Music: Kitty Empire’s 10 best albums of 2023

It was a year of avant-rap, sex-positive R&B, polyrhythmic jazz and hyper-punk pop – plus Lana Del Rey’s glossy meditations on death and loss

The Charlatans review – 90s faves feel the love in spiritual second home

Tim Burgess plays to a devoted crowd with a high-spirited set that includes fan-favourite album Between 10th and 11th

Raze Regal & White Denim: Raze Regal & White Denim Inc review – a warm, funky psych alliance

The Texas rockers enlist their former tourmates’ guitarist on this slick and soulful meeting of minds

Noah Kahan review – unlikely star leads a cathartic mass singalong

With his raw lyrics about mental health, shame and alcoholism, Kahan taps into the zeitgeist – yet his rousing tunes make this a reaffirming live show

Beirut: Hadsel review – joyously positive healing hymns

The ‘unfathomable beauty’ of a remote Norwegian island has inspired Zach Condon to create a triumphant celebration of life

Marnie Stern: The Comeback Kid review – guitar fireworks full of beauty and chaos

On her first new release in a decade, the idiosyncratic guitarist plucks sweet melodies and complex harmonies from cacophony

Wunderhorse review – a band galloping towards even bigger things

Jacob Slater’s songs ring with compassion for reckless youthful misadventures, getting fans’ hopes high for an as-yet unreleased second album

Billy Bragg: The Roaring Forty review – four decades of flying the flag

Austere, melodic, at times heartbreaking – the music of Britain’s foremost protest singer gets an evocative overview in this nuanced compilation

Mitski review – her dark materials

The Japanese-American auteur explores deals with the devil and future hauntings in an intimate church show that foregrounds her pure vocals

Jamila Woods: Water Made Us review – tracing a relationship’s painful arc

Blending genres restlessly, the Chicago musician and poet examines the sweet and sour of love with unflinching insight

Sufjan Stevens: Javelin review – the triumphant culmination of an unpredictable career

Deceptively simple songs burst into epic passages and walls of sound, with lyrical twists to match, in a remarkable album released as its creator recovers from an autoimmune condition

Wilco: Cousin review – a band rediscovering their experimental side

Jeff Tweedy and co’s 13th album bears a close family resemblance to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but with Cate Le Bon in the producer’s chair, it has an appealing wash of left-field weirdness and its lyrics express an older man’s anxieties

The National review – euphoric catharsis from an era-defining band

Aided by a fanbase who joyfully sing every word, the Ohioans channel their full range of melancholy Americana and pulverising post-punk in a stunning two-and-a-half-hour epic

Bakar: Halo review – genreless British star is also directionless

With anaemic music and maudlin lyrics full of staid teen tropes, Bakar blandly tweaks the sensitive male pop singer mould

The National: Laugh Track review – second album of the year feels like a fresh start

The existential conundrums of a cast of sad-sack characters – including a shattering Phoebe Bridgers collaboration – build up in dread and anxiety toward an intense, teeth-baring pay off