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.