Spectrum Culture's Top 20 Albums of 2017

Melodrama is rightly earning raves, and will go down as one of the better pop albums of the decade.

It’s the musical equivalent of a cold margarita on a hot summer day, refreshing and yet somehow a little sour.

With A Crow Looked At Me, Elverum has created a work that deals with death, loss and the myriad accompanying emotions in a starkly sobering manner that ultimately proves highly affecting and, most importantly, incredibly real.

With a few flourishes and tweaks, the band have proven themselves to be something greater than originally anticipated.

The Ooz is rich with detail, but its length means its ideas have enough room to spread out. It’s teeming with life, but it never feels too busy.

Throughout the album, the 26 year-old SZA presents herself as an unapologetic femme fatale, often to hilariously blunt effect.

At 55 minutes, DAMN. is incredibly knotty and impregnable in terms of being able to fully process everything at work here. Indeed, subsequent listens continue to reveal more and more of the lyrical subtext, allusions and introspective nature of his lyrics.