On ‘Born Pink’, BLACKPINK tread familiar thematic territory for pop music, but the imagery – finding solace from heartbreak at the bottom of a bottle (‘The Happiest Girl’), boasting about being the type of girl you take to your “mama house” (‘Typa Girl’) – isn’t particularly novel, though they have effectively applied a personal touch in the past (see Jennie’s ‘Solo’).

If Two Door are to hold onto anything from ‘Keep On Smiling’, it should be the playful, curious moments that convey a sense of fun, even if that’s deceptive. When things get serious on this record, the band stumble and the smiles begin to slip.

Where it works best is that clear marriage of anger and aspiration, interwoven with Furman’s melodic drawl, musical tenderness and reverb. In parts, though, ‘All of Us Flames’ is an example that sometimes less is more.

If ‘Holy Fvck’ is a funeral for Lovato’s pop music, it also marks a new beginning, with an artist reborn. As the musician explores this ferocious sonic world and celebrating her musical roots, it’s the start of a bold new era.

When she steers away from pastiche and fully delves into cataloguing the mundanity, pomposity and sheer ridiculousness of grotty Little England, she’s at her best as a songwriter.

‘Freakout/Release’ certainly isn’t a complete misfire. Its loose premise of retooling negative feelings to a positive end is sometimes realised, though it was always going to be difficult to evoke the sparkly catharsis of its dizzying predecessor.

While it’s heartwarming to see Lauv’s newfound openness, the album is – ironically, given his most persistent theme – missing a little something.

Despite its strong start, the sagging back end of ‘Las Ruinas’ unfortunately means that this mixtape isn’t likely to stick in the memory for long – here’s hoping Rico comes back stronger next time.

‘Hold On Baby’’s brightest moments may be more than enough to keep the die-hard KP fans hooked, but this feels like a missed chance to offer up something truly surprising.

While her commitment to reviving the golden age of hip-hop by harking back to the likes of Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown is admirable, it looks like we’ll have to wait for Milli’s next release for that consistent collection of sure-fire hits we know she’s capable of delivering.

It’s commendable that aespa are not resting on their laurels or churning out sound-a-likes of what’s worked before, but this project doesn’t showcase the spark that made them special in the first place.

‘Love, Damini’ had the potential to be the biggest record of Burna’s to date, full of heart and rhythmic passion. But it falls frustratingly short: too often the tunes are repetitive and, other than the aforementioned highlights, don’t show much progression.

‘Honestly, Nevermind’ is an unexpected elevation from the bland trap, R&B remakes and Drake’s melancholic attitude to love we heard last time around. He doesn’t quite shift the latter as much as one would hope – the album is as tiresomely woe-is-me as anything he’s ever done – but the house sound has at least given him the creative boost that his recording career has been crying out for recently.

[‘Gold Rush Kid’ is] a fun and curious ditty, yet the songwriting frustratingly positions Ezra as someone who got lucky, rather than an ambitious auteur ready to set his own fate after years of hardship. Elsewhere, though, this theme comes secondary to descriptions of a crisis induced by losing control, with bright, almost homespun production tasked with keeping our narrator grounded.

Across 31 minutes and just seven songs, Poliça are impeccably focused on ‘Madness’, packaging up their first decade as a band into a neatly formed, bite-sized package.

The blues kings show no signs of turning off their well-beaten path here, but they’re still capable of conjuring enough magic on the journey.

The record doesn’t feature a bunch of seminal tracks, instead packing filler between his knockout singles such as ‘First Class’. You’ll find a gem or two here and there, but this collection’s longevity is questionable.

It may lack the immediacy of 2018’s hookier ‘Remind Me Tomorrow’, but this unyielding record is, at times, a powerful reckoning with the age of uncertainty.

Beyond the familiar name drops and signposts, there are flashes of a band in control of their destiny, and willing to try something new.

It can feel – despite the vivacity and thrilling, shack-shaking garage rock beast that this whole album is – that Romero are stuck in a single gear. There’s a sameness to the songs that won’t trouble any listeners who only want to throw their heads around, pogo bounce and get deafened by riffs.

What White has done with ‘Fear Of The Dawn’, in fact, is row his experimental tendencies back a little, as if to meet the desires of his audience halfway. Unfortunately, that can make large chunks of the ensuing record a confused and purposeless mess.

The freewheeling spirit does occasionally give way to a less exciting middle ground: ‘Eight Minute Machines’ comes as a blast of scuzzy guitar-driven punk we’ve heard a lot of in recent years, where the six-minute closer ‘Greasin’ Up Jesus’ is built around a drum machine doesn’t go anywhere in particular. For the most part, though, this is clearly the sound of a band ready to party once more, making for another carnival of different sounds and offbeat ideas.

‘Zombie’ has all the swagger and pep of his previous collaborator The Weeknd, while the tempered nature of ‘Cameo’ and ‘Renegade’ allow traditional pop songwriting to coexist with bolshy, bone-crunching settings. These fleeting moments are by far ‘Reborn’s most satisfying, and offer proof that there’s plenty more creative road for Kavinsky to bomb it down in years to come.

Propelled by a glossy indie sound hell-bent on dragging the band up festival bills, opener ‘Hometown’ expresses this best. ... The problem is, such weighty ambition is left off this album, which too often finds them content on taking the easy road.

Even if ‘Painless’ occasionally settles into a consistent, thudding groove at times, when Yanya goes full pelt, she’s at her very best.

It all adds up to a thoroughly enjoyable listen that confirms what fans already know: even a middle-of-the-road Dolly Parton album has lashings of charm.

A majority of the songs on ‘Love Sux’ clock in at under three minutes, giving the record a fiery sense of purpose. From the fraught emotion behind the vulnerable, delicate ballad ‘Dare To Love Me’ to the snarling guitars of ‘Déjà Vu’, every moment on the album is deliberately melodramatic.

Yes, the record can sit a little awkwardly between being nostalgic and current – given her enlisting on next-gen stars for a hip-hop soul collection – but the take-the-power-back narrative really makes these songs shine.