It’s very difficult to read anything even vaguely meaningful into lines like “while Emma eggs her head she looks the same” (World of Pots and Pans). It’s the only element of this album that serves as a reminder of its creators’ inexperience – the rest is a masterclass in a new kind of classic rock.

When it reaches its most pumping, Baby, We’re Ascending tends to sag; these songs feel slightly untethered, or even half-hearted, next to their spirited, amorphous cousins. Occasionally, Throssell finds a balance to the two warring halves of Baby, We’re Ascending.

Some of the top lines are nagging in their immediacy – the joyous “do-do-do’s” on the 90-second Bop positively tickle you in the armpits – but others are cleverly minimal, like the announcements on the chorus to Empty in My Mind.

There are nice sonic touches here and there: the off-key slide guitar that opens Folding Mountains; the filtered house squelch of Best Feeling. So on its own terms, Mellow Moon succeeds. Even so, you wonder if it might not reflect a young artist pulling his punches.

Heavy Pendulum is certainly the sound of a renewed band and is, like everything they’ve recorded since 2003’s Antenna (their ill-fated attempt at commercial crossover), an unapologetically fierce beast.

That Helm had less than a year to live obviously lends his performance poignancy, but as epitaphs go, Carry Me Home isn’t really one suffused with what-might-have-been melancholy: it’s too exuberant, too vibrant for that. It sounds more like a man going out in a blaze of glory.

By the end it's impossible to ignore the fact that this is a long record with flagging momentum. But it's also impossible to ignore this intriguing debut's promise. Preacher's Daughter has lyrical richness and atmospheric potency to spare.

This is music for the rocky mountaintop that invites the listener to place themselves in the humbling context of a wider cosmos. Following a compass resolutely his own, Air sees Cover ascend to the realm of the similarly spiritual visionary Kamasi Washington.

Harry’s House is extremely well turned out, ticks a lot of the right boxes and has abundant charm, which makes it a perfect reflection of the pop star who made it.

Mr Morale & the Big Steppers is absolutely crammed with lyrical and musical ideas. Its opening tracks don’t so much play as teem. ... An album that leaves the listener feeling almost punch-drunk at its conclusion.

Were A Light for Attracting Attention actually that day job’s long-awaited follow-up to A Moon Shaped Pool, you wouldn’t be crushed with disappointment, which is far from faint praise. Whatever the future holds for the Smile, their debut album feels like more than an indulgent diversion.

Lke most 23-track albums, Un Verano Sin Ti could have used a nip and a tuck. But when it hits its heights, it leaves you puzzled at Britain’s lack of interest in Bad Bunny.

Soft Cell return with an album that makes the very best of their vantage point as synth-pop elders with an eye on the future. *Happiness Not Included cleverly compares the 80s promises of a future straight out of science-fiction (“rocket ships and monorails, electricity that never fails”) with how things have actually turned out.

If We isn’t a return to the standards Arcade Fire reached on their debut album Funeral or 2010’s The Suburbs, it’s an improvement on its predecessor, and quite possibly enough to avert a slow slide down the festival bills.

On their eighth album, the lyrics are again in German, the riffs again pound and all you might expect is present and correct. At times it’s so on the nose you all but roll your eyes.

Two Ribbons is a fabulous album.

Between Rousay’s drones and disruptions, melodics and arguments, the album becomes a place for feeling in the present, untethered by time, as familiar as a memory and as placeless as a dream.

In a polarised era, there’s something cheering about Fontaines DC’s bold refusal to join in, to deal instead in shades of grey and equivocation. There’s also something bold about their disinclination to rely on the most immediate aspect of their sound.

If you’re willing to meet Bob Vylan on their rough-and-ready terms, The Price of Life offers a decent return on investment.

The violence could be wearying but his undeniably brilliant flow – nimble but punchy – invests it with drama.

Confident and wearing her effort lightly, Cabello has finally carved out her own space as a pop star.

Wet Leg have certainly got people listening, and by channelling their sense of humour and showmanship into a series of tracks that are far more nuanced and three-dimensional than the infuriatingly repetitive song that made their name, they’ve ensured their debut album is well worth hearing – again and again and again.

Pillow Queens add a few more extended shredding sessions to the template, but they largely stick within the bounds of this classy, serious style. It’s not one that gives the group a particularly distinctive flavour, but it is at least able to contain all the feelings of confusion, fury, outsized desire and whatever else the listener wants to extrapolate from this evocative if slightly nebulous record.

Sinking into Chloë and the Next 20th Century’s lush, sepia-toned arrangements, escaping with him is a pleasure.

A conventional jazzer DePlume isn’t, but he has found a dedicated constituency outside the mainstream. An intriguing artist.

Gifted covers a lot of musical ground in less than half an hour, from the sweet, harmony-laden lovers rock of Lonely to Shine’s dabbling in the kind of easygoing acoustic reggae beloved of beach bars the world over, albeit underpinned by an immense electronic bass.

It’s all well-trodden stuff, and Kelly adds nothing new, but Mainstream Sellout is so much fun that – as the title suggests – it’s easy to leave your integrity behind and mosh along.

They’re past their best nowadays, but this is a decent effort after a quarter of a century.