Released from both internal and external shackles, Muna feels like phase two for one of pop’s best bands.

She can be puckish, yearning, impossibly weary, intimate – and that’s all on one track, 20 Years a Growing. The pair’s most engaging songs start spare, then meander with gathering intensity to an orchestral crescendo

This is an EP to fall into, as though in a swoon, its fine detail revealing itself over time.

More introspective and contemplative than his previous two multi-platinum albums, Gold Rush Kid finds Ezra becoming a man for all seasons.

Every Head album is a gem, but Dear Scott – named after a note-to-self by F Scott Fitzgerald, down on his luck – has a particularly deep internal lustre.

As several of her songs attest, music can be consolation in the most troubled times, and Big Time is a silky balm.

The most country thing about this body of work is the hard-lived wisdom it offers up. The love songs are very grown-up.

Two years on, this sequel is a similarly entrancing, sometimes frightening listen.

Ultimately Styles is more concerned with mood than minutiae. On Harry’s House he’s created a welcoming place to stay.

This electrifying, uneasy record stops, starts and turns, often within the confines of one track. The beats are restless; few comforting grooves are allowed to build for very long.

While there’s nothing as obviously stellar as Grammy-winning US Top 5 hit Boo’d Up or its even better sequel, Trip, Ella has always had a gift for parsing the everyday dramas of twentysomething relationships in relatable (and sometimes 18-rated) language.

Almost as good as a new Radiohead album.

The album takes a step back from the vast productions of Welch’s most famous work, with nods to the Rolling Stones (Dream Girl Evil) and plenty of unexpected chiaroscuro, the better to foreground her luxuriant voice.

A welcome return to form.

An ambitious, accomplished piece of work.

Although this album was written at her new house in Baltimore, when Sangaré got stuck there during lockdown, many of these tracks look to her home region of Wassoulou, whose sung heritage and stringed instruments she has turned into an international world music phenomenon.

Though not as affecting as the original, if we’re talking about club bangers, Kehlani makes it their own.

This ninth outing is Pierce’s most assured in some time, doling out extra helpings of heady patisserie.

Pilbeam’s second album feels like a logical progression from her 2019 debut, Keepsake, a minor success in her home country. Where Giving the World Away sees a great leap forward, however, is with its lyrics.

Although it doesn’t quite touch the consistency of 2021’s Made in the Pyrex, this third mixtape’s moody volatility is utterly compelling.

His records aren’t hard to love, but this one just throws itself at you. ... Even the bad vibes – lysergic imagery, a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Wages of Sin – can’t harsh the fundamental loveliness of Vile’s offering.

Sensitive and punchy as always.

The result crackles with a wired energy that doubles down on his core creative tenets, while still sounding like no other White record released previously.

A class act.

With its atmospheric melody and operatic harmonies, it’s a truly evocative listen.

Clearly Harding is still having fun, and while it can make for a somewhat jarring listening experience, her playfulness adds depth to this charming record.

The album’s feminist slant is “implicit” and reggaeton – the Latin American style heavily influenced by Caribbean sounds – powers a handful of sassy party flexes, a first for this artist, better known for her flamenco background. Staccato rhythms figure heavily, maintaining this unconventional pop artist’s edge. All that energy is balanced out by heartbreak on quieter ballads such as Como Un G and a handful of tracks where Rosalía’s first-class voice is allowed to take more traditional flight.

Reason to Smile brings to mind Ms Dynamite’s 2002 Mercury-winning A Little Deeper : era-defining works that blend hip-hop with neo-soul and jazz, and storytelling that paints the Black British experience with the finest of brushes.