In looking beyond pure innovation, Gomez have poured some heart into their blues.

The electronics of Gran Turismo has been supplanted by an organic sound with countryish overtones (see Live and Learn) that suits Persson's melancholy lyrics.

The Bronski era also lives on in the plinky, analogue sound, which is the album's musical hallmark; hear it at its best on Shoulder to Shoulder, a bit of soulful lushness that incorporates what sounds like a Bolton pub brawl.

As ever, he's doing things his own way, with songs catchy enough to suggest everyone should accompany him for the ride.

There's something charming about the way an album about growing up in the suburban 80s gradually starts to resemble a chart rundown from 1983: the taut, post-new wave rock track, the mournful social-realist ballad, the glittering synth-pop masterpiece.

It's a bold, exciting album.

The quartet are more impressive, and moving, when they try less hard.

The bad ideas are vastly outweighed by moments where you can hear a band pushing past their boundaries with striking results.

Now and then, the band delve back into their previous, less rarefied styles. ... Those diversions create moments of gut-wrenching contrast, making hackneyed rock tropes feel surprising again--proof that with this softening of their sound, Big Thief have alighted upon something that packs a real punch.

A certain confidence is all over Kingdom of Rust. Not the brash, cocksure swagger of a debut album, but the quiet conviction that comes with experience. It sounds like another victory for maturity.

You’re unlikely to be writing critical analyses of the lyrics, but you don’t need to with a record that sounds as exciting as this. Even better, there’s melody to go with noise.

Grand, long and bold--Newsom makes it sound like the first word she sings here: easy.

Avi Buffalo sound like they're been propelled into the realm of Radio 1 and Later... With Jools Holland not because they fit a preconceived idea of good taste, but simply because they're good: it's hard to stop yourself feeling as enthusiastic as the guy who wrote them invariably seems to be.

The hazy, semi-hallucinogenic beauty is boosted by the lo-fi, not-quite-focused home recording.

Fear Factory exude real authority, resulting in their finest album in two decades and a timely reminder that when man and machine collide, the outcome can be both joyous and devastating.

Though he sometimes gives into funky ad-libbing instead of building solid vocal melodies, his voice, particularly when drowsily tossing out raps or soaring in its upper mid-range, is a beautiful instrument that always ties the groove together.

Diiv are demanding complete sonic immersion, and providing the listener with ample opportunities to lose themselves.

The In Crowd is propelled mostly by a proliferation of 90s samples and retro arrangements - but he is inventive enough to breathe life into the nostalgia trip.

Most of the dozen songs here have been released before in other forms, and 1997's First Ray of the New Rising Sun remains the definitive set of "building blocks" for what would have been Hendrix's fifth album. However, these 1968-9 recordings (mostly with Billy Cox and Buddy Miles) are free of overdubs, and the playing is incendiary.

Derivative as it is, there’s beauty here, and something admirable in Walker’s insistence on so closely cleaving to his chosen path.

A big rock album that feels richer, more expansive, with every listen.

There are plenty of lovely melodies, but it noticeably declines to deal in the primary currency of latterday pop, the banger, in favour of understatement. Bucking another current pop trend, it’s an album clearly designed to be listened to in full, rather than a collection of tracks from which to select additions to a playlist. It’s an approach that, at its worst, yields songs that sound undernourished – Fallen Fruit and Dominoes – but elsewhere it delivers, albeit gently.

Iyer and his partners sound like a spontaneous ensemble from the outset--not self-conscious participants in a fusion experiment.

This is not to provide a blasting showcase for Chaney, as there is little ego on this record, and her talents at delivery and depth ripple through softly but persuasively.

This is a fine, largely original album, give or take a handful of covers of songs by Bob Dylan, Lennon and McCartney, and Robert Johnson, and a couple from a recently kindled composing partnership with the Stones' Bill Wyman.

If the whizz-bang pace makes Hot Hot Heat sound a bit too eager to please, then Steve Bays' lyrics give even their fizziest pop songs a pleasingly tart kick.

All pleasant enough, but Lindstrøm then levels up in the final third, with Drift, a hail of petals that recalls Orbital’s Belfast, and the jazz piano that poignantly destabilises closing tracks Bungl (Like a Ghost) and Under Trees.

Regular Smog-watchers will have become accustomed to a degree of bleakness and black humour, but this time Bill Callahan... taps into a compelling vein of folk history and rural solitude.