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Arab Strap  Half-Told Tales

Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton offer a meditation on age, modern life and the past, offering hope and resilience – and evidence that things can get better musicOMH

Interpol  This Mirror Weighs a Ton

It’s been a tough run for Interpol since the highs of Antics, but their re-energised eighth album marks a glorious shift in fortunes No Ripcord

Erykah Badu & The Alchemist  Before the World Blows

Just when you think you’ve figured out where Badu and the Alchemist are taking you, another song changes the pace, the mood, or the rules Northern Transmissions

Erykah Badu & The Alchemist  Before the World Blows

Their long-promised collaboration, which is also Badu’s first proper album in 16 years, plays to both of their strengths and delivers exactly what fans have been waiting for Rolling Stone

Erykah Badu & The Alchemist  Before the World Blows

The neo-soul priestess and the hip-hop producer throw it back on a seductive, pleasantly rambly collaborative album that returns them both to their roots. Pitchfork

Chat Pile  Who Loves The Sun

It captures the specific, suffocating feeling of living through collapse better than almost anything else I’ve heard this year Northern Transmissions

Chat Pile  Who Loves The Sun

Leave it to Chat Pile to turn a compendium of horrors into something exquisite The Line Of Best Fit

Chat Pile  Who Loves The Sun

The Oklahoma band use hooky vocals to help their lyrics on desensitisation slip down easy, though their third album lacks the distinction of earlier releases The Guardian

Chat Pile  Who Loves The Sun

The Oklahoma sludge-metal band has never spoken in subtleties, but its third album is its most pointed statement yet: a merciless depiction of a world in decline Pitchfork

Chat Pile  Who Loves The Sun

The Oklahoma City sludge-metal band’s third album takes capitalism to task with blood-curdling screams, disgusting basslines, and pulverizing drums fit for a bloody horror film Paste Magazine

Chat Pile  Who Loves The Sun

An extraordinary record; a layered portrait of a world sleepwalking into disaster that is somehow gripping and even fun, in a mosh-the-pain-away manner Clash

Chat Pile  Who Loves The Sun

It's messier, more draining and the clearest version yet of what Chat Pile do best: making unbearable music for an unbearable world hurtling toward the sun Exclaim

The Linda Lindas  Gotta Get Out

The L.A. quartet expands its sound for its major-label debut, channeling post-adolescent anxiety into pop-punk inflected with new-wave, hardcore, and post-punk Pitchfork

Dexy Midnight Runners  LOVE

It’s easy to be charmed by LOVE, which transcends place and generation to immerse us once again in the Dexys Midnight Runners world: a place shaped by the many forms of love a life can encounter, with Rowland as riveting a protagonist as ever The Line Of Best Fit

Jim James  Wowed Out

Once again, Wowed Out proves James’ incredible range, leaving the listener in a sense of awe Under The Radar