As so often before, the duo’s choice of vocal collaborators is timely and transformative, bringing fresh, unexpected angles to their pieces.

The Manics’ band identity proves robust enough to withstand the tweaking.

This is light and breezy pop that marries summery synths with dreamy female vocals.

It takes a few plays to acclimatise to but, once won over, whatever you listen to next will seem pedestrian by comparison. Lovely, but wholly on its own terms.

All of it frothed up into an accomplished brew and delivered with good-timey vim but without a whole lot of charisma, especially in the vocal department. Snake oil, in other words. Good fun snake oil.

The music is softly strummed, and Bird’s voice is a high, lonesome thing like the wind on a prairie. Sort of.

One moment--the Jason Molina tribute “JM”--is startling enough to forgive the clunking stadium-grunge workouts that seem, conversely, to be bringing Strand of Oaks to wider attention.

Songwriter/producer Sergio Pizzorno opted for a more slimmed-down sound, stripping away layers of sound to allow the ideas to speak more clearly.... It’s a brave but largely successful move, as is the shift from mainly guitar-riff-based songs to ones predominantly fuelled by synthesisers.

Listened to sympathetically, as soppy late-night jazz, it’s fine. Just don’t expect sparks to fly.

Giddily debunking sacred falsehoods with good, honest scepticism, Bauer’s raucous rebirth offers the best of both worlds: intrigue and instant reward for Walkmen doubters and acolytes alike.

Charges of over-solemnity may be levelled its way, but only occasionally are the melodic and narrative threads lost to a focus on miasmic, brush-stroked atmospherics.

These songs bounce, buzz and bubble along with timeless life.

“Inside the Idle Hour Club” is the comedown: woozy, wavy, lush, long. Not exactly cohesive then, but hey--it’s a trip.

Her self-produced fourth album executes another dramatic confidence leap.

The first really serious contender for album of the year thus far.

There’s nothing here to quite match his finest moments, but nothing stinks and that, I suppose, is the best you can expect.

Turn Blue’s stealth seduction suggests this much: their wrong-footing instincts should keep them on the right track.

This is an artist with taste and opinions of her own, not just a schedule and a fanbase to satisfy.

The Instagram of albums, which is to say a source of instant nostalgia, its 70s- and 80s-inspired cocktail of disco, house, lounge, samba et al, could be merely kitsch but is elevated both by the meticulousness of its production and the sinuous seductiveness of its melodies.

Old Fears is the sound of a quick, keen mind at work and play.

Blacc proves he’s more than capable of stepping into the spotlight for his first major-label album which features 60s soul, folk, retro pop, R’n’B and even country.

An intimate, introspective album that takes tentative steps to reveal the soul behind the star.

Everett’s earlier, fearless accounts of family tragedy have refined his ability to explore extreme states of emotional disrepair.

This is an instantly engaging showcase of the 23-year-old Aussie’s talents--poppy without diluting her fierce-flowing charisma.

If music be the food of love, Kelis has cooked up something tasty enough to satisfy all but the hungriest of hearts.

A delightful indie pop record that’s by turns intense, playful and touching.

Liars revel in keeping their listeners on edge and entertained making Mess their most wickedly enjoyable album yet.

They sound confident enough to provide space for Finn’s lyrics of high nights and soul-harrowed hangovers

This may well be Henriksen’s most approachable album--certainly for people coming to him for the first time--and even the semi-commercial breakthrough he deserves. It is also absolutely sublime.

Her debut is an accomplished, glossily shimmering thing.

Between the pub and the high seas, Elbow reset their mission statement here: to navigate the heart’s tides with their art intact.

Annie Clark’s fourth album is frequently extraordinary.

The songs are sparky and Cherry is in excellent voice as she raps, sings and swings against the sparse, drum and bass-style backing orchestrated by Four Tet.

Morning Phase is an often gorgeous sequel to Sea Change, but it’s also more than that: it’s cheering proof that Beck isn’t ready to start repeating himself just yet.

Wilfully abstruse, then, but still one hell of a talent.

What comes across most is the sheer unbridled enthusiasm expressed in the complex, racing rhythms, squalling sax solos, twanging electric guitar and crooning vocals.

A natural wonder.

Feels Like Home is musically conservative, socially ingratiating, politically vulnerable. It is unmistakably a piece of product. But it is also brilliant.

At what point does a child prodigy turn into a talent so exceptional that we no longer talk about age? Sarah Jarosz’s third album answers that question in style (though just for the record, the banjo, guitar and mandolin supremo is now 22).

They are awfully thoughtful, though the thoughtfulness does frequently give way--sometimes you feel with a sigh of relief--to the technical liberation of jig and reel.

Maybe now he can sleep a little less on floors and spend more time making gorgeous albums like this. Please.

Mostly, though, this lingered-over comeback offers sumptuous returns for those prepared to linger over it.

Crain’s third album has proved something of a breakthrough in the US.

As we glide through Post Tropical the tracks steadily grow bigger, with gospel-style harmonies and languid slide guitar lending texture to create a dreamy, if cold, soundscape that may leave some with a sense of frustration, as if we are building towards an ever-shifting point on the horizon.

Even looking backwards, Springsteen finds ways to light the road ahead.

Drake is revealed as a serious artist whose gossamer-light songs can sound painfully vulnerable, and there's more than a bit of black dog in the poems.

Funny, warm, eloquent, dynamic, oddly soulful and technically delicious. An unremitting joy.

Simon Green, aka Bonobo, has created a beguiling and compelling narrative.

The intricate interweaving of guitar and ngoni juxtaposed with the bright, clear backing vocals makes for a sound that’s dynamic and assertive.

Truth is, the release of Tin Star should set Ortega’s adopted home town alight.

Bar that electric guitar, this is the kind of music that you wouldn’t be surprised to hear on an old piece of 78rpm vinyl rescued from a car-boot sale (which is, of course, meant as a compliment).

As an exercise in expanded range, Shangri La is too diverse and distinct to dismiss.

There are overworked beatscapes and confounding lyrics, sure--but also multiple sublime, fully formed songs.

The constant here is Arthur’s voice: genuinely soulful and able to switch from MC to Marvin at the flick of a falsetto.

Happily, beardy-weirdy Texas psych-folkies Midlake manage to weather Tim Smith’s split with no pinch in purpose or progress.

It may be a bit rushed--too sickly sweet for one sitting, while their youthful lyrics will ripen yet--but the hit rate is nonetheless impressively high.

Big only because Arcade Fire think big, Reflektor stretches stadium rock’s reach in the acts of self-reinvention and revitalisation. Now that’s entertainment.

A good “deluxe” remaster job will do at least two things: one, it’ll strip away centuries of digital compression and make the music sound as if you’ve never heard it properly before; two, it’ll include additional material that gives insight into how the finished work was shaped. Moondance delivers on both counts.

The warm human purr of her ethereal vocals is juxtaposed towith fluid electronic elements and the occasional welcome interjection of bluesy guitar and jagged off-beat percussion.

Happily, the North Carolina’s modern hippie’s second album is too ambitious, too fluently fluently surprising and too lovely to appeal to 1970s retro-heads alone.

Even though the album comes in at nearly 80 minutes, surprisingly it doesn’t feel too long. This is largely because it doesn’t get stuck in an Afrobeat rut.

It’s business as usual, only with a lusher production than expected and a tad too much emphasis on Western rock’s tired tropes in some of the licks.

Lovely album from a true one-off.

Back to Forever moves things into the 1980s--all fist-pumping verses and “Kids-in-America”-like big choruses.

One Breath draws on choppy emotions--grief, depression, anxiety--but Calvi commands the tides with the imperious authority of Barbara Stanwyck leading her posse in Sam Fuller's wild western Forty Guns.

There’s less barn-floor stomp than on previous albums, but Country Mile is still rousing, with trumpet, fiddle and much--occasionally dicey--harmonising.

This album shimmers.

The set list's rather obvious and the interstitial chat goes on a bit, but the heart of the man is there to be heard.

Ageing is a war they can’t win, but by facing it head-on, the Manics have found the spur to move forwards.

There’s something artificial and experimental in the project’s very DNA, but that need not be a bad thing, and it isn’t.

Though his appeal remains frustratingly specialist, with each release it becomes clearer that Callahan is the natural successor to Leonard Cohen.

It's his best group for eons.

Tales of Us has a stately pace and woozy beauty, with cinematic orchestration of swaying strings over acoustic guitar or mossy cello.

Expect more straightforward, big-vocal, soul-funk numbers, and fewer immediate hits. But compared with most R&B records, Monae is still lightyears ahead.

A sassy self-overhaul, AM issues lubricious R&B come-ons over a self-assured narrative arc with personality and open potential cannily spliced.

In spirit, their third album takes them back to their origins as an independent group from Glasgow making defiantly direct music in an age of detachment.

Brilliant, frustrating, thrilling and irritating. In other words, exactly what we’ve come to expect from an Edward Sharpe album.

As an 19-track collection of rarities from the period 2003-present, TTEC is necessarily a mixed bag of styles and qualities.

There’s singing going on, all right, it sounds lovely, but little is conveyed other than loveliness. However, there’s no arguing with their authenticity or technical excellence.

After an average third LP and a four-year hiatus, the art-rockers are once again all kinds of excellent.

Honest, soulful, happy-sad, warm and welcoming.

Their self-titled debut, aptly enough, is one of the most bitterly anti-romantic albums this side of the third PiL offering.

Fluent melodies, nature metaphors, and expressive settings are the robust ties that bind these reveries.

“Organic moonshine music” she calls it, and no one could argue with that.

Funny, sad, perfect.

While the presiding atmosphere is retro, the Avila brothers' production keeps things properly real.

See You There revisits his classics as well as finding room for one new track and a beauty of an alternate version of "What I Wouldn't Give."

White Lies have just enough elegance and intrigue beneath the bluster to carry it off.

Arrangements are simple, bluegrass-inflected and rich in acoustic textures. Warm and thick as a hayrick.

With its unrelenting positivity, Yes, It's True sounds like the Flaming Lips fronted by Deepak Chopra, and valiantly courts the daytime radio play that will inevitably elude it.

They're reunited with vocalist N'Dea Davenport but don't really need her, their dressing-up-to-go-out groove being the thing.

While this may once have been filed under 'shoegaze', now we can call it 'noisy dream pop' and just wade in its wash of guitars.

Michigan auteur Hawthorne has synthesised his influences into perfect power pop, with the help of producers including Pharrell Williams.

Within the first 60 seconds it's alluded to Blue Peter and Taxi Driver in successive lines. Wind in the Willows it ain't.

It's an assured collection of pure pop with an independent sensibility, equal parts Kylie and The XX.

A real gem.

There's no progression or narrative, it's immersive rather than engrossing. Slow Focus is an album to steep yourself in.

Meta-pop doesn’t come much more moving than this.