Low still sound beautiful, but there’s a nagging feeling that The Invisible Way represents a slight drop-off in focus.

All in all though, a fair return.

Distance Inbetween may not sound entirely like they are back on top form yet, but that’s not to suggest they’re far off.

It’s only when the tracks pass all-too quickly in a live-sounding, bass heavy blur that Modern Dancing feels anything less than exhilarating.

While the studio album underwhelms, the concept takes off on the live versions available on the four-disc edition.

If the album takes fewer side roads than long-term fans may be used to, it also rewards repeat listening, revealing a little more each time. They may have covertly tucked their idiosyncrasies behind an accessible sound, but their unique vision remains.

While this is a project of inherently limited appeal, many of its 14 tracks certainly work better than one might otherwise expect.

This is a one-joke album, but the joke is a good one, and more than a few bona fide country fans will be convinced.

It’s an absorbing, plaintive record that gets under your skin.

While there’s a compelling dark energy to the stark, fuzz-riffed uptempo tracks (the bass-driven God Song oddly recalling U2 when they strip things down), the telepathic power of the ensemble is best realised on spectral slowies such as I’m In Love Tonight, featuring deeply resonant viola from Bad Seed Warren Ellis, and epic Never Feel This Young.

On Spirit, Depeche Mode aren’t quite repeating themselves, nor is there real revolution in their sound. But they are nevertheless going forwards, and fans will be happy to join the march.

It seems to exist almost in spite of itself, careening energetically down paths it desperately wants to avoid. To that extent, Blood//Sugar// Secs//Traffic is a cacophony of contradiction, but one very much worth investigating.

Best approach it as a mixed bag which will give up its secrets slowly, if at all, and doff the cap one more time to its creator’s skewed approach to this rock music thing.

The main event could have been bloody genius. It isn’t, but it remains fascinating.

Anyone feeling the mildest desire to get on with their day may reach for the volume control and reduce the endless drone to background level – hardly the point of the exercise.

Really, it just suffers from sequel syndrome, as there’s a fine single-disc collection buried within some over-blown, try-hard choices.

At one end of the spectrum that means Snorri Helgason is sparsely faithful to the gentle Misty Roses, while The Phoenix Foundation imbue Don’t Make Promises with post-psych otherworldliness.

10 are less than two minutes and only one is of any substantial length--the last track and best one. This makes it a slightly stop/start stumbling score, one that never really settles and gets going.

The feel that McCombs as an “artist at work”, given carte blanche, is prevalent. Dreaded jams are not cut back, verses sprawling and unpruned. And despite this, his usual delicious chaos seems absent.

Though some of the high-tech production gadgetry sounds dated now, back in 1985 it was a fiercely contemporary record. But while time might have blunted its cutting edge, Rubberband, for all its flaws, still fascinates.

A lot of the morsels are unremittingly 80s in flavour, which leaves them divided into sassy material that still works, a few oddments, and a significant minority that are almost unpalatable, and which could probably be dated down to the day they were recorded, they’re so of their time.

The whole is a little too tethered to the (partially incomprehensible) songs to drift off effectively, and is too morose to uplift, yet The Telescopes continue to own a certain core sensibility--and the capacity to surprise with how they express it.

An official release of lost song Sunshine Woman will please completists, but it’s difficult to escape the niggling doubt that this is little more than a cash-in opportunity, with lost versions tacked on the end of what was a perfectly good record first time around.

There are moments of genius here and there, so do investigate if you find yourself humming Lil’ Devil from time to time.

The overall effect is dizzying--a revolving door of treatments and narrators--but usually hits the spot.

Produced by Memphis Boys’ bassist Tommy Cogbill, who had also played on Pickett’s sessions, Arthur Alexander mixes greasy soul with country funk.

Much of it, admittedly, treads familiar, fanbase-appeasing ground, though the beautifully-crafted, Jeff Lynne-esque Losing It has broader mainstream potential and even the uninitiated are advised to heed the title of the atypically graceful, string-kissed Come And Listen.

If there’s a sense that some of Kouyate’s charm has been lost through his newfound worldliness, the experiments bear exquisite fruit on Ayé Sira Bla.