5. Emm Gryner, Business & Pleasure

Gryner purposely set out to make a “Yacht-Rock”-inspired record and fully understood the assignment, working with veterans of the constituted-after-the-fact genre (more of a feeling, really) and constructing songs harkening back to another era while somehow remaining contemporary in their outlook (more like timeless, actually.) So, if “Loose Wig” and “Burn The Boats” recall Steely Dan, and “Jack” is in sync with Toto and “The Chance” references Christopher Cross’ “Ride Like The Wind”, her resilience and the newfound joy her craft exudes prevents them from serving as mere homages; as a matter-of-fact, they also sound like Emm Gryner songs—melodic, inviting, yearning and effervescent.

4. Romy, Mid-Air

I was hoping for a good debut solo album from this vocalist of The xx but honestly wasn’t expecting one this good: diving headfirst into electronic dance music (particularly diva house), she manages to sound cool, calm and collected as ever while simultaneously like she’s having the time of her life. Full of paeans to same-sex lust and love, it also liberates her from her past poker-faced ambiguity. On “Enjoy Your Life”, she turns a basic three-word cliche into a code to live by and in turn, a means of salvation, while on the insistent “She’s On My Mind”, her declarations of desire blossom, build and gradually turn euphoric.

3. The Clientele, I Am Not There Anymore

I fell in love with this mostly-active-in-the-00’s indie British trio on their 2017 return, Music For The Age of Miracles, which became of one my favorites of that decade. On this follow up, they reprise their trademark autumnal chamber pop but suffuse it with more instrumental segues and spoken-word tone poems and even some subtle electronics. Stunning opener “Fables Of The Silverlink” serves as an overture with melodies and motifs reappearing throughout the rest of the album, which soon emerges as a complex, hour-long song cycle about childhood memory and infringing mortality. If that sounds intimidating and arty, it’s just as often embracing as on the crisp, clear pop of “Blue Over Blue” or the absorbing, Middle Eastern-accented “Dying In May”. 

2. Everything But The Girl, Fuse

Sonically, this picks right up where their last record, 1999’s Temperamental left off, but only to a point. In the interim, Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn both released multiple solo efforts, some of them pretty accomplished ones, so it follows that this return conveys maturity and wisdom gleaned since then. Although predominantly electronic, these ten songs are encouragingly evolutionary, alternating bangers like “Nothing Left To Lose” and “Caution to The Wind” with more atmospheric, delicate stuff such as “Run A Red Light” with its enthralling sense of space and reverberating piano chords.  Thorn’s vocals are also occasionally adjusted and enhanced, revealing new shadings as applied to lyrics charting the passage of time and a tenuous future—perhaps, not so tenuous; is this the beginning of a superb second act?

1. Corinne Bailey Rae, Black Rainbows

Best known for her 2006 hit “Put Your Records On”, this Brit’s released only three more albums since that year’s self-titled debut; each one has revealed depth and exhibited growth beyond that pleasant single but her first effort in seven years is something else. Expertly swerving between genres and tones, it’s a tour de force whether essaying Afro-futurism (“Earthlings” beats early Janelle Monae at her own game), heavy, insistent thrash rock (!) (“Erasure”, “New York Transit Queen”), Laura Nyro-esque balladry (!!) (“Peach Velvet Sky”), creeping exotica that turns on a dime into Prince-worthy psychedelia (“He Will Follow You With His Eyes”) or a heady, multipart groove workout (“Put It Down”). Inspired by her residency at Chicago’s Stony Island Arts Bank, Black Rainbows is unwavering in ambition and breathtaking in scope. Although very much its own thing, taking it all in, I can’t help but compare it to another groundbreaking fourth album by one of my favorite artists (whom I could even imagine covering the crystalline “Red Horse”.)