Recorded on 60s equipment, there are funky licks, handclaps, "funky drummer" beats and songs that describe the "game of love" and even "hurting so bad". It's almost comically textbook at times, but made with love.

He’s an efficient musician who can mix echoes of Tinariwen and Farka Touré with a dash of reggae, and switch between romping electric blues and reggae to acoustic styles. But for much of this set he sounds as if he’s on autopilot.

World Eater is a brutal record, but there’s humanity in it, because Power is drawn to melodies: even at its most pummelling it offers sweet spots and moments of instant gratification.

The eighth "proper" album from Teenage Fanclub delivers exactly what one expects: gentle, bittersweet guitar pop, which harks back to the 60s without descending into pastiche.

The Rising sounded like a formulaic album made out of patriotic duty. Despite its flaws, formulaic is not an adjective that applies to most of Devils and Dust, an album that rarely does what you expect it to.

Rawlings's solo debut sounds suspiciously like a Welch album with the vocal mix reversed; as his regular partner appears as co-writer on five of the nine tracks.

Burnett's one-note anger may be fine for those who fetishise the punk-rock mode of expression, but the near-total lack of range in his vocal approach is a poor match for the careening thrill of the music, and wearyingly basic.

It makes for an intriguing, though at times overcomplex and unfocused, blend.

[Terrace Martin's] latest project uses some heavyweight jazz talents but takes us into more mainstream R&B territory, with decent neosoul numbers including Intentions (featuring Chachi) and You and Me (featuring Rose Gold) mixed with rather bland and soporific fuzak.

Lost & Found is a well-paced album full of gentle vocals, catchy pop hooks and a playful relationship with the pains of youth, love and insecurity. Smith’s voice moves between arrestingly husky and overly nasal, with plenty of room to develop, but the sparse and uninspiring production doesn’t save the songs from feeling forgettable at times.

The American star charges through this 100-minutes-plus gig with such an emphasis on repeat notes, brusque segues and thundering counterpoint that its feverish density gets close to overpowering at times. But Mehldau's quirky covers are as compelling as ever.

Carry on the Grudge exposes the limits of what Treays can do. But there are other moments, and more of them, where it suggests that behind the affectations lurks something quite prosaic but quite potent: at his best, he’s a really good songwriter.

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.

There’s a lot here that’s really terrific, where the oddness of the lyrics and the mood of the music match perfectly and disconcertingly, as on In a Chinese Alley. But the missteps, when they come, are jarringly horrible.

Tracks such as Generator most resemble a hardcore Killing Joke. Turnstile haven’t always fully learned to control that intensity, though--there’s nothing as focused or melodic as the Joke’s Eighties or Love Like Blood.

These soundscapes require a Pharoah Sanders-style voyager who can fly us into stratospheric realms, but unfortunately, Etienne Jaumet’s solos just splutter along the runway without ever achieving lift-off.

It takes repeated listens before hooks and memorable melodies begin to reveal themselves. Once they do, Life, and Another becomes a far more gratifying listen: swamped, at times, with unconvincing mystery, but beautiful, too.

It’s not Amyl and the Sniffers’ fault they get treated like a second coming--more a reflection on how little great rock’n’roll there is right now--but it’s done them no favours. With no fanfare, this would have been a really decent record. With the praise they’ve had, they’d have had to make a new Powerage not to disappoint.

Each of these six tracks features a big, blustery, banal, unsatisfyingly static melody that is repeated over and over and over again, restated each time by horns, guitar, strings and choir.

For all the beauty in these woozy, damaged choral songs, the sense that he's still just about sticking to a formula frustrates any greater ambition.

Long, luscious songs and cinematic melancholy are their usual preserve; their eighth album see these traded in for short, sharp shocks, metallic percussion, bullet-brusque sound effects, and frequent references to war, hate and death.

A debut that, frustratingly, juggles promise and excess.

For all its flaws and failings, for all that you may never feel like listening to it again, it's hard not to be perversely glad Embryonic exists.

An album that never quite delivers, largely because it's so unvarying in tone... Yet it manages to sound refreshing.

Fans of the girlish northern voices of sisters Becky and Rachel Unthank, and the soft, shining piano of Adrian McNally, will adore it; others might get lost in the whispery sweetness of Dream Your Dreams and Never Pine for the Old Love, longing for more gravel and grit.

Despite a handful of the elder Gallagher’s irresistible everyman anthems, much of Council Skies is unambitious and generic to the point of tedium.

At its most straightforward, Crack-Up features a digressive, segmented, prog-rock-style take on the sound of the band’s first two albums, with mixed results.

The results are decidedly retro-modern--that bit too well produced to have been authentically blaring out of a roadside bar in the 1960s--but are steeped in blues and soul and a lot of fun.

The format can run the risk of feeling one-dimensional, and the repetitive Mind Blues is more jarring than thrilling, but The Offbeat and Everything All the Time are giant, funky, instantly catchy collisions of voice and rhythm that will no doubt gain even more physical heft when they play them live.

Not only is Bernholz preaching to the converted, she’s also preaching to an audience who pride themselves on their tolerance for enduring hostility. It might make for a more engaging performance than straightforward listening experience, although Bernholz’s ingenuity does reveal itself.

It sounds like the work of an artist torn between doing exactly what she pleases and, perhaps understandably under the circumstances, giving her audience what they want. But there’s no doubt which of these impulses is more successful artistically.

Although Forster's characterful, Australian waver gets under your skin, the sentiments of these songs won't do the same.

There’s a lot that’s laudable about Caprisongs. Not least its desire to keep moving and changing – enough that complaining about something as straightforward as a paucity of memorable tunes almost feels miserly. But equally, it’s something that ultimately impedes your enjoyment of the album. As a soundtrack for the start of a night, it doesn’t quite pan out as you might hope.

The second half is dominated by a seedy funk that feels at once self-indulgent and unappetising, despite the odd dazzling moment.

If Replica occasionally drifts--literally–-too close to the whiffy bongs and flotation tanks of 90s chillout, it's never predictable, and is best experienced in a continuous sitting.

While Shake occasionally excels at crafting musical gems out of dark paranoia, her themes are stretched somewhat thin over the course of the whole record and on some tracks she ends up sounding listless.

Not all their experiments work, but it’s hard not to be infected by the excitement when they do.

The 5CD set of course includes his three now-celebrated albums.... Then there's Made to Love Magic, released in 2004, which includes out-takes and his final 1974 recordings, including the bleak Black Eyed Dog, and Family Tree, a set of home recordings he made before 1969, that was originally released in 2007. It's predictably patchy.

The album's big problem is not a lack of quality; it's the feeling that you've been here before, or you've been somewhere so like here as to make little difference.

The result is curiously timeless. Soul, swing and funk classics of yesteryear become strange, new blooms under Ndegeocello’s care.

Overall the mixture never quite gels, and the rasping timbre of Cantrell's voice ain't the prettiest sound you ever heard.

The mood is sombre, the pace slow-to-mid and Staples means every word she sings.

it's almost impossible to listen to without making comparisons, and Local Natives are not the beneficiaries of the process.

Her mystery and malady are communicated best on dreampop tracks Hell and Back and Colour of Water; moments of spaced-out, doomed romance on an album that’s otherwise a little too long and indulgent.

The best songs paint him as guardian of the apocalypse, pairing his world-weary soulfulness with murky, mutant beats. Hopefully for the next album he’ll hang up his top hat and focus on those instincts instead.

For Those Who Wish to Exist proves Architects’ ability to oscillate between thoughtful, interesting, finely wrought compositions and gleefully hulking exercises in metal obviousness is still intact. The fact it often feels stultifying regardless proves turning climate anxiety into gratifying entertainment is a very difficult art to master.

There are a couple of more upbeat songs on the album, but it is dominated by angry political comment and world-weary laments that are aimed at a Malian, not western, audience.

It’s a tough sell for anyone not already on board with McKee, especially since the songwriting is rarely persuasive enough to take the edge off the intensity.

In fairness, it's not all bad news. There's an admirable efficiency and directness about American Slang, which dispatches 10 songs in barely half an hour. It's hard to deny Fallon's ability to write anthemic melodies.

The end result is by turns gripping, idiosyncratic, baffling and frustrating: not so much an ooze as a splurge of ideas--that’s nevertheless worth picking through.

A pleasing, if unremarkable, listen.

There is comfort in Neale’s introversion, but you long for her to burst free; for a hint more dynamic texture to fully render her vignettes.

Dave and Phil both play guitar and sing, and are on driving, cheerfully gutsy form.

If they could bring a little more of their noise-based disruption into the mix, their prophetic horns would be worth heeding.

Sometimes this more expansive, substantial sound works to very good effect.... Where it doesn't is when it messes with two of Veirs' greatest assets: her haunted lyrics and haunting, Cat-Power-trapped-in-a-deep-well voice.

His gently driving percussion work, so important for the Band's success, is still there, and his singing is helped by the impressive harmony work of his daughter Amy.

Black Sun is more than adequate – but compared to the artists Kode9 has brought to prominence (Ikonika, Scratcha DVA, Funkystepz, Ill Blu), falls a touch short in terms of surprising ideas.

Faithfull’s voice may be coarse, her tuning wayward, but the conviction with which she anticipates this “fresh breeze” is unmistakable.

This is a clanging, disruptive splatter of a debut, which speaks to the frustration of otherness through sheer feeling, rather than easily digestible vocals.

It's a generic melancholy, expressed in widescreen cliches: Bondy never persuades you that it's genuinely felt.

The trouble with listening to these songs en masse is that each one blurs into the next, making the whole unmemorable.

His mellifluous style, best exemplified on Boat Cruise and Jamboree, ebbs and flows without ever letting go of the groove. A bit like Jaco Pastorius in a space suit.

Presumably the sense that it might all fall apart at any moment is meant to convey quite how wild and couldn't-give-a-toss they are, even though it means the brutal attack of the music is lost in exchange.

The general mood, though, is one of an Alan Partridge-presented country happy hour, unsuitable all of the day and all of the night.

Despite its charismatic Tierra Whack verse, Yellow Belly plays more like a gag than an epiphany, and the clanks and warbles of Fire Is Coming fill Lynch’s eerie tale with dread but little replay value. Still, the quagmire draws you in.

He should recognise that his overlong songs could use a trim, but there is depth beyond the Willy Wonka weirdness.

It’s a debut that leaves a feeling of an artist still working herself out.

The sometimes quite retro Afro-pop production can get generic though, when repeated across 19 tracks – the bright, throbbing electronic backing for Destiny makes you long for a bit more breadth – and the English language lyrics can lapse into rap cliche.

It sounds like the work of a band that have plenty of good ideas, but increasingly can't tell them from their bad ones--or won't be told.

It's mellifluous and clear in its delivery, but this points up Ali's limitations at the same time; the inflexibility of his style and the limits of his vocabulary.

It’s often compelling, but you occasionally find yourself gripped by an overwhelming urge to turn it off.

The album is patchily impressive, from the driving, funky opening of Diarra, to the bluesy start of Massah Allah, but both ease off into more predictable, bland territory.

This is about as close to ambient as a singer-songwriter can get without mixing himself out altogether.

There's plenty of fun to be had, though the relentlessness of fiddle, accordion and Hutz's roaring vocals is exhausting.

Calculating it may be, but it’s hard to think of anyone who’s turned prurient public interest in their personal lives to their advantage quite as adeptly as the Carters have.

While the intermittently minimalist production sounds vaguely voguish in a trip-hop kind of way, that sparseness often gives the songs a slightly anodyne quality. It makes for a record whose potential power feels dampened, if not neutralised altogether.

There is lots of prettiness and some innovative production, like the tumbles of wordless vocal on iMi, gently insulated by downy static; Vernon’s gospel holler and falsetto curlicues will always make ears prick up. But frequently, including on iMi, his melodies are uninspired, feeling like the first thing he came up with while woodshedding around the backing track.

Not a great deal of sense is made throughout this messy record, but that is hardly the point of Herrema, still a poster girl for disorder and "rad times".

You might call it a postmodern take on 20th-century American music, but it's so warm and welcoming that it never feels like an exercise in technique or a mere demonstration of knowledge.

The album is most remarkable for the intensity and urgency in Ayisoba’s thrilling and insistent harsh-edged vocals.

At least half the album feels like padding, and there’s nothing with the sheer rage and power of his verses on 2016 anti-Trump classic FDT. Perhaps Hussle isn’t quite ready for the victory lap just yet.

Ackermann's pallid, gothic songs are as indistinct as figures in a snowstorm.

The noise onslaught can grow a bit wearying, and it’s something of a relief when Lou Barlow takes the reins for two tracks: mournful closer Left/Right and album standout Love Is, which brings to mind the Folk Implosion at their most soulful.

In this stripped-back setting, in which Mason's muted guitar and piano melodies are given a subtle electronic frosting by producer Richard X, his meditations on depression and heartbreak are devastatingly direct

Fading Lines is a sustained exercise in restraint, De Graaf’s airy voice anchored by backing from assorted US indie luminaries, who provide just enough muscle without overwhelming her.

There are four near-perfect EPs here, but it's a haul to listen to in one sitting. That's the insoluble conundrum of garage rock: the most perpetually exciting sound in rock easily outstays its welcome.

Around the halfway mark, Gift of Gab succumbs to his nerdiest, wordiest tendencies and Chief Xcel starts running out of new ideas - or at least good ones.

Four voices aren’t always stronger than one, and the collegiate nature of the record leaves one yearning for a little more single-mindedness. But anyone who enjoyed, say, Margo Price’s All American Made will find much to enjoy here.

Twins does what it does brilliantly – but Segall makes it sound so effortless, you keep getting snagged on its limitations.

With Emmett Kelly and Shahzad Ismaily forming a trio, this is wistful, soft rock reminiscent of Neil Young, James Taylor and even Bread.

The problem, however, is that [El-P]'s work is often too deliberated and too dense to work on levels other than the intellectual.

That spluttering yet charming Rico from 2018 is still there, but overall this debut doesn’t feel like progression, but stagnation.

There are a lot of ideas, textures and moods that show she’s exploring her own artistry, but while the joy, freedom and fun are palpable, the result feels a bit messy.

Despite the wavering quality, Blue Banisters is an important addition to Lana lore. That she can still manage to be this perplexing after a decade in the game is a massive achievement.

There's an attractive openness to the album, with no sense of contrivance: he's singing about what he knows. Once he knows a little more, you get the sense he might manage something truly memorable.

Clementine clearly has things to say about some important topics, and it’s hard not to think they might reach a wider audience if they were a little less obliquely presented. Equally, there’s something laudable about an artist using their initial success not as a foundation for steady commercial growth but as leverage to get something like I Tell a Fly released and promoted by a major label.

Aside from the TV on the Radio-esque space rock of Drive, it’s hard to detect what he’s bringing fresh to the mix. Too often, Harding’s new blues and soul sound very much like the old versions.

None of it bad, just a disappointment after that phenomenal opening.