It has been another wonderful year for new music as well as previous albums making a return. For this instalment of 2015 favourites, I will be sharing my favourite albums from throughout the year. Like last year, I found this really difficult but have finally come up with my top six albums from the year. These albums are ones that I have loved throughout the year (or since their release) and therefore albums release in the past few weeks can't fall into this category - I have also decided that the albums chosen do not have to be released this year.

Artist: Sigma   Album Title: Life   Genere: Dance   Release Date: 4 December 2015 Buy It: iTunes Deluxe | iTunes Standard   Listen: YouTube Playlist | Spotify | Deezer

Life is the debut album from electronic duo Sigma and an album that I have been looking forward to for months. Unfortunately for me, the album fell short of my expectations leaving me slightly disappointed - I do like the album but I don't love it. Life shows many different sides to the duo's sound including more melodic tracks such as Life contrasted with more full on drum and bass ones such as Lighters.
I particularly like Life because of its melodic sound, making it the calmest track on the album. Despite being calm, there is still a slight build up to heard despite there never actually being a drop. This left me slightly disappointed because I really liked how the track was being set up and yet there was nothing that followed. Having said that, I really like the vocal (Bartoven) and found that it worked well with the slower pace of Life and therefore meant that the song was often in my head.
A track that I thoroughly like is The Reason, featuring the vocal of Nicole Jackson. The track hits it off straight away and maintains the pace throughout most of the song, slowing briefly in the verses to enable the build up to the chorus to be set up again. The Reason captures the drum and bass element that I originally loved from Sigma as well of reminding me of other drum and bass songs I used to listen to.
Another favourite track off the album is Broken Promises featuring the vocal of Maverick Sabre - an artist I like anyway. Similar to The Reason, Broken Promises embodies the drum and bass sound that I love from the duo. However, there is a brief section of the song I'm not keen on but is outweighed by how much I like the rest of the song.
Overall, I do like Sigma's album but I found it a bit of a let down to what I had been expecting from previous releases and their live shows. Having said that, there are tracks on Life that I do like such as a The Reason and Good Times (featuring Ella Eyre, track I have mentioned before) but many of the tracks lack for me or I eventually find them quite repetitive. As always, this is only my opinion and you may completely disagree so please do listen to the album yourself to make up your own mind!

Artist: Ellie Goulding   Album Title: Delirium   Genre: Pop   Release Date: 6 November 2015   Buy It: iTunes Deluxe | iTunes Standard

Delirium is the eagerly awaited third album from British pop princess Ellie Goulding. The album includes the single On My Mind as well Outside, a collaboration with Calvin Harris on the deluxe version of the album (although also released on Calvin's album, Motion). The album shows Ellie's growth as an artist and therefore is fairly different to her previous album Halcyon Days - often the change in sound works, others not so much. I particularly like the introduction to the album using a sort of operatic tone to set the album, similar to Halcyon Days, before flowing into the first track on Delirium - Aftertaste. Aftertaste kicks up the tempo from the slow introduction into a much more upbeat and ultimately uplifting track - a theme throughout most of the album.
Something In The Way You Move is the first track on the album which falls into my favourite tracks. I think it's really catchy and makes you want to move around - that sums up everything I love about it.
Following on is my next favourite, Keep On Dancin'. It opens with quite a distorted sounding sample as well as quite calm and to a certain extent possibly seen as a bit eerie. The track then begins to build up before the climax and change of pace for the chorus - this momentum is then carried throughout the rest of the song. There is a brief section in the bridge in which the track slows again before returning once again to the faster pace that the listener has become used to.
Codes is possibly my favourite of the tracks on Delirium because it follows the upbeat, catchy and feel good theme throughout. I also particularly love the lyrics which add to the catchiness but also are relatable to lot of people when it comes to relationships and possibly even can be applied to friendships. I think Codes is the most upbeat track off the entire album - even when it slows from its usual speed, it's still quite upbeat.
Other tracks I particularly like on Delirium are; Holding On For Life and The Greatest.
Tracks that I'm not so keen on are; Around U, Don't Panic and I Do What I Love. I find these three tracks quite repetitive and therefore more annoying than any of the tracks. I Do What I Love is a track I definitely do not love, vocally and production wise it sounds so different and therefore doesn't work for me.
Overall, I really like Delirium but some tracks really let it down for me.

For this edition of themed playlists, I have decided to put one together of artists to watch (formally known as the up and coming artist series). The playlist includes artists that I have previously mentioned since running the series as well as others that I am yet to write about.
Spotify links are below.


If the embedded version of the Spotify is not working, click here.