The album fades out gently, a dissipation of tension and emotion that you don’t realise is cathartic until it’s over – for this reason, Big Sigh doesn’t just feel like Hackman’s best, but it feels like a distinct chapter marker in her catalogue. She closes the last decade stunningly, and nudges open the next.

Letter To Self feels like the kind of showpiece debut release that could put them over the edge. It’s a thumping statement that can challenge and charm in equal measure.

This album not only heralds the return of a singular talent in contemporary popular music, it’s the demonstration of art actioning change in real-time.

She’s infectious on stage, and her videos and performances are all planned and conceptualized. But THINK LATER is a little too hollow, a little too cohesive, to make any big statements right now.

Alongside a natural tendency to sustain tensions and avoid convenient certainties – what the poet Keats called negative capability – is a sophisticated pop flair. With I Get Into Trouble, Zietsch emerges as one of the more eloquent singer-songwriters of her generation.

All told, Accompany provides compelling testimonial for the case that Michael Nau is one of the most underrated singer-songwriters currently in circulation: an album you’re guaranteed to want to, er, accompany you for months to come.

In fully owning their anguish and collective past, present and future, HEALTH have yet another essential record to their name - one which fully and flawlessly embraces savagery and sincerity in equal measure.

The unreleased cuts provide many of the highlights. Two takes on obscure vintage rhythm & blues cuts hit a raw energy that the more heavily polished arrangements lack.

GOLDEN comes out guns blazing, full of personality, and as a result feels very front-loaded. Jung Kook’s desire to do his best work is obvious, but a little bit of pacing of the tracklist wouldn't have gone amiss, as energy levels (and featured artists) peter out all too quickly.

While the album is surely born of a specific shared experience, Sun June creates enough space to leave that jaguar’s identity up to interpretation for the listener.

The stories he attempts to weave into each track mistake frankness for plainness, venting with both the vagueness and the strange specificity of an Instagram story stating, “Only the real ones will know.”

There are a couple of songs on here – like the dull "Crosswind" – which play it too safe, but for Stapleton, a more succinct record is no bad thing because his talent is pretty direct in the first place. In short, as the country scene gets more crowded, Stapleton remains its finest voice.

Though it may confound the fans who want more of the yelping renegade of old, this is Brown’s most personal and cohesive record to date; difficult, timely, and necessary. To the man’s credit, he can drop so many of his signature tics and tricks without becoming any less captivating an artist.

While the record doesn’t necessarily uncover any new ground not previously telegraphed by its first half, letting the beat ride until the end of “Addict” will reveal a welcome surprise: you’ve been conned out of a half-hour.

Emerging from the Norwegian shadows, the gentle genius has again struck with his best work to date.

Formentera II more than succeeds in claiming its own place in the world, less a sequel more a very satisfying entity in its own right – on this evidence Metric’s continuing existence seems entirely justified.

The record sits firmly within her existing catalogue, but that growing self-assurance brings a new charm to the Baby Kingdom.

With keen ears for melody, turbo-paced beats perspire, and episodic SFX rouses either pure revelry or contemplation. She’s on to a marvellous start.

It may be shrouded in shadow, but Acts of Light is a hopeful record, rooted in intense feeling, nostalgia and desire to connect the past with the present. Woods’ talent for communicating these emotions commands a solemn and sublime respect.

Throughout, there is a compelling sense of commitment and deep love towards the material and the concept from both the stage and the audience – but ultimately the undertaking is perhaps a bit too respectful to make Cat Power Sings Dylan truly come alive.

Abstract philosophizing aside, Sweet Justice remains as immediately gratifying as the rest of her catalogue; its rapping is smoother, its hooks are catchier, and its instrumentals more fine-tuned and studied.

The final 2 minutes of the [last] track feature a stream of guitar-generated distortion dotted with melodic hints that quickly rise and pass. It’s a glorious coda to an impressive return, a reemergence that shows the band at their most versatile, free to be themselves.

He provides a gentle yet absorbing escape from the hypervigilance with which we patrol our own lives. 12 songs that are soft around the edges and wash over the listener in shades of sunset orange and pink, guitars morph and collapse in on themselves like the contents on a lava lamp.

This is rich, idiosyncratic music that’s too wild and strange to copy.

With tongues remaining cemented firmly in cheeks, Venom is a rip-roaring effort from Wargasm and a testament to their prowess as being “not just any metal band”.

Jenny from Thebes, depending on one’s fascination with The Mountain Goats’ 30-odd years of winding lore, may either have the connotation of your dad and his group of friends finally getting around to making that album they always talked about, or, where charity applies, stay just high enough above passability that it can be recommended by fans with the asterisk, ‘one of the better ones.’

Where some vault tracks felt like they muddled the existing story in past rerecordings, the vault tracks on 1989 (Taylor’s Version) give it more colour – a kaleidoscope of stories and feelings that mirror the sounds heard and explored throughout.

This is a stylish, warm-hearted album with a sense of humour, it takes a few risks and seeks to entertain, more often than not it does its job.