It’s a jubilant and sweet experience. The least conceptually bound Zauner has been, she moves confidently through a space befitting of the multi-hyphenate artist she has become.

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.

Manning Fireworks is polished and lean, and it’s not unfair to wonder if the record is an attempt to capitalise on Lenderman’s sudden popularity. It’s front-loaded with his best work – funny songs about sad acts and disappointment.

Vocally, lyrically, creatively, CMAT has never sounded better. In truth, you’d be hard pushed to find another record like this one.

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.

Bleeds is an alt-rock urtext for Wednesday, both an entry point and a summation of their gifts: mixing the atonal with the blissful (Wound Up Here (By Holdin On)), bizarro choogle (Phish Pepsi), void-splitting hardcore (Wasp) and Low-esque slowcore (Carolina Murder Suicide).

Across its 15 tracks, Madlib’s constant beat switches make it feel more like one piece rather than a series of divided tunes, and you're left with a stunning collage of Gibbs’ headspace: flawed, politicised, desperate to change but tied by circumstance to the things he needs to escape.

Orquídeas is a display of bravura. Between Kali Uchis’ plurality of sound, empowered directives, and dance-inducing hypnosis – this is an entire album of sweet spots.

Besides some pretty clear face value, there are layers, moods, attitudes and tones to dissect and unpick which are overshadowed somewhat as the album stands.

Williams may be known for her inventive approach to the guitar – inspired as much by the spiritual blues of Elizabeth Cotten and American primitive guitarist John Fahey as it is Guitar Hero II – but it’s her egalitarian approach to collaboration that makes Acadia so alluring.

None of this group of songs are as good as those from her concise solo album, which only sprawled out with the ambient abstractness of its instrumental companion, something new and unheard for her. Here, listless listening is interrupted by the dangerous, mystical Simulation Swarm, saving the record’s back half. Big Thief are at their most beguiling when giving in to weird experiments.

Like its name, Billie Marten's fifth album is one to be dog-eared – revisited, rediscovered, and cherished.

This is easily the Long Island band's most mature album, in that it acknowledges and improves on many of the band's past misdemeanours.

Further instrumentation was added with care afterwards, but the skeleton of each song can still be discerned, pleasingly, like a pencil sketch beneath watercolours.

There's an ever-growing sense that Segarra is in a class above in terms of poignant lyricism and emotive performance – The Past Is Still Alive reaffirms this in spades.

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.

YTILAER meanders through moods, from melancholic to tumultuous to mellow and easy. Often, the songs take time to reveal their true nature: Naked Souls begins as a gentle jazz ballad over piano, gradually building as other instruments join to become explosive. But elsewhere (Coyotes, Natural Information), it is simply joyful listening from the first beat.

Indulgent? Possibly, but it works, because this record – even the longest tracks--is punchy, witty and razor sharp.

Blackstar is an absorbing (if consciously arty and perhaps a shade self-indulgent) listen.

It takes courage to remain open, and Big Thief lead us gently from the beaten path and into the wilderness with U.F.O.F. There are lessons to be learned underwater, in the cold and among the shadows.

In some ways, My Woman is the love song reimagined: a fearless and accomplished work whose deep-seated humanism is a stirring reminder that falling in love is for idiots, and that we should put our faith in any artist who might just convince us otherwise.

Gracefully distilling a profusion of self-loathing, Javelin is a heartsick high. No one yearns like Sufjan Stevens.

Immersive and lyrically heavy, but not without radiancy and light, Hookworms' ability to turn desperation into euphoria is a quality that makes this album a liberating, often healing, experience.

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.

Occasional spoken word excerpts add nice intimate touches with themes of love, heartache and introspection at the forefront of Nutini’s endearing lyrics. It's not faultless, but Nutini still glimmers with magic on this magnetic new record.

If I don't make it, I love u is magnificent, the peak of their recorded output to date, the sound of a band solidifying and pushing forward into something genuinely their own. A truly brilliant piece of work.

The trio of discs add up to a surprisingly tight record, a superb summary of Cook’s work to date, and a thrilling pointer to where the future may lead.

Soulful, impeccable production shines on every heartbreak and highlight.