A little more campfire crackle to his delivery would have helped lift these good short stories from the prettily glowing embers of forgettable and occasionally recycled melodies.

Between the piano-led dreamscape of “Red Snakes”, the shimmering electronica of “Bloom at Night” and the pop-leaning “We Cannot Resist”, Animal feels restless right up until its six-and-a-half-minute closer “Phantom Limb”, which concludes with Marling’s autotuned voice reading out the album’s credits.

For three tracks of low-slung ambient funk (the title track), lounge jazz (“Running Game [Son of a Slave Master]”) and tired orchestral soul (“Born 2 Die”), every low expectation of the funk-pop legend’s late-career cast-offs is lived down to. ... Then he rediscovers his imaginative peak-era verve and Welcome 2 America becomes an unexpected blast.

KSI does well to allow his collaborators to come in and do what they do best in their respective styles. ... At times, though, All Over The Place flails in the absence of a singular distinct voice.

It’s genuinely enjoyable. Fairly forgettable. A pleasant enough middle-lane trip down what Mayer – with knowing cliché – calls “the highway of dreams”.

Hewson’s songwriting is definitely up to snuff, although occasionally lapses into cliches.

Peace or Love, their first album in 12 years, is perfectly pleasant and familiar, the tracks tracing the well-trodden vicissitudes of love in tones so subdued that they’d seem hushed even when played at maximum volume.

The album doles out small doses of riot grrrl nostalgia but for the most part, on No Gods No Masters, Garbage stretch beyond the gilded cage of their Nineties icon status to reach for something new – often, but not always, to effective ends.

Many of these songs are hip hop-lite, incorporating bland trap beats as Levine delivers lyrics in the kind of stutter pioneered by early Soundcloud rappers.

On Cavalcade, black midi feast on a smorgasbord of influences but the result at times can leave their sound meandering aimlessly.

At times, it feels as though the polite, considered Rodrigo could push ideas, emotions and melodies a little further than she does. ... But this is an incredibly impressive debut from a singer who’s only just learning to stretch her wings.

His tendency to hurl the same emotional intensity into every syllable (loud, soft, high, low, new idea or repetition) gets wearing. It doesn’t help that the melodies are often simplistic to the point of forgettable and the production seldom leaves a space unfilled.

Latest Record Project Volume 1 might be a grievance-heavy sprawl, but if you’re a Morrison die-hard it’ll be a worthy, timely addition to his catalogue.

“Windows”, with its eerie synths and squawking delivery, recalls the dark psychedelia of Cypress Hills’ 2018 record, Elephants on Acid. But that then jumps to skittery R&B with “I’ll Take You On”. Nothing joins together. Brockhampton don’t sound self-aware as much as self-conscious.

There’s still a nagging sense that the band are resting on their laurels. The record is still good – DFA are too talented for it to be otherwise – but it’s a little deflating for a band whose history is built on boundary-pushing.

This album is more Pringles than caviar. But it’s comfortingly moreish. When it comes to the Jonas boys, it seems that once you pop, you can’t stop.

I wonder if Larsson boxed herself in with her theme (“I’m obsessed with love”, she told NME in a recent interview), then struggled to find new ways to explore it. Overall, though, Poster Girl has more than enough bops to keep fans happy.

It’s pleasantly – if forgettably – soporific. The sort of family motorway album that tired parents can hum along to without waking the kids in the back.

His 2017 debut Reaper was built around tender guitar motifs that would mesh with stuttery trap beats. There is some of this on Trauma Factory, but it’s been mostly sidelined in favour of vocal melodies that frequently sound like playground rhymes.

Despite the album’s slick production and radio-ready melodies, one wishes Pale Waves could find a more sophisticated language to express youthful enlightenment.

The record is divided into two sets. The first half is a jagged-edged electro backed spleen-splurge with all seven tracks titled with the CAPS LOCK ON. The smoother, more soulful second half finds him in more reflective, lower-case mood.

There is something admirable about the fact they stay so firmly planted in their lane. Medicine at Midnight is unlikely to win over many new fans, but it will make the existing ones happy.

It just feels tedious and predictable. Portentous twangs of guitar? Tick. Shivery percussion? Tick. Screeches of feedback? Tick. A frontman who delivers lyrics (rambling prose) in a croaky, squawking gasp that recalls Mark E Smith? Tick.

Spare Ribs certainly reflects the personal and political overload of 2021, but half an hour in you’d be forgiven for scanning the horizon for your stop.

It offers no narrative to speak of and only brief glimpses of personality. It is a blancmange of watered-down R&B, each song sliding listlessly into the next.

Each artist is joined at some point by Gibb’s distinctive high, breathy voice. It’s wobblier now, but sounds a little more searching and humble.

Weird!’s eclecticism frequently threatens to overwhelm. ... Where Yungblud is consistent is his lyrics.

Despite the dearth of original melodies and ideas, there’s an obvious nod to the Everly Brothers’ 1958 “All I Have To Do Is Dream”. And throughout this record, Mendes’s savvy songwriting team are harking back to retro influences to suit the vintage ice cream parlour shades of the singer’s shirts.