It’s a short and snappy experience clocking in at under 30 minutes, but the rising tides of sin and crashing waves of liability make Back To The Water Below the most all-encompassing outing of Royal Blood’s career.

Essentially, HELLMODE all but confirms the sincerity electrifying the voice of our charming punk hero. With little hope to hold onto, he's still angry, urgent, and prescient as ever.

Like the tracks themselves, the album as a whole contains a breadth in the way of sounds and styles, but less so in depth. Confused and trying on more hats than a grandfather at a beachfront souvenir shop, Cautious Clay flickers with interest and leaves without a second thought.

When Neil leads us away cheekily with the macabre “I’ll never grow old in a graveyard”, the confidence sounds resolute. The trio’s abilities were already in cement, but being uninhibited by past musical ventures has become a marvellously fun, snarling beast.

These songs are indubitably vigorous and youthful. Moreover, there’s also a fleck of Slowdive's nostalgia and urgency spattered on them, like the golden sky at sunset, whose warm-coloured canvas quickly loses its treasured vibrance to nightly darkness.

If anything, Voir Dire is a record that pulls itself apart as it continues, subtly dredging the listener in philosophical bile and pause-the-track one-liners.

I'd Be Lying If I Said I Didn't Care is not an easy listen. It's a cold lake on a summer's day – not immediately comforting, but if you commit to the activity, you'll be unaware of how long you've been enjoying it. The overarching feeling of optimism keeps the record above water and prevents it from falling into an unenjoyable experience.

Cabral and her band have taken what could have been a disaster and turned it into her best work. A stunning, unexpected album from an artist to keep a very close eye on.

The collective's return gleams with ambition. Packing the same ferocity and awe of a firework display with ebullient lighter moments shaded with synth flourishes, and rapturously prototypical loud darker ones which apprehend and shake you to the core.

It’s a definitive project encapsulating body autonomy, queer love, humour and fury, all the more confidently told by a vocal chameleon whose performance stands out amongst the rich production traversing decaying foliage, fizzling suns and AI leaders.

Be Your Own Pet burned out from having too much fuuuuuun, but by playing around with old influences, Mommy shows they're still nothing but a good time.

If you want to find a remaster that’s worth your time and money, then Suede is the gem to look into at this very moment.

It’s an oddly assured debut, tender and strong at the same time – and its greatest strength is that Rapp is as good of a songwriter as a performer of her own emotions.

It’s a fantastic example of how artists can still come to a project with tonnes of contextual flavour that they want to include and not have it overpower the entire dish.

Shamir settles into the familiarity of gleaming indie-pop arrangements and sweet starbursts of melody, all while hints of darkness bleed through the margins. While not a startling stylistic reinvention, the album does feel like a rewarding artistic waypoint from an exceedingly consistent singer and songwriter.

From the folk twang of “First Time” to the torrential clapping on “Anything But,” this is a Hozier album to the hilt: considered, earnest, and moving.

Echo The Diamond recaptures what made Margaret Glaspy so exciting. Her sense of drama is thrilling, and its quietest moments find the beauty in her raw, prickly vocals.

Her striking lyrical flow has become more relentless but comes off more like a constant drip of honey than an imposing assault, at least sonically. On the other hand, the subject matter of the lyrics is rife with Socratic lines of moral questioning and political comedy. Every track excels in a topical focus that will not be spoiled or summarized by the deadline-watching eyes of a critic.

Exploring a whole new sphere of genres, eras and musical styles, Volcano's unexpected twists and turns place Jungle at their peak of most progressive yet.

They’re the whirling dervish we’ve enjoyed for decades, having brewed another storm when music needs a serious injection of fun again.

The instrumentals of Ooh Rap I Ya are a feat of surrealism in songcraft, ebbing waves of synths and overblown drums soundtrack much of the run time, but in increasingly more abstract ways. It isn’t long until the mastery of the pop form displayed in the first half of the record devolves into the spare parts of a song: 90s hits deconstructed and remade in the most obtuse yet enjoyable ways.

While it’s not their masterpiece, it’s still a great record.

A dazzling introduction to new fans, and a crystal clear familiarity for fans that have been here from the beginning.

Instead of striving towards a perceived notion of happiness, Soft Landing is simply the crescendoing finale of a journey towards contentment.

With sonics so extraordinarily ornate and a soul-stirring sentiment to match, three men and their producer have successfully taken the listening world to church, and left it there waiting for its next sermon.

Love Hallucination ultimately feels like an artist riding on intuition.

With Eye on the Bat, it’s as if the 29-year-old Kempner shares the pages of their diary, revealing their reveries, fears, and embarrassments. Kempner may be now-oriented, but they’re also the beneficiary of a newfound and bigger-picture awareness.

Sunburn is a delightful entanglement of love, introspection, and nostalgia, married together by slick guitar licks, preppy notes, and delightful beats that make for Fike’s most impressive project to date.