it is to be a human among humans.

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).

It’s a chaotic, wonderfully soundtracked journey from one of the best underground musical collectives to come out of Glasgow.

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.

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.

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.

Drinking more water, kicking bad habits and focusing on positive relationships are things which can be easier said than done, and even harder to make compelling art about. With The Lamb, Lala Lala have done that.

Clocking in at less than half an hour, The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons is a breathless exercise in how rock music should be played. It’s fun, frenetic, and full to the brim with that trademark Hives humour.

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.

Thankfully for them, Thrice Woven returns the band to their original glory. This is, simply put, a beautifully composed black metal record that stands up with all the greats.

The LP manages to consistently surprise and entertain for its entire running time, just two minutes shy of two hours. ... Bob's Burgers' unique music provides an offbeat, aural soundscape to its narrative and allows for characters to express themselves.

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 the bombastic earworm title track to the pulsating requiem that is Paradise, to the twisted pop spectacle We Cannot Resist, Animal is utterly intoxicating – something that cannot be contained. Surrender to it.

There's so much going on in this record, but it's far from a case of throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks. A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships is a considered, ambitious album from a band who are constantly pushing themselves.