Though rooted in familiar influences--“Crossing The Road Material” is like a more anchored Neu!, while “Old Poisons” is old-school psychedelia, with squealing organ and guitar swathed in drums--Mogwai apply subtle details that are unmistakably their own.

The narrow range of Nevins's voice limits its character somewhat, but is still compelling when combined with her mountain fiddle on a song such as "Wood and Stone", whose crisp swamp-funk country backbeat brings pep to its message of tradition and heritage.

Can’t Touch Us Now doesn’t have quite the exploratory breadth of Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da, but there’s enough variety to animate their tableaux of social portraits.

It does seem as if Paloma’s sacrificed some individuality for some of that bankable overwrought wailing.

Despite never being freer as an artist, there is a safety to Positions that means it only occasionally takes off.

Pleasant and pleasingly melodic, but lacking the risky edge that makes a band truly great, The Silver Seas are like the living equivalent of a guilty pleasure.

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.

For his debut as Mr Jukes, former Bombay Bicycle Club frontman Jack Steadman uses deftly-applied jazz samples, restoring his youthful interest in that genre after years in the indie salt-mines.

While Joyride has its shining points and attempts to remain true to a cohesive, moodier (albeit more mature) tone, it’s missing the strong, catchier elements that helped Tinashe rise in the first place. But there’s no reason to count her out just yet.

Arbouretum deal in an odd blend of folk and heavy rock, these seven tracks trudging along like a deep-sea diver traversing the sea bed in ten-league boots.

All told, it’s pretty crowded territory, with too many jams.

A very credible record with no real mistakes--but no real personality, either.

Not a party album.

Iit’s sad to lose such a determinedly individual outsider talent, the vulgar bark of whose records, one suspects, was rather worse than his bite.

Rudimental’s follow-up to Home is not quite as impressive, though in fairness, most of the contributing vocalists lack the charismatic tone that John Newman brought to that debut album.

This record doesn’t find the often-brilliant Musgraves on her sharpest, Dolly Parton-est form. She delivers more platitudes than usual; her melodic shifts often lack their tangier twists. But the sadness and everydayness of her breakup does breathe slowly and honestly through the songs.

There is no song on Fever Dream that is likely to eclipse, or even cast a shadow on the success of “Little Talks”, but this is a soothing, affable record nonetheless.

Wagner's hesitant delivery is poignantly underscored by Tidwell's more emotive phrasing, while the arrangements of neat picking and weeping fiddle are applied with customary understatement.

There’s plenty of talent there, but more homework is needed before they graduate to the bigger leagues.

Grizzled Americana veteran Ray Wylie Hubbard cooks up a steamy stew of voodoo magick and rock’n’roll mythos on Tell The Devil I’m Gettin’ There As Fast As I Can, a title whose droll self-deprecation is reflected in the weary sprechstimme style with which Hubbard delivers his narratives, homages and sermons.

Warmth rises consistently from I Told Them, with its easygoing mix of Afro pop, rap and R&B. You inhale it – soft, nourishing and moreish as if it’s steaming off freshly baked bread. There are moments of nutty chewiness, but mostly it’s stretches of pleasant, if airily bland, doughiness.

It's Bruni's intimacy that's the album's most alluring aspect.

Beauty Behind the Madness leaves one feeling just as estranged from Abel Tesfaye’s depraved character as previous releases boasting less adhesive tunes.

Like Random Access Memories, it’s an enjoyable dance-pop album lacking a central focus. But one whose diffident charm makes a pleasant change from the overwrought wailing that routinely afflicts R&B.

At their best, on the barroom piano rocker “Dirty Water”, there’s a brazen, Stones-y charm to the tart, offbeat guitar twitch and raunchy slide guitar; while societal decline is dealt a simple slap in the punchy rocker “Death & Destruction”.

Other highlights include Los Lobos’ typically confident swagger through “Bootleg”, and the unusual alliance of ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons with Colombian singer La Marisoul on a wonderfully gritty “Green River”.

[It] features sleek R&B versions of mostly traditional gospel and blues numbers, some bookended with fragments of the originals, alongside interesting covers of things like Dylan's "Shot of Love".

To a certain extent it works, especially when Josh Homme’s on hand to lend gritty riffing and imaginative lead lines to some tracks: his spiky but fluid breaks on “A-Yo” and “John Wayne” are undoubted album highlights. Sadly, the bombastic orchestral stomper “Perfect Illusion”, a much-anticipated collaboration with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, is less impressive, just stridently dull.