PROTEST music is dead, some said this year. They wouldn’t have, if they’d checked out Anohni’s intense Hopelessness (Rough Trade). 

Formerly working as Antony from Antony and the Johnsons, the British musician’s bold and brash electro album rails against Obama’s drone wars, Guantanamo Bay, climate change, dangerous masculinity and the death penalty.

Southern rock band Drive-By Truckers released the equally outraged American Band (ATO Records), their angry State of the Union address.

Their targets are the US right, gun culture and police shootings of black people — all the more relevant with the election of Donald Trump.

Though anger and politics have historically been a large part of hip hop, the eagerly awaited Blonde (Boys Don’t Cry) US by rapper/soul artist Frank Ocean turned out to be a muted, personal record.

Wider political concerns are largely absent — excepting the lyric “RIP Trayvon, that nigga look just like me” — as is any semblance of conventional song structures.

Instead, the listener gets fleeting, sublime snippets of neo-soul telling of 21st-century romance: “You text nothing like you look.”

Having built up a small but dedicated following with their literate and moving brand of alternative country music, Portland’s Richmond Fontaine have, sadly, called it a day

With its sympathetic portraits of the downtrodden, lost and wounded, their swansong You Can’t Go Back If There’s Nothing To Go Back To (Decor) perfectly encapsulates the band’s modus operandi.

They’ll be hugely missed.

Also formed in Portland, the Americana supergroup comprised of songwriters Neko Case, k.d. lang and Laura Veirs released their debut album case/lang/veirs (ANTI).

Taking turns on lead vocals, the record is chockfull of top-notch tracks, from Veir’s rocking Best Kept Secret to Case’s jittery highway blues on Down.

After mining the sound and lyrical world of British folk luminaries like John Martyn and Nick Drake on his previous album, Chicago-based Ryley Walker has expanded his musical palette on his remarkable follow up Golden Sings That Have Been Sung (Dead Oceans).

Like Frank Ocean, there is a sense of Walker taking a more personal turn, with some bleakly funny lines such as: “Come to think of it/I think my Dad wanted a daughter.” Apparently, Walker had in mind the confessional work of sadcore US songwriters from the 90s such as American Music Club’s Mark Eitzel and Mark Kozelek from the Red House Painters.

Now working primarily as Sun Kil Moon, Kozelek has continued his extraordinary mid-career purple patch with Jesu/Sun Kil Moon (Carlo Verde Records), a collaboration with British musician Justin Broadrick.

The electronica-influenced set delves even deeper into the minutiae of Kozelek’s private world than his already very personal recent oeuvre, with the mesmerising 14-minute closer Beautiful You recounting errands run, a swim in San Francisco Bay, dinner with his girlfriend and watching the film Cool Hand Luke.

Great news for 2017 — Kozelek has two new albums coming out next year.