Whether you're looking for ambient sounds to hard-hitting rhymes, we've got a variety of new albums for you to add to your January playlist. Austra returns with the socially aware, Future Politics, while death-punk outfit AFI are back with AFI (The Blood Album). UK indie rock band Menace Beach release their new record, Lemon Memory, and Cherry Glazerr are set to rock your socks off with Apocalipstick. And for those who are looking for something a little more hip-hop, Problem drops his latest, Chachiville.

Read more about this week's top 5 album picks below.

'Future Politics' - Austra

Austra's latest record may be called Future Politics, but it doesn't mean it's necessarily about what your political leanings are. Instead, it's something much deeper than that. In what the band calls their most ambitious work yet, this third album will make your body move but also encourage you to think about what singer Katie Stelmanis is trying to tell you.

From "We Were Alive," which opens the album, she paints a world where we are really the makers of our own destinies. And as we go from song to song, a new scene is set and we're left wondering what we're going to do with it. "Utopia" brings you into some dark disco while "Beyond Mortal" will then transport you to a white space that seems endless and a little cold. The record ends with "43," a bass-driven song that's a bit of a cool down after all the sounds, beats and ideas the Toronto group throws at you. So get ready to taken away on this one.