They’re Zayn’s stories but they’re shared in such an honest, straightforward yet compelling manner that they feel like your own.

Most of the material is pleasant at best, and while the lack of overcompensation is appreciated, it makes the group’s lyrical deficits that much more noticeable than on previous records.

Unrestricted to any interpretation, the record leaves enormous space for thought experiments and imagination (the closer “Out of Time” suggests just as much). Step back a few paces to look at it in full, and you’ll find something that celebrates freedom of opinion and individualism.

The record is described as Gibbons’ “most personal work to date”, dealing with experiences of grief, change, and hopelessness – and it makes for a very conceptually decisive project, with a distinctive vocabulary of motion and stasis, weight and lightness.

Home Counties have firmly asserted themselves as some of today’s brightest musical minds.

This is Bey’s talent as an instrumental storyteller; genres are sequenced and held for their parts, yet respected like caged animals. Organs are the sound of the beginning, pianos of a demise; a dance groove is the motion of the middle, and forthright attitudes are evergreen.

Blending the raw energy of punk with the gritty realism of folk, the result being a potent double pint of catharsis and confrontation. There’s seemingly several albums worth of material on display, from industrial poetry to showmanship indie, held together by its narrative which howls to the struggles of the everyman, from the depths of addiction to the despair of a nation in decline.

Death Jokes is a complex chasm of fractured, intertwining ideas, songs that grasp for purpose, songs with drops of sorts.

After a string of EPs, Chinouriri arrives at her first full-length with confidence and ease. Devastation has never sounded so fun.

Vu didn’t invent tragi-pop (she wouldn’t deny her numerous progenitors, from Cat Power to Julien Baker); however, her airy melodicism and meme-friendly lyrics, coupled with her technically grounded yet mercurial voice, make for a signature presence.

Nobody needs to know the details of Lipa’s real life to lend her songs weight, but there should still be something in her performance, delivery, songwriting or production that sets them apart from platitudes, from background noise.

Calling this album consistently satisfying might come off like a dig. Quite the opposite, actually. It's the mark of a classic.

t's ultimately perhaps telling that the most compelling departures from set templates are more naturally aligned with the territory of Washington’s past triumphs.

If you’ve heard a previous Moctar record and pieced together the best bits, you’ll have an imitation of Funeral for Justice’s righteous glory, but if you haven’t, use this record as a roadmap in discovering the previous odd-decade of Moctar’s talent.

Pratt has long been a consummate texturalist; mining the pop playbook in resourceful ways, she’s now an exemplary tunesmith as well – the result is sublime.

On his third album, he continues crafting his inimitable blend of pop, R&B, and electronica, ferociously cementing his place amongst the very best at work today.

Porij’s confident and assured debut delves into their love for not settling for one genre. Taking you on an adventure through emotions and soundscapes, it’s a fluid record that never stands still. It will appease long-time fans with its infectious and catchy grooves, as well as welcoming new fans to the party with open arms.

While the record feels like a new iteration, it is also an evolution of a deeply familiar form. At the record’s core, it ultimately is more of Hovvdy and at their best, these songs envelop the listener in the same way Hovvdy songs always have.

Ultimately the album's uneven tempo and uncertainty at its heart make it unclear what Hyperdrama wants to be and to whom they still appeal.

Nonetheless feels airy and welcoming, qualities that have sometimes eluded its more recent predecessors, it resonates emotionally in ways that befit elder statesmen who can look to the future while comfortably acknowledging the past.

This is the sound of releasing a lifetime’s worth of strife and unease. That sounds, it turns out, is pretty damn excellent.

It changes its arm in a myriad of directions, with only a few really working, but they remain a band set apart from those around them, even if here they stumble.

Quirky yet profound, playful but often deeply moving, Light Verse is a record to savour in one sitting, its ten tracks comprising a seriously impressive whole that’s considerably more potent than the sum of its unfailingly impressive individual parts.

Amorphous and difficult to pin down, this undefinable hypnagogia is the lasting identity of Chanel Beads, and Your Day Will Come is the vessel from which it was formed.

It's less playful than before but feels like an evolution rather than an adjustment. There's a more textural feel than before, edging closer to the muted space of Phoebe Bridgers' Punisher, or Antonoff's work with Lana Del Rey, and it suits Swift well as this point in her career.

There are times throughout that Viscius appears at ease and elsewhere there are signs she’s simply exhausted and drained. All cried out. But as the album ebbs away with the hushed tones of her singing, “No one loves me anymore” on “No One” it’s as if a huge burden has lifted, finally.

We’re left reveling in an album that is grand in ambition and execution – a sweeping journey of highs and lows worth celebrating.

On Found Heaven, the wreckage of love overstays its welcome; sadly, profundity gives in to frustrating familiarity.