While Glasgow Eyes is no Psychocandy, it is without doubt a true-to-form The Jesus and Mary Chain album and, for that reason alone, worth the listen.

Down By the Stream discusses bullying and abuse, while Blackpool Illuminations is a seven-minute track about Smith’s childhood at the iconic event. It’s structures like Where’s My Utopia? that make an album stand out, as does its sense of hope and perseverance, with the overall message that one’s struggles and emotions are valid.

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.

The back half loses steam a little, but even mediocre RE is well-written and easy to enjoy. Victoria is an Alex Bleeker-led song with a bit of pedal steel twang, Airdrop throws in some synth and Freeze Brain has bongos for some reason. But these little affectations rarely distract from the uniformly gorgeous arrangements.

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.

It’s varied, it’s vibrant, it’s wacky, it’s experiential. Loss of Life, contrary to its title, is brimming with the stuff and serves as unmistakable evidence of MGMT’s continued renaissance.

It’s a record that sees Doyle take chances, not all of which pay off by any means, but it is one that never truly coalesces into a great album in the way his last two records have. That said, he remains a figure who is always interesting and developing.

In the main, Blu Wav is Grandaddy’s most grounded album yet, a triumph of reinvention.

One More Thing is the product of an accomplished band noodling around in the studio. There's a playfulness and creativity here that promises bigger and better things from the Brighton four-piece in the future. As far as debut albums go, this is a promising one.

A raucous expression of love, TANGK is raw, vulnerable and inimitably IDLES.

Resigning itself to well-trodden paths, Venus seems curiously content charting no new territory.

The cumulative effect is sublime and will leave even the most agnostic listener in a state of transcendental bliss.

It's yet another successful reinvention from the Californian artist who continues to be an impenetrable force, laying herself bare and rebuilding for all to see and hear.

PHASOR is a rich and absorbing record that truly transports; placing the listener in a languid, half-lit morning where you’re never quite asleep and never fully awake.

These writers are resurrecting a long lost art in popular music – using big sounds, with indulgent lyrics, crafting a listening experience so rich it borders on hedonism. Some records are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and few to be chewed and digested. We’re still digesting Prelude to Ecstasy.

While this is an exciting new style for the band, the album could have benefited from more of the stripped-back moments that we hear in the likes of America. In the opening and closing songs of the album, we’re reminded why Courting are such a captivating band but New Last Name, while fun and energetic, sadly fails to match the impact and charm of their debut.

For a band at this stage in their career, Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs is a surprisingly solid return. Die-hard fans will love it regardless, but if you haven’t checked in with AK3 for a while – now's the time. They still have their spark.

He can still shred with the best of them (Wait, Hi Dee Dee, Watcher), but across this hour-plus album he revels in upending expectations, whether through abrupt tonal shifts (To You's new age synth excursions, Void's trippy synth hits), fried-metal no-wave (The Bell), or even a regular rocker that could pass for early Radiohead (Reflections).

A hint of musical theatre elsewhere sees the record lose some of its bite, but in general it’s a robust rejoinder to some of the more depthless musicality of soul-baring, 'authentic', indie-rock. Kirby is instead funny, scathing and full of clarity about her personal epiphanies.

Throughout, the group's tried-and-true, gleaming synth-pop palette is flecked with fresh sonic ambition, particularly on slow-burning epics Corner of My Eye and The Sickness. At the centre of it all remains Herring’s fabulously expressive voice, tailor-made to spin tales of heartache.

Wall of Eyes is a kaleidoscopic, mind-altering pronouncement: The Smile are not a band of their component parts, not echoes of their previous ventures. They are something exciting, ambitious, and genuinely brilliant; a sentiment delivered so resoundingly by their work here that it will leave your ears ringing.

The resulting album, Saviors, is a hugely entertaining return to form, with some of the seminal American rockers' best music in decades.

Sleater-Kinney’s decade-spanning songwriting style feels the same. Give us the electrifying assault and brutal guitar tones to fill those tiny cracks now present in our hearts. Give us a little more rope.

There is an attractive simplicity to this record, perhaps the band’s most straightforward since their debut. These are catchy feelings-forward songs with football chant-worthy choruses. It is, quite simply, an album full of singles.

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.

Big Sigh's strength is in not holding back from confronting darker feelings, and revelling in the raw honesty of experiencing them.

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.

Cheerfully melodic, you’d be forgiven for not noticing the dark biblical story it retells – of assault, abandonment, fear and faith. These themes persist across this sparse diaristic record, coming to the fore on the grungy, vulnerable Don’t Kiss Me. Surprises, too, sees Zeitsch reckon with how mundanely a life can be altered.