Other times, this debut tends towards the characterless, making all the right sounds (retro vocals, contemporary beats) but more often than not, choosing the path of least grit, least quirk, and least memorability.

The lead-up to Purpose produced three unexpectedly great beats, for Where Are Ü Now, Sorry and What Do You Mean? respectively. Just as unexpectedly, there are even more where these came from.

To impugn such a fundamentally glazed record for losing focus as it nears the out-groove is a little like berating a shark for being snaggle-toothed. But as II unfurls, there are longueurs where Nielson can get a little vague and inward-directed.

Holy Fvck has its flaws – Lovato’s powerful voice is unnecessarily finessed and Auto-Tuned, and 16 tracks is too long. But its gutsy ambition is a thing of substance in and of itself.

The title is optimistic: few of these vocalists display obvious potential, and their presence amid Hinton’s finely calibrated beats can be jarring. The clockwork production accentuates their awkwardness.... It helps that Hinton’s regard for these wannabe superstars seems genuine.

The first few tracks, particularly the Prince-like Compound Fracture, are endearingly spacious and snake-hipped, but The Waterfall’s lacklustre second half indicates they’ve lost touch with the band they once were.

A Brief Inquiry is a hard album to top, and Notes is, perhaps, the most disjointed and unclassifiable of the 1975’s works. It serves best, perhaps, as a long and intermittently lovely outro to that defining record.

Running to 58 minutes, there are inevitable longueurs, too, where the five-piece nod rather than soar. Still, their full immersion convinces.

It’s a shame, then, that the songs accompanying Grohl’s most powerfully affecting set of lyrics so often fail to reach the same standard [as the Foo Fighters’ 1995 debut].

As with his last few records, Young’s horror at the destruction of the environment remains high in the mix, with a grab-bag of other themes (ageing, self-belief, the iniquities of tech) and a silvery hope that “something new is growing”, as he puts it on the freewheeling title track.

It's all stylishly conceived, but--in part because Lindén's deadpan vocals are buried so deep in the mix--too often it fails to engage.

These are easy wins – a sonic sugar rush that crashes once each three-minute track is over. Yet when Armstrong gives us a glimpse of life away from the party-rapping – exploring his anxieties on Belgrave Road and his relationship with his sister on My G – he showcases a newfound vulnerability.

Variety comes in the form of a gently funky soul interlude midway through that highlights the versatility of James Petralli’s voice. But rather than complementing the rest of the album it betrays Stiff’s lack of cohesion.

The unseemly segments, where Madonna baits and gyrates, can be a hoot. When she acts her age, it is lacklustre and over-enunciated; lived-and-loved stuff trotted out in overblown ballads.

As the album warms up and moves from the personal to the politicalit grows teeth, building to MC Mystro's rap about the 2011 riots on More Money, More Fire.

An overarching concern on Petals… is how Williams constructs a workable new femininity free from her old tomboy identity in Paramore. The blooming metaphor is, as a result, slightly overplayed throughout. ... Although there are a couple of low-key co-writes, Williams and York remain the organising creatives, and Williams sounds both free and in control.

The more complex likes of Look Over Your Shoulder’s thrillerish build-and-hush tension, My Own’s dark and shifty Timbalandish textures and the moody, dubstep blues ballad of Forgiven, with its sunburst of a chorus, keep this lusciously atmospheric album well on the right side of smooth.

The album’s title speaks of urgency; its nearest song, Don’t Look Now, details the unwanted advances that bedevil a model. But the episode twinkles a little too prettily for the subject matter.

The less good news is that although every pairing has juice in it – the inclusion of a Nicole Scherzinger-paired Hawaiian traditional is a great curveball – many of these songs feel like over-pretty drawing room star turns. Nothing here is slick, exactly, but much tends towards mellifluous pleasantness – even the songs about protest and murder.

The mix of camaraderie and musical expertise (the formidable Punch Brothers are house band) is infectious, the celebration of politically tinged folk more joyous than the Coens’ downbeat tale.

For all its inevitable ubiquity, this downbeat, low-lit album has the bonus of not being in your face at all.

Audacious, cryptic and meandering, Eucalyptus is both brilliant and infuriating, thanks mainly to the Animal Collective man’s refusal to ditch the half-formed workouts that litter this LP.

It makes for an incoherent, slightly unsatisfactory whole.

They're such pretty songs, sung with sweet simplicity.

It’s beautifully played and engineered, with DeMarco’s nimble vocals softly caressing your speakers from inside, but it cossets where it could challenge.

The just-so production and mastery of the American songbook is pure Rostam, while Leithauser anchors these story-songs with a plethora of vocal moods: gargles, croons and yelling.

These songs about love and existential sorrow feel purposely airy and unanchored – there’s no percussion – mirroring the psychological freefall of recent times. Ironically, though, they firm up the parallels between Lindeman and fellow complex Canadian, Joni Mitchell.

When it’s good, it’s usually something that sounds like the luscious, clinical opener 4ware, or cow-brained stomper Three Pound Chicken Wing. Otherwise there are too many generic pompous 70s-prog synths grafted on to basic beats.