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.