Best music albums: new releases of 2024

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Wagner: Parsifal (Jonas Kaufmann)

For reasons of economy, "all-star" studio recordings of operas have largely been replaced by recordings of live theatre performances, said Richard Fairman in the Financial Times. Some are rather modestly cast, but Kirill Serebrennikov's 2021 production of "Parsifal" for the Vienna State Opera featured world-class talent. On this recording of it, Jonas Kaufmann brings his "burnished tenor sound, musicality and good sense" to the title role; Georg Zeppenfeld delivers "artistry at a high level"; while Elīna Garanča as Kundry is "wondrously luminous and seductive of voice". Serebrennikov, a prominent critic of Vladimir Putin, directed the production by video link while under house arrest in Moscow, said Geoff Brown in The Times. His staging had lots of prison bars and strip lighting, an odd setting for a medieval romance about an Arthurian knight's quest for the Holy Grail. But happily, the musicianship is superb and the singing "marvellous" – especially in the later acts, when Kaufmann's "passions fly, top notes ping, and dark timbres shake the rafters".

Sony Classical, £45

Piotr Anderszewski: Bartók, Janácek, Szymanowski

Recordings by the great Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski are few and far between, said Andrew Clements in The Guardian – much to the frustration of his many admirers. His new album is a "beautiful collection of miniatures" from three eastern European composers and, for the most part, it is "utterly beguiling". On the six mazurkas from Szymanowski's "Op. 50", a "vast range of seductive colour is conjured from the keyboard, every dart and twist of the phrasing precisely fixed". Bartók's "Bagatelles Op. 6" are "perfectly realised too, each one inhabiting its own tiny emotional space". On five pieces from the second book of Janácek's "On an Overgrown Path", however, I felt that Anderszewski pushed the sense of distancing too far, so that the result seems "chilly and impersonal". This is a "splendid collection" that highlights the regional connections between the composers, and on which the rhythms of folk music are all-pervasive, said Richard Fairman in the FT. "It seems the piano music of eastern Europe is at last getting the wider recognition it deserves."

Warner Classics, £11.50

Ruby Hughes/Manchester Collective: End of My Days

I was beguiled both by the British soprano Ruby Hughes's "vocal magic" and the Manchester Collective's "gorgeously expressive" playing on this new disc, said Geoff Brown in The Times. Featuring a wide range of songs – by Vaughan Williams, Ravel, Debussy, Errollyn Wallen, Deborah Pritchard and others – this is a collection that is full of pleasures. It deals in part "with loss and death, but resonates most of all with the joy of loving and living". The clarity and intensity of Hughes's singing is a "glory", and nothing on the disc "appears out of place, everything is deeply felt, and I sat happily throughout, basking in beauty and wonder".

It's an "intriguing, eclectic" collection, said Erica Jeal in The Guardian. "Music of quiet stillness, often nodding to folk or spiritual traditions, dominates early on." The title track, a 1994 song by Errollyn Wallen, hits an "exultant if fleeting climax". And following on from Mahler's "Urlicht", Pritchard's specially commissioned song "Peace" makes for an "effective valediction".

BIS, £13

The Jesus and Mary Chain: Glasgow Eyes

It is 40 years since The Jesus and Mary Chain burst onto the indie rock scene, said Jeremy Allen in Record Collector. An autobiography, a world tour and a documentary are in the works. "But the thing that they'll surely feel happiest about is just how good the new record is." The relationship between the band's core duo, Glaswegian brothers Jim and William Reid, is famously turbulent: this is only their second album since their 2007 reunion tour, 10 years after a bitter split. But it's a "staggering, swaggering achievement, more vital than anything they've done" since the 1980s – and will make fans pray that the "fragile detente" holds. 2017's "Damage and Joy" was "enjoyable enough", said Keith Cameron in Mojo. But here the brothers feel "much more emotionally invested". The album's "liberal use of electronic textures is a renewing force, and a kind of homecoming too". And the songwriting offers a "bright, shivery, razor-sharp exposition of the love and devotion which boils" at the band's heart. "Whatever next – a happy ending?"

Fuzz Club, £12

Ariana Grande: Eternal Sunshine

Ariana Grande's "powerhouse vocals" and "chameleonic ability to fuse R&B, electronica and retro-pop have made her one of pop's biggest players", said Poppie Platt in The Daily Telegraph. Her latest album is her first in four years – a period that has seen her married, divorced, and subjected to much lurid media speculation about supposed misdemeanours in her private life. Her response, as evidenced on this "silky, catchy" collection, is to stop caring about what outsiders think. This is "pop at its sexiest – 13 songs designed to lodge themselves in your head for eternity, whether you like it or not".

On "Eternal Sunshine", Grande wipes away the tears and tackles the "big questions of adult life with maturity, compassion – and delicious gossip", said Laura Snapes in The Guardian. The lyrics toy "with perceptions of victimhood and villainy" that the singer knows she can't control; and the sound here is "opulent" and more "full-bodied" than on the "silvery, breathy" "Positions" (2020). It's a "beatific, mature" and impressive collection.

Republic Records, £12

The Last Dinner Party: Prelude to Ecstasy

Last year, the London-based all-female quintet The Last Dinner Party were "hailed as the heirs to everyone from Kate Bush to Sparks and Roxy Music, thanks to their raucous live gigs and gothic, romanticised aesthetic", said Poppie Platt in The Daily Telegraph. Before even releasing an album, they'd won the Brit Award for Rising Star, supported The Rolling Stones and played Glastonbury. The deafening buzz around the group makes the release of their debut studio album "one of the biggest musical events" of the year. "And, phew" – it's great! All "curtsy to the new queens of pop".

This release "gleefully delivers" on the group's promise, agreed Helen Brown in The Independent. "Burn Alive" has a "hooky bombast" and riffs that recall Pink Floyd. "Sinner" sees them go "full glam rock" with "punchy-perky synth notes and multi-tracked back-to-back vocals". And their breakthrough smash "Nothing Matters" marries the "camp-crisp pronunciation and melodic smarts of Abba to the dirty bacchanalia of indie rock". This is music that "makes being young sound fun again".

Island, £8

Yard Act: Where's My Utopia?

Yard Act's debut album "The Overload" was a "shot in the moribund arm of British indie rock with its mix of northern wit, social observation and self-laceration", said Will Hodgkinson in The Times. This "superb" follow-up is even funnier and funkier. The "Alan Bennett-meets-Mark E. Smith spoken-word monologues" favoured by frontman James Smith are as "incisive as ever", but the band's sound has moved on from post-punk to the "kind of loops, beats and samples associated" with the likes of Gorillaz. "Less surreal than The Fall, less miserable than The Smiths", Yard Act are earning their place "in the canon of clever, literate northern bands" – now with added groove.

The Gorillaz influence is no accident, said Rishi Shah in NME: Remi Kabaka Jr of Gorillaz co-produced the album, and it's "sonically playful from the get-go". "The Undertow" scurries between "hurried string sections and a throbbing bassline". "Grifter's Grief" marries light shades of disco with artrock. It's an album packed with surprises – and a "weird and wonderful leap forward".

Island Records, £12

Faye Webster: Underdressed at the Symphony

The beautifully "daydreamy" songs on Faye Webster's new album coast along in a fashion that's "almost drowsy", said Ludovic Hunter-Tilney in the FT. These are unhurried songs "about time from the vantage-point of a 26-year-old who has a nagging suspicion that she should be doing something more with it". But in real life the Atlanta-based singer-songwriter is a "paragon of productivity": this is her fifth album. And under the "placid surface" of her music, there's a lot going on: subtle orchestrations and lyrical connections that repay the listener's close attention.

The belated popularity on TikTok of Webster's 2017 song "I Know You" has won her a wider audience, said David Smyth in the London Evening Standard. Now the "gorgeous country-pop fare" on this new collection should turn her into the major star "she deserves to be". Webster's "exceptionally beautiful voice" is "soft and intimate, comfortable sitting back when the music gets busier". And her writing is a winning mix of the "complex and the casual", "understated yet heartbreaking".

Secretly Canadian, £12

Brittany Howard: What Now

Brittany Howard won fame and multiple Grammys fronting Alabama Shakes, said Kitty Empire in The Observer – and her 2019 debut solo collection, "Jaime", "earned her more of both". Now she's back with an "outrageously great" second album, mixing "dancefloor bangers", vintage soul and joyous funk on a record that "never puts a foot wrong musically". "Earth Sign" opens the album "as ordinary mortals might strive hard to close theirs – with a transcendent sunburst of hope gilded by complex vocal harmonies, jazz drums and unconventional instrumentation". Howard shows more "flexibility, focus and potency" here than ever, agreed Grayson Haver Currin in Mojo. On "Prove It to You", she "saunters" above a disco pulse as "she pledges her devotion like Donna Summer in the summer of '77". "Another Day" is an "unapologetic slab of futuristic funk". And "Every Color in Blue" is a "beautiful and complicated song for a beautiful and complicated subject – how to make your heart available without having it hurt beyond repair".

EMI, £12