The Past Is Still Alive is a remarkable album, one which achieves the impossible trick of capturing the mood of a nation and a vivid portrait of a single fascinating person – all within one gorgeous stew.

If Cape God felt like Hughes beginning to create her own universe, Girl with No Face marks her apotheosis as her deity. Still sleeping on Allie X? It’s time to wake up: her spaceship has truly landed.

Adult Contemporary is a whole lot of fun, and furthers Chromeo’s mission to take the seriousness out of modern day music. Chromeo’s trajectory remains in tact with this release, and shows that funk truly never goes out of style.

Weird Faith toys with the emotional cohesion of Diaz’s best work, resulting in an album whose sum is only the value of its parts.

Larsson knows her strengths, but she knows them too well. If she could only break down the facade further and reach beyond her comfort zone to meet the listener halfway, she would be unstoppable.

If the band are looking for a platform to build on, this could well be it.

Daniel shows potential for Real Estate to take their music to the next level and in a way, that’s both its biggest plus and greatest minus.

Structureless, vindicating and yet jarring in moments, Two Star & The Dream Police is the sound of Mk.gee taking ownership of the musical world he’s been building for years.

It’s a stylish swerve dipping into luxurious large-scale arrangements with woodwind flourishes, haunting lullabies and even “20% adult contemporary”, showcasing their breadth of influence and genre play across ten tracks with more scope than ever.

GRIP is stylish and moving, yet lacks a sense of provocation.

There's a lot to like here. "Bucky, Boris and Dent" aren't long for this world, but their memory lives on thanks to the song's chipper melody. It's just that a good chunk of the tracklist unfolds along a steady procession of waltzes. They're all gorgeous, too, smooth and shiny as a commemorative dinner plate. The spacey interludes will keep you on your toes, but anyone who's looking for a hoedown might get bored in a hurry.

TANGK adds something else to the conversation. A level of fragility that has not yet been displayed by IDLES, it is an album that swaps brash vocals with more tender notes. Love is the thing, and it seems like it is here to stay.

This stunningly ambitious yet surprisingly restrained album is a personal inspection of Declan’s current life, putting politics (mostly) aside and abandoning grandeur to think about himself for a minute, gifting listeners a vessel for empathy along the way.

When compared to the mixing and progression of the original, it presents the same odd feeling for the same old record: you can see one of the greatest records of the 70s held captive by a spare mistake here and there. Held together, the original and its remixes could be pieced into Band on the Run’s finest hour.

She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She is Wolfe’s best album for some time. The album’s music and vocals reflect its underlying theme well.

Some might find it a mixed bag due to its atypical diversity, but the songs aren’t too contrasting to be deemed incohesive. Her lyrics are still sharp and impactful, with a little sprinkle of playfulness to fit the dominant genres. The album’s a joyous journey outside the bounds of – and without alienating – the usual, a testament to her considerable, well-rounded talent.

Choruses are plentiful, tactile songwriting makes for a spectacularly fun listen.

Sola concludes Peacemaker much as she launches it, striking a sublime balance between pop know-how and theatrical flair.

The Last Dinner Party don’t leave one dramatic stone unturned. Pleasurably satisfying, you can’t help but come back for more.

It’s futile to pick highlights from an album that is so uniformly inspired that even the one far-out diversion from the heartfelt script (“…And The Sea…”, a woozy instrumental featuring Michael Head reciting from James Joyce’s Ulysses) works perfectly.

What Do We Do Now has some interesting moments on its first side, but quite a bit of it does feel leaden and lacking in energy.

There's a distinct and purposeful artifice surrounding New Last Name that lends it enough intrigue and depth while still being able to simply say, "See, we can do this too." And you know what? They can!

The praise and adoration of 2021’s album Thirstier perhaps acts like a precursor to this newfound confidence and it genuinely feels like now is TORRES time after a decade of musically searching for this exact point in time.

While the signature style they have debuted with is admirable, some time to experiment and push the boundaries just a little further will make NewDad a true force to be reckoned with.

More than any record in their discography, People Who Aren’t There Anymore is as newly accessible as it is relishing in prior experience.

Potently precise and exceedingly witty, Kirby’s lyrical prowess is written all over Blue Raspberry, showcasing its sheer range from the earnest theatrics of "Drop Dead" to the quiet craving on "Wait Listen".

At its high points, Saviors is a reminder of why you fell in love with Green Day, a triumphant outing that will surely silence the critics.

Although refreshing, the many influences of the second half are quite a hard contrast to the first ten tracks, whose productions are meditative and intuitively balanced. Although there are constantly new elements appearing, the crisp tracks never get overcrowded, giving the project a luxurious finish.