This is an album whose bone-deep grief sits inside music that’s very easy to tap a toe to.

Some of this magnificently sullen band’s edges have been filed down; their strides into left field could have been more decisive.

As middle of the road as this singer undoubtedly seems, there is, however, much to commend her debut album, Not Your Muse – a gutsier, wiser and more elliptical set of songs than may at first appear.

With its silky delicacy, percussion that plays with everything from trip-hop to neosoul, and that deft voice gliding through sublime imagery, this is a quietly enriching and powerful first album.

The scrappy underdog bite of, say, their quarter-arsed, one-minute cover of the Bee Gees’ unimprovable Stayin’ Alive is swapped for a swathe of toothless tunes neither cool nor commercial enough to satisfy hardcore fans or find an entirely new audience. The band’s mayfly magic endures, though, particularly on The Way That You Do’s ragged clarity, the hypnotically repetitive Big Bad Want or live favourite Corner Store.

Songs such as Maid Marian’s Toast are both clever, easy-going and gilded with just the right amount of feedback and mouth organ.

Her anger is buoyed up by a sample from Kelis’s Caught Out There, a throwback trick she tries again less successfully on the bratty, Avril-referencing L8r Boi. It feels like a cheap gimmick on an album that manages to avoid novelty even when its tongue is placed firmly in its cheek.

Nobody Is Listening doubles down on this expertly cultivated, look-but-don’t-touch, this-far-and-no-further brand. The good news is that, as an artist, Zayn keeps refining. The songwriters may be many here, but the songs suit him more and more.

Andrew Fearn’s deathlessly inventive compositions stare you down, defying you to find them simplistic – the title track’s turbo-charged electro, and the pointillist electronics of Top Room, are just two cases in point.

Two Saviors has a wonderfully loose feel. Meek’s gently enunciated vocals, delivered with all the urgency of Kurt Vile awaking from a nap, are backed by a band that knows how to keep it simple, Mat Davidson’s pedal steel and organ from Meek’s brother Dylan giving proceedings a timeless country feel. This lack of immediacy is a double-edged sword, however: too often the songs are so laid-back that they slide out of focus.

Justin used a sparer musical palette than Earle Sr, often with a rockabilly feel – the celebrated Harlem River Blues, for example – but the Dukes, a tough, road-worn outfit, tend to iron out their variety. Earle’s vocals, growling and gravelled these days, deliver the songs straight, only occasionally letting a sense of loss intrude.

At a time of such division, it’s a startlingly brave record and all the more necessary for it.

Swift is a songwriter for the ages, “stronger than a 90s trend”, as she sings on Willow. But she’s still a little muted on Evermore as she was on Folklore by pastel music that smears Vaseline on her otherwise keen lens.

There’s a mixtape energy in Smith’s relentless invention.

There’s much to discover here, making it an immersive and rewarding album to go back to again and again.

If III suffers a little from the patchiness endemic to the mission statement, musical freedom – a sense of unfettered “let it be”-ness – is the chief draw here.

He is no torch singer; most often, Ward recalls John Fahey or Robert Johnson, but the spectral, night-time atmosphere captures the hurt and weariness of Holiday’s delivery.

Ultimately, Harrison has very definitely found an audience, but many of these Gen Z themes are being explored more creatively elsewhere.

The result is an invigorating if disorientating listen, as Nasty hurtles from a seductive trap tête-à-tête with Aminé (Back and Fourth) into songs resembling Korn (Girl Scouts, Let It Out). To some this will sound like a gimmick; to others it’s the future.

There are occasional missteps – the closing two minutes of Dvergmál veer worryingly close to windswept arena rock, and elsewhere there’s a ponderousness in places – but this is a good document of a bold artistic move.

At its least appealing, the music follows suit, dealing in boilerplate pop of varying hues: ponderous-verse-into-epic-chorus balladry; sugary indie guitars on 305 and Teach Me How to Love, dance pop so unmemorable it’s a wonder Mendes didn’t forget he was singing it and wander off midway through. But, just occasionally, something from outside the standard palette of current pop grabs your attention.

Of the 20 phoned-in songs here, 19 are at best inessential, at worst actively irritating.

Half the time, Cyrus is touting some ersatz idea of “rawk” proselytised by MTV circa 1984. ... Things perk up considerably on the songs that feel more authentic to Cyrus.

This album doesn’t feel much like Uchis’s artistic step-up, her Norman Fucking Rockwell or El Mal Querer, but more like a suck-it-and-see step on – a hastily released album that suggests her best is yet to come.

Lush, cavernous record.

If Disc 1 has more room for unreleased fun – a terrifically roiling live take on the sprawling Last Trip to Tulsa, a standout from Young’s self-titled debut album - Disc 6 doubles down on introspection.

The best that can be said is that Trotter’s singing is warm and assured. Elsewhere, though, this veteran polemicist is on fire, his learned invective weaponised to meet the present moment. ... The rest of the track-listing has both power and nuance, taking in personal relationships (We Should Be Good), autobiographical pain (Fuelt) and references to TS Eliot (Ghetto Boyz N Girls), with Trotter barely pausing for breath before landing the next masterful rhyme.

[An] endearingly careworn debut.