BRAT comes together in a genius way; it's literary, musically complex and somehow effortless. Not to mention, perfectly suited for when you need to cry at the club.

Minor frustrations do present, though they are quickly dispersed. ALL SHE EVER WANTED, which feels like disposable Radio 1 fodder, transitions into HATE and DEAR IMMIGRATION, pillars of brilliance from which BERWYN confronts systems of power that engage in active oppression: moments that affirm BERWYN’s voice and salience as an important figure in British music.

Skeleton Tree might be, to flip the phrase, a mile deep and an inch wide. The lyrics are often beautiful, and when he can be concrete, Cave conjures unforgettable, living images.

This album is littered with strangely beautiful imagery. ... Desire, I Want to Turn Into You is an exciting new milestone for Polachek.

Songs of a Lost World is a true return to the desolate beauty of their 80s heyday.

While Don’t Look Down might lack the knockout punches that would bring Kojey Radical to the top table of UK rap, it's another step in his rise as a star of the alternative scene as he continues to carve out his own sound.

Taylor might not have been coming for the crown of pop star of the year, but with Prioritise Pleasure she’s certainly taken it.

It's a fascinating second album from a band that feel genuinely unpredictable.

An album that captures the rise and fall of restless youth in a fluorescent, dazzling city.

Her voice is excellent throughout – defiant and unwavering over Littmann's production – and sonically it is patient, cinematic and hopeful. A refuge, perhaps, for anyone who has been on the receiving end of the confounding and cosmic world of grief.

aya pushes her sound into more abrasive territory here, yet the record’s most crushing peaks come in its sparser moments, be it the haunting coda of peach, or the subterranean drone of the album’s title track.

This record, like the band behind it, repeatedly and successfully refuses genrefication in its ambitiousness.

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.

Blame is a pounding Faithless-esque banger; the angry, awkward Divide enlists the envious talents of Middlesborough rapper Shakk; and the static jams of Dancing On the Tables produce one of the most memorable tracks you’ll hear this year. Benefits are back, whether you like it or not.

Hadreas toys with classic rock and Americana sounds masterfully, these canonical totems of genre upended by his tenderness and specificity of imagery. This is his most band-driven album, and all the players here are vibrating on their own collective frequency.

There is a timeless and timely feel to these tunes and it sounds as if something stately is stirring in West Kirby. Good health, indeed.

It’s no surprise though to people familiar with Coates’ work that his input is sublime, expertly judged, particularly on Gown where he churns down into desperation and reaches for salvation simultaneously.

Converge may be slowing down in their output, but this is perhaps the band's best record since You Fail Me, keeping in mind the three albums in-between are not to be sniffed at.

That! Feels Good! is a revved-up hedonistic joyride that extols and celebrates the sensual necessity of pleasure. Jessie is firmly in her lane here, and it’s a satisfying drive from start to finish.

The results are unlike anything the band has produced before.

This is a carefully crafted, complex pop record that benefits from the production contributions of industry heavyweights like Nicole Morier (Britney), but undeniably it’s the new-fangled delivery and star appeal of Rina Sawayama that gives this album its sparkling essence.

Forty years in and Nick Cave isn't showing any signs of slowing down, if any he's got too much creativity to try and contain within this album's ten songs.

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.

Florist already feels like an album to live and grow with. It's a warm hug which asks the listener to smell the flowers every now and then.

Heart Under is an ear-piercing piece of intuitively crafted work.

All Mirrors retains a good amount of iconic devastation. Olsen’s timeless, musing lyrics are wise as ever, if perhaps more cynical than before. Yet there is a new, almost paradoxical, quality to the sound, as though it comes both from the past and the future.

A work of emotional clarity and quiet resolve, The Passionate Ones is a timely reminder that tenderness can be its own form of resistance.

The band’s excellent 2019 record Patience was full of self-flagellation, guttural outpouring and railing against abuse and injustice, but it ended on the hopeful budding of new love, a journey of breakdown and renewal. They continue on this record to wrap up extreme emotion in sonic confection.