It’s a decent follow-up, but one that unfortunately comes off less Bartees Strange and more Bartees Safe.

This is undoubtedly going to be a divisive one for long-term fans, with some holding it up as just as vital as anything else, while others will simply overlook it or just take a couple of highlights to add to their ‘Best of PG’ playlists. Whichever the case, whether you devour it or dismiss it, there’s no denying that it expands the mythos and majesty of Perfume Genius.

Like a lot of Andrew Bird albums of late, Inside Problems needs some time to reveal itself. Its frustrations and lidless graspings at the world are part of the game here, so that it doesn’t nestle quickly into a box on first listen feels appropriate.

Not since Everything’s Fine has Quelle Chris sounded so surefire and determined. He wears beats with flair now, and lyrically he’s in top form, moving like a chameleon behind the mic and in front. Deathfame is easily the best solo outing for Chris so far.

Balancing stately pop ornamentation with more bombastically orchestrated moments, the album allows Meiburg to both indulge and scale back his dramaturgical impulses.

It is arguably his most sonically interesting and personal project so far, but its inconsistency punches a few pot-holes in the listening journey. The experimentation here doesn’t always work, but when it does, it shows that Post is heading in some exciting directions for future albums.

While her last proper album, 2019’s orchestrally-imbued All Mirrors, was something of a coming out party for her grand artistic ambition and scope, Big Time is the coming out party for her true personality. In order to do this, she’s stripped away the grandiosity and reverted back to the country and Americana sounds that she calls home.

Overall, the album occurs as less incendiary than previous work (with the exception of the opening track), DBT at least temporarily setting aside their polemical blowtorches, instead mindfully venturing into vivid inventories of their own lives, choices, and karmic trajectories.

Each track on Nothing To Declare feels like a condensed, expertly-aimed Hadoken of fun, furious energy.

It’s fun, it’s furious, and just about anyone should be able to appreciate that.

They’ve delivered a certain-to-be-beloved debut – one that separates itself from its peers.

The wicked atmosphere that they’ve crafted across Heart Under is worthy of celebration alone.

At heart, it’s all too modest, too fatigued, too lacking in ambition and attitude.

Post-punk bands tend to veer dark and brooding, but Dehd avoid that here, putting all of their energy into sunny anthems filled with dizzying coos, lighthearted hooks and charming rhythms. It all helps them bounce across the record and into our hearts for good.

These are pretty songs, but largely forgettable when amassed together, and though EYEYE is an honorable attempt at switching lanes yet again after a divisive fourth album, it mostly comes up short as a finished product.

Rentals is uniformly great, and each track boasts its share of both gorgeous instrumentation and lines that are alternately poetic and prosaic.

It’s all put together under one roof in a neat, unassuming way, made refreshing and palatable by his persona.

It preserves the trio’s history while serving us a matured Moderat. MORE D4TA is their cathartic work of loneliness and intoxication, indulging in a museum of sounds.

They’ve made the brave decision to remember what it’s like to feel and to breathe again, and it can all be heard in the stirring vibrations of Margolin’s words and voice.

With more questions raised than answered, Cain’s unusually ambitious and fully-realised debut somehow leaves listeners craving more in spite of its wonderful, exhausting, 75 minute runtime.

Even in his lost moments, like “A Random Act of Kindness” where he repeats “Out of time, out of money”, he searches out the hope while faced with setbacks and sorrow. It’s in these moments that Morby shines as that everyman – a role he has been crafted into through those various influences he holds up so high.

He’s willing to stumble, befuddle, and outright offend – it’s all part of its creator’s flawed self, which is all but stripped starkly naked in front of us. It’s far too complex, far too searching to be wrangled in a simple review. I know this much: we’ll be talking about this one for a long, long time.

As moving as those songs are, The Smile are more intriguing when they shift slightly further away from Yorke and Greenwood’s established palette.

After 11 tracks, this return feels well-earned, but it’s equally refreshing to know the next song we hear from Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever might not be so predictable.

Yeah, that’s a decent album. Flags towards the end, sure. Some rippers on there, though. Glad I stuck with it.

Van Etten gives us what is, quite possibly, her strongest album yet. And that sense of breakthrough, of sheer lift, is prevalent right from the start. ... There’s a powerful sincerity and confidence to her vocals throughout the record, as she weaves and bobs around her deceptively simple and emotive melodies, often hitting notes that sounds for a millisecond like they won’t quite work, and then suddenly, they do, as on the final heavenly note of “Darkness Fades”.

It’s retreading old ground and shouting at clouds, but also genuine and at times beautiful in its crystalline synth-pop nostalgia.

This is frivolous music best enjoyed as such. The trick to Sofi Tukker’s success is not to take them too seriously, even when they do so themselves.