It's often said that love is better the second time around; whilst this remains to be seen, Cry is a grower and we look forward to love’s next incarnation.

Yet though FIBS skips swiftly between moods and sounds, Meredith’s innate ability to bring these parts together into a collection that’s both bursting with compositional creativity, while still maintaining its own sense of cohesion and an accessible edge, inspires awe. It’s no lie: Meredith has struck gold once again.

The most crucial overlap here is between Foals’ dual ambitions – creative and commercial. They’ve been one of the biggest bands in Britain for a while now – and finally, they truly sound like it.

It takes multiple listens to get to the heart of this record, each one well worth your time.

A warm, insightful and frequently jarring record full of pain, love, curiosity and mystery.

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

Crush may be some of Floating Points’ most assertive work, but sinking into its rich and deeply layered textures reaps countless rewards.

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.

Musically, it’s varied and adventurous; thematically, it sees the world’s present darkness and raises it hope. A vital record.

For all the screeching dissonance and politically infused anger present, No Home Record is a real joy of an album, proof if proof were ever needed that Gordon will not allow herself to slide into anything approaching resting on her laurels.

Arguing which record between this and U.F.O.F. is better is pointless. They are two sides of the same sovereign coin, all it proves is 2019 is Big Thief's year.

Smith has taken his time, and made mistakes, in comprehending what he’s been through. And Deceiver is all the more honest for it. Impressively, that doesn’t shine through intricate detailing but as something more abstract. Deceiver sounds like that experience, more than it describes it. And there’s hope at the end too.

As an exploration of a incredibly specific emotional space, and attempts to leave it, Look Up Sharp works tremendously. But it’s dal Forno’s compositional poise and skill with restraint that sets her apart as a creator of works of truly unnerving grace.

If anything, uknowhatimsaying¿ is a little more controlled than Brown’s previous record, and perhaps that’s the experienced hand of Q-Tip exerting influence. It does nothing to besmirch the crown that Brown has already claimed as his own – as one of the best, and most boundary pushing, artists in the rap game.

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.

The Talkies is a superb return, with Girl Band building upon what they know they can do but without resting on their laurels. Still experimenting, still funny, still brilliant.

Startlingly original and yet somehow a nostalgic comfort in these worrying times, Roberts is one of the best we've got.

Opener Human and later, less successfully, Faith For Doubt, divvy up the greatest hits of a Laurel Canyon-indebted film soundtrack with the driving rhythms of Fleetwood Mac. The latter is The War on Drugs without the transcendence. These, unfortunately, muddle an album filled mostly with quiet, vocal-led tracks that veer from haunting, sparse ballads to something more hopeful.

Chastity Belt is proof positive that bands don’t need to simply spin the wheels when they’re going through periods of transition, waiting for the solid ground to return beneath their feet before they get going again.

For the most part we're in familiar territory: the sounds are familiar, the production is crisp and the songs are full of the colour of widescreen Americana.

The record sounds warm, full and flirty; the snares hit you, the bass bounces and harmonicas and organs are as bright as California stars.

For those not attuned to Peggy’s ability to tap into the zeitgeist, All My Heroes Are Cornballs won’t provide a lyrical turning point. But as a showcase for his skills as a producer, it should win over even the most dyed in the wool critics.

Ultimately, though, Close It Quietly doesn’t sound particularly exciting or new, but it certainly succeeds at its intentions – it’s a triumphant album for people that find catharsis in indie pop’s niceness.

Mostly, though, this is everything a debut should be: fascinating, confused and a little bit terrified.

The Practice of Love is a powerful and joyous offering from one of the last artists anyone could ever accuse of playing it safe. Her unorthodox observations ('She found stretch mark cream / In an Airbnb bathroom') are, more so than ever before, full of wit, bite and beauty.

At times, Miami Memory feels like a streamlined repurposing of pop music's warmest sounds – be it the glowing synth jabs on Stepdad or the crispest of snares on Far From Born Again and Divorce – all retooled with a new level of subtlety and honesty for Cameron. What you’re left with is ten great pop songs; bitingly funny, bombastically anthemic and gently sensual, often at the same time.

There's something of an air of spontaneity to some of the tracks here, but this same spontaneity can make feel the album feel slightly ephemeral in places. Pang! can sometimes leave you hungering for more, but it’s still often an engaging listen.

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.