Brian Jonestown Massacre’s 18th album might not be breaking any ground, or sitars, but 15 years after Newcombe nearly destroyed himself, it’s good to hear him sound so self-assured.

I Am Easy to Find feels like an old friend you’re pleased to keep around--even if, had you been introduced today, you wonder if you’d have been compelled to make the effort.

She’s still in her prime, as you can tell when she delivers a knockout vocal on the guitar-backed ballad “Broken Like Me”. .... But for all her promises to show us the “real her”, it’s a struggle to see it in the slick and sexy production of tracks such as “Mad in Love” or “Rebound”.

Across two discs there are too many mediocre versions, most revering the polite preciosity of the original Laurel Canyon folk-rock settings.

There are isolated moments of musical intrigue scattered here and there through the album.... But as 25 continues, it’s gradually swamped by the kind of dreary piano ballads that are Adele’s fall-back position.

It is an intriguing, often brilliant, though occasionally awful record.

Deceptively uneasy listening at times, but worth the effort.

Lyrically, the album does fall short, but then Sheeran has spent over a decade trading in vague yet universal issues. ... For the most part, Subtract is testament to the old adage that less is, often, much more.

In typical Gelb manner, it’s wide-ranging in styles and standards: he didn’t get this far by excessive quality control, so some parts have a loose feel, while firmer parameters prevail elsewhere.

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.

Nash is a maestro and, although less experimental than previous efforts, his cosmic almost dreampop Americana featured here provides proof that music comes in many sounds as well as names.

Rockstar is so long that it can feel like a bit of a slog.

Ultimately, however, despite the fizzing electronic undercarriage applied to most tracks on Electronic Earth, Labrinth's real forte may turn out to be the more traditional, earthbound musical skills.

While there’s a moreish quality to the off-key guitar of “Imperfect for You” and an unexpectedly golden flush of brass on “Ordinary Things”, Grande’s delicately conversational tone is often left having to compensate for her lack of strong melodic snags.

Not an easy listen, but a satisfying one.

SKINS is another fiery blast of catharsis, a largely metaphor-free space where depression isn't hinted at poetically but invited to throw down. ... There are no songs as refined or showing such potential as ?'s “infinity (888)” and “Moonlight”, and many of them feel like half ideas.

The Cautionary Tales... is wracked with recrimination, remorse and self-doubt. It can be bleak--the electric piano of “Lockdown Hurricane” seems a sound soaked in self-pity--but the intimate beauty of the strings and woodwinds sweetens the pill.

Unlike their earlier tyro works, the simplicity is rarely matched by killer tunes on this album, which yokes together the first-ever stereo mix of Wild Honey with a tranche of outtakes and fragments, and an extra CD of efficient but uninspiring live performances.

The duo have devised a series of fascinating improvisations.

The combination works best on the single Attracting Flies; less engaging is the descent to playground chanting on Best Be Believing.

This album, drawing together their three recent EPs, also displays the diversity of Best’s lyrical interests, ranging from brain chemistry (“Serotonin Rushes”) to psychoanalysis (“Freudian Slips”) and, in “Impossible Objects Of Desire”, the enigmatic allure of records which defined so many lives.

The splendid The Politics of Envy simply ratchets that process up a few notches.

It’s Vance’s sepia growl of a voice that grips most on The Wild Swan, bringing raw conviction especially to the opener “Noam Chomsky Is A Soft Revolution.”

It’s a return to form, but reveals an expected sense of maturity. Pryor and sometimes guitarist Jim Suptic split vocal duties on the EP.

Though neither particularly new nor classic, Iggy Azalea’s debut album proper (following two self-released mixtapes) reveals enough smarts and skills to sustain the Aussie rapper’s momentum.

Throughout Synthetica, an undertow of dystopian unease drags the music away from standard pop territory into darker areas.

The EP opens with the lovely “Sweet Dew Lee”, a genial pop strummer in the manner of early Orange Juice, its buoyant melody evoking a hill climb to an urban vista as the protagonist daydreams of a parallel world in which he and his departed lover are still an item.

He remains a more psychedelic soul, as witness psych-rockers like “Mad Shelley’s Letterbox” and “Detective Mindhorn”. With a sort of repressed power anchoring its drive.

Produced by her son Cisco Ryder, it’s a family album of elegant songs, well-framed in folk-rock settings.

There’s nothing on this record to equal the giddy delight of Perry’s greatest hits. No fireworks to light up the dance floor, but enough to raise a smile.

Beady Eye may be just Oasis minus Noel, but this debut is rather better than the past few Oasis albums, if sadly no more innovative.

While Martin Simpson’s peerless fingerpicking is in full effect throughout Trails & Tribulations, what’s equally impressive is the way his arrangements reflect the material with empathic sensitivity.

Merritt's main problem may be that his baritone croon makes him sound cynical even when he's baring his heart, an impression only partly undercut by his occasional ukulele strum.

As it is, these seven surviving tracks capture a group in transition from R&B covers outfit to something more significant.

The tableaux of refugee camps, warzones and dereliction--an abandoned building littered with syringes and shit, a drug-riddled neighbourhood, a polluted river, “a displaced family eating a cold horse’s hoof”--builds grimly throughout, albeit to uncertain ends.

It's punk-folk pop with its heart on its sleeve and urgency overwhelming reflection, closer to Green Day than, say, Leonard Cohen.

While imparting a palpable sense of immediacy to the performances, there are some tracks that could do with more work.

The creepier explorations of infantile eroticism--the lollipop metaphor of “All Day Suckers”, the fairytale allusion of “Baby Teeth, Wolfy Teeth”--are voiced by Harvey himself, allowing guest singers like Jess Ribeiro and Sophia Brous to indulge the sweeter romanticism of songs such as “The Eyes To Cry” and “Prevert’s Song”, where Gainsbourg’s musing on the poet’s work prompts a moving reflection on transitory love.

There’s a mismatch overall between the angry observations and the pell-mell pop-rock riffing of tracks such as “Cannons” and “One More Last Song”, so eager to curry favour and cajole us into singalong hooks.

Carter Girl reaffirms Carlene Carter’s role as scion of country music’s leading family through a mixture of Carter Family classics and original material, plus shaky duets with Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson.

Large parts of it still rely too heavily on a dour combination of industry and portent.

Though obviously sincere and heartfelt, Gregory Porter’s tribute to his greatest influence falls a touch short in some cases. His voice, while smooth and warm, lacks the silky, creamy timbre of Cole’s on “Mona Lisa”, and on some songs he sounds more like Kurt Elling or Sammy Davis Jr.

Whatever his anxieties, it’s never less than gently engaging.

While it's pleasantly effected for the most part, it's hard to get involved in someone else's nostalgia.

The brittle garage-punk of this debut positively seethes with trebly guitars, reedy organs, waspish fuzzboxes and urgent drums, with singer Mike Brandon exploring the ramifications of titles like “What Happens When You Turn The Devil Down” and “Flowers In My Hair, Demons In My Head” in tortuous, passionate manner.

His is the sort of personable charm that even the slickest PR machine can’t drum up. It is also, unfortunately, something that’s too often missing from this album. That and variety.

Their minimalist aesthetic can sometimes work against them, as on the spartan, diffident “The Pop Life”, but it’s tempered by a winning romanticism on “Butterflies”, where the fluttering keyboards evoke a fantasy of a dead soul becoming a butterfly, one of “a thousand souls swarming”.

Along with the anger and regret comes the usual hip-hop baggage of aggrandisement, recrimination and old-school reminiscence.

[A] more thoughtful, diverse creations in which floating organ and mellotron lend a wavering melancholy to songs like “Maybe We’ll Drown” and “Lemon Memory”, pierced by contrasting guitar rages of keening angularity.

It's not all suddenly-grown-up rock music, of course, with tracks like “No Control” and “Fool's Gold” retaining the boys' perky teen-pop charm; and whatever style is adopted, the choruses are all reassuringly collective singalongs.

It may be a slightly face-flattening wind tunnel of love The Killers offer. But they still have the gale force sincerity required to blow your socks off.

On [Cat Power] Marshall has changed direction yet again, abandoning her soul charm for something much less appealing.... But her natural grace shines through on "3, 6, 9"... and "Ruin."

Scott's overly melodramatic delivery sometimes gets in the way of the words, although his arrangements are for the most part respectful and apt.

His guests include Lana Del Rey, whose affectless manner makes her a perfect match for him; though the best grooves here come courtesy of Daft Punk, bookending the album with the scudding title-track and Michael Jackson homage “I Feel It Coming”.

Actor Maxine Peake delivers the combination of historical narrative and polemic in her blackest-pudding accent, over a gamelan tinkle of synth tones and string synths that evoke the blend of grit and gentrification now surrounding these events.

Ironically, though, it’s the more old-school tracks that furnish the highlights.

Though marginally better than its predecessor, BE can in no sense be considered a progression.

This fourth album is produced by south London’s Paul White, and a shared taste for Talking Heads and especially Joy Division (the LP is named after their song, more than JG Ballard’s novel) takes it way off the mainstream hip-hop map.

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.

Due to the choice of material, the arrangements lean heavily towards the dramatic and angst-ridden--well, it is Peter Gabriel--with the sole recourse to mellow calm reserved for the undulating strings of "The Nest That Sailed the Sky".

Musically, it’s an odd mix of ambition and disorder, with Doherty’s familiar raggedy-ass rock tempered with poignant moments.

Habibi Funk deals not in the indigenous strains that occupy the main focus of world music reissues, but rather local crossovers that slipped between the cracks, reflecting outside influences from the Caribbean, Cape Verde, and overwhelmingly, Western funk, soul and disco. ... The more recent examples are somewhat diluted by developments in technology.

Some of the better songs lack that adhesive zeitgeist quality that used to be the group's stock-in-trade. But at its best, there's enough variety and invention to recall The Beatles, sometimes directly. [Review of UK release The Future Is Medieval]

Beyond these introductory tracks and a couple of others (“Give It Up for Love” struts to a Nile Rogers beat), the album chugs along at a pleasant mid-tempo pace.

The arrangements are pleasurable enough, less rootsy than before, with some skilled use of orchestration; but it's a shame to find such a gifted songwriter sounding so gullible.

The deceptive geniality of his delivery, meanwhile, recalls Gilbert O’Sullivan, enabling him to bring darker undertones to apparently pleasant pieces like the lilting waltz “I’m Gonna Haunt This Place.”

The songs on her third album are more concealed in their arrangements than before, despite a sonic palette still based in the slim, austere piano and cello settings for which she’s known.

It's impressive, slick alienation for the Y Generation, but as with Del Rey, it's a one-trick-pony sort of act.

The drawback of having such a cross-cultural appeal as Shakira is that you’re expected to try and satisfy its every demographic niche, a demand that weakens her first English-language album since 2009’s She Wolf.

It seems like they just ran out of interest, and gave up.

Some of the guest vocalists are questionable--Shara Worden and Sam Amidon seem detached--but Vernon's delivery of Dylan's “Every Grain of Sand” has charm.

In some cases, that sugary voice which works so well as a pop vehicle lacks the full-bodied character to carry a big ballad.

Jim Moray's filtering of traditional folk music through a mesh of modern sensibilities continues on Skulk.

An album that frets gently and artfully at the wounds of human attraction and rejection.

#willpower is stuffed with sounds that, while in no sense as cutting-edge as he likes to make out, crest the wave of the popular.

What a couple of charmers.

Musically, it's the same kind of electro R&B with which radio is already awash--in large part because it's produced by the same small coterie of hip producers, with Timbaland appearing to take the most prominent role amongst the likes of Detail, Jerome Harmon, Pharrell Williams and Ryan Tedder.

In places, Vanderslice’s more abstruse, jazzier ideas grate with the material--notably the clarinet discords closing the old departing-soldier-boy tale “When The Roses Bloom Again”--but he’s usually on the money with things like the elegiac strings accompanying “Betty’s Eulogy” and the lachrymose pedal steel, vibes and shaker underscoring “Wreck”, a heartfelt plea for a lover who’s “a worker, not a volunteer”.

Though less ambitious than 2009's The Liberty of Norton Folgate, Madness's Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da confirms the benefits of spreading songwriting chores among the entire band.

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.

Oddly appealing overall, when not tending too much toward the twisted.

We have to wait for the final, title track for the end of suffering. That Carter’s young daughter Mercy is on the recording ramps up the emotion and hopeful vibe of this acoustic ballad. It’s a much-needed resolution to an album of full-throttle catharsis.

Not to everyone’s taste, but at its best Gamel fizzes with sonic imagination.

Although she’s got the makings of a great songwriter, she needs to push the sounds into sharper corners to give her narratives more distinctive definition. Because this album delivers many shades of grey but never the promised punch of black.

Much else here settles into comfort-zone turf.

Tracks like the reggae-tinged “Right Moves”--which feels like it was supposed to be an ANTI cut--and “Pipe” come off as monotonous. But there is a lot of Aguilera’s sincere authenticity that is weaved throughout Liberation. It may not be a pop record, a hip hop record or a soul record, but it’s certainly an Xtina record.

Garth here sensibly celebrates simple good times in songs like the twangsome “Honky Tonk Somewhere” and its cutting-loose continuation “Weekend”, where copious location namechecks enthuse that “it’s weekend all over the world”. Elsewhere, “Baby, Let’s Lay Down And Dance” tacks its cheeky proposition onto a “Long Train Running” groove, while the chugging boogie of “Pure Adrenaline” suggests how ZZ Top might sound if they were country.

Policy is enjoyable enough, but one hopes that for its follow-up, Butler takes time to find the most accomplished realisations of his material.

The slimmed-down Yuck's sound seems svelte of style, having lost most of its rougher edges and lo-fi feistiness. What's left builds on their Teenage Fanclub-style guitars'n'harmonies approach, but takes it in a less intriguing direction.

It’s a break-up album that’s perhaps a touch too unremittingly bleak for the closing resolution of “Another Train” (“I’m moving on, through the past, through the pain, waiting on another train”) to completely convince.

For the most part, the mood here is pensive, the ballads plentiful and the pace glacial, with little evidence of the wild abandon that the singer supposedly longs for. It’s to Smith’s credit, but also their undoing, that they are just too damned nice.

"Every Song's the Same" offers a charming series of lessons in emotional empathy; while the conceit underlying the piano ballad "Into a Pearl" seems so clear you can't quite believe nobody else thought of it first.

This six-track soundtrack EP of songs by Alex Turner finds the Arctic Monkey in appropriately reflective, wistful mood, as befits the hero's fanciful view of himself as a bit of a thinker.

A couple of tracks feature delicate tracery of classical guitar, but the most baffling feature of the album is the inclusion of three old tracks by Can, which possess a lightness, and dynamic character somewhat absent in the rest of the score.

“Shine On Me” sounds like a George Harrison out-take, while the kitschy-corny “Livin’ In Sin” (“Your touch is electrical/I’m so susceptible”) recalls The Beach Boys circa 15 Big Ones. But there are threads of sly invention woven throughout, most notably the unusual alliance of dobro slide and Bacharach horns that lifts “Wildest Dreams”.

Tracks like the delinquent reminiscence "How Life Changed" and the mea culpa duet with Chris Brown, "Get Back Up", teeter queasily on the cusp of boast and apology. But you have to admire the gall of a repeat offender brazen enough to feature a quote from Helen Keller in his lyric booklet.

This isn’t so much a barnstormer of an album as a reassuringly earthy rock-out among the hay bales.

This alliance with The Orb is positive for both parties, Perry providing a tighter rein on their tendency to meander, while they furnish him with a different terrain to his usual dub skanks.