This is one of the most confident and charismatic debuts in years.

The record doesn’t break any new ground, but it walks familiar paths with confidence.

As ever, a warm and humane kind of marvel

It’s a staggering, swaggering achievement more vital than anything they’ve done in the last 35 years.

Tracks such as Psychedelic Orgasm and It’s Dark Inside embody the claustrophobic and saturnine atmosphere on what is essentially an underground hip-hop record made by an inveterate envelope-pushing postmodernist.

At their strange best, they sound like Radiohead with an ABBA obsession. A special album from a special band.

The album certainly wears its influences on its (parka) sleeve but does so while maintaining a freshness and uplifting charm that carries the songs as they zip along. Putting the somewhat clichéd lyrics aside – although it’s not as though listeners generally flock to Liam Gallagher for Significant Meaning – there is plenty to savour.

It’s a record to fall in love with.

While Tangk may bring us a more compassionate, empathetic version of the band who seem to be trying to find something that resembles peace after years of tumult, they still haven’t quite lost their punk spirit.

The re-ordered track list reflects what had been noted in the MPL archive. At first it may seem like another money grab, before steadily, something rather beautiful emerges.

There’s not a weak moment in these 11 songs.

The opening Angel’s cavernous bass is a clarion call for Sisters Of Mercy fans pining new material, yet Sickly Sweet and Dream Of Me are simple, spiky pop made distinctive by Julie Dawson’s slow-build guitars. As singer, Dawson channels a quiet despair in the more vulnerable Nosebleed, but it’s the defiant full-throated charge elsewhere that’s likely to see NewDad emerge as festival favourites.

A fraught album that reaches out furiously for release, forming a push-pull of pressure and release around the band’s defining attributes: Tucker’s tumultuous vocals and Brownstein’s livid guitar.

Iechyd Da is his masterpiece, start to finish.

Latest must-have. .... Not only are most of these renditions drastically different to the originals, Young blends one reimagined song into the next without any pause, producing less of a medley than an epic, multipart ballad. When he’s gone, none will replace him.

Fifty years on and 50 tracks that never falter in their blistering energy and humour.

Up has always deserved more love and, 25 years on, this remastered anniversary edition, which adds an enjoyably relaxed live set, gives us a chance to hear it with new ears.

This is breathless in its intensity, an hour-long triumph up there with anything they’ve ever done, tales of the world today united amid the brooding shadows of a Victorian musical hall stage. That’s life, that’s madness… and it truly is the Madness we know and love.

i/o is an impeccable reawakening.

He channels snippets into new compositions played over an 808 with some rudimentary vintage synths, evoking memories of his teenage past sitting alongside a radio with fingers tentatively poised on play and record.

Not just a compilation, not even just a big compilation, The Roaring Forty is a moving trawl through the life and times of an extraordinary artist who has never stood still.

The bulk of the previously unheard material mainly comprises Prince’s original versions of tunes he gave to other artists. .... D&P showed how Prince could still work his magic while operating in narrower artistic parameters. This wasn’t the grandiose vision of Purple Rain or Sign O’ The Times but rather revealed Prince operating in a new guise, as an artisan who was tuned into the pop and rap zeitgeist.

Embryonic versions of …Summer Lawns cuts are especially revealing, rough clay immediately prior to moulding, while the live material plays up her strengths as an easy communicator of often obtuse ideas.

The Stones are the Stones; a law and legend unto themselves, with nothing more to prove and no need to compete with the latest crop of young turks who covet the crown but know they’ll never wear it. Hackney Diamonds sparkles brightest when it touches base with bygone precious gems.

Accentuate The Positive’s lively mix of swing, jump jive, R&B and classic rock’n’roll constantly plays to the singer’s strengths as a thoughtful, inventive interpreter.

There will be few debut records as accomplished or thrilling as Los Angeles in 2023.

It may occasionally sound warmly, comfortingly like the past, but this is an album with its mind fixed firmly on the future.

A mixed (body) bag it may be, but Danse Macabre is a fiendishly fun collection that only the undead would remain unmoved by.