They have now cracked out the synths, ramped up the drum machines, and found their calling in giddy, lovelorn electro-pop.

It can be plodding and takes a while to get going, but also occasionally reaches soaring, festival-fields-at-dusk heights.

The result is an album of solid country virtue.

The repertoire leaves room for instrumental chops from saxophonist Ernie Watts, while Haden's big bass fiddle thumps out the time with authority.

Bewitching.

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

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

Pianist Matthew Bourne goes all English-pastoral in this largely lovely solo suite.

A cool, edgy soundtrack for the summer, should it ever arrive.

[An] exceptionally artful debut.

For all Bird's reverence for American rural music of the past, Hands is startlingly contemporary.

BTS is a covers album recorded at and paying tribute to Memphis's Sun Studios, deploying tumbleweed guitar twang, and occasionally, the falsetto.

When it's good, it's a thrilling and ambtitious state-of-the-nation address.

The most rewarding part of this double-disc is the first quarter. Not that the hissy old demos and rarities on the rest of the collection are without their charms. But it's the opening section which really whisks you back to another age.

Haunting and harrowing, the uncomprehending first reactions are combined with a score both alarming and consoling. Also here, Mallet Quartet (2009) and Dance Patterns (2002), but it is WTC 9/11 which packs the most powerful punch.

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

Wonderful.

A surprising (if a little sad) return to form.

It is, almost inevitably, charming.

It's touching, witty, and like everything else the Bostonian ever does, brilliant.

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

Subjects resulting from such reveries include imperialism, the environment and the more familiar home turf of love and longing. Nobody does it better.

As befits a novelist, the songs are narratives concerned with the big issues. Life, death, that sort of thing. Good record.

Fusion fans might be confused but as a sentimental affirmation of melody it's Metheny to the core.

With treasurable details – the dubbed-up refrain of "Black Icy Stare", the Merseybeat-ish groove of "Karmatron" – feeding into an overall ambience of lotus-eating sensuality.

As long as you don't ask too much of it, it's good knockabout rowdy fun.

Right at the end of what is officially the most depressing month of the year comes a shaft of unadulterated sunshine.

It recalls MGMT before the wheels came off. Which is no bad thing.