Rather than try to top her peerless pop peaks, Robyn has instead uncovered a new warmth, and the effect, on the lofty, dark techno of Human Being and the trippy tempo dips of Baby Forgive Me--redolent of lost small hours and fleeting epiphanies during dancefloor marathons--is sweet indeed.

There are fractured beats, and tendril-like melodies, but here nothing really lands--as either protest or revelation. ... But mid-album, Cherry and Hebden hit a very sweet spot indeed as Natural Skin Deep finally syncs Hebden’s rhythmic dub jazz and Cherry’s pop nous.

Too much is forgettable.

Across 80 sprawling minutes, Vile does lose his focus occasionally, most notably on the 10-minute title track, which fails to gain much in the way of traction, and the similarly unremarkable Cold Was the Wind. Still, this is an album to savour.

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.

A decent debut, then, but with Mai’s rich voice you can’t help feeling that it could have been stratospheric. Instead, it fails to innovate, and all feels a little beige.

A litany of icy threats, Break That (ft Suspect) doesn’t advance the genre much, but like much of this mixtape it does remind his original fanbase that Octavian is a threat as well as a hedonist street philosopher.

It’s not that C5 is too little, too late; more that the baton between the generations passed some time ago.

Though life has its shadows still (the motorik psych-country epic Round the Horn, the vocoder lament Christmas Down Under), the core of C’est La Vie is radiant happiness, Houck’s familiar sounds buffed to a transcendent shine.

Dose Your Dreams is a dizzying mix of styles, often within the same song.

Marshall now has a manager, but Wanderer has that spooked strangeness of old. The grim reaper looms large. ... But there are tunes, too--pretty things like Horizon, which pays tribute to her family, while Marshall simultaneously eyes the exit.

Roosevelt’s is an airbrushed, off-kilter kind of pop, and while he still isn’t pushing the envelope, Young Romance is a pleasant enough listen.

It’s About Time is a masterly collection of relentlessly upbeat floor-fillers, even if the song titles--Boogie All Night, Dance With Me, Do You Wanna Party?--occasionally verge on self-parody.

While many of these 21 tracks (interludes abound) sound familiar--tunes like Pass the Knife share considerable bongwater with Cypress Hill’s 90s heyday--innovations do liven up the Hill’s central theme.

Dark and absorbing, The Blue Hour is never dull, although in an age of playlist-friendly immediacy it’s hard to imagine its appeal stretching far beyond already committed fans.

It’s an intensely intimate experience, appropriately voyeuristic and transgressive for a songwriter who wrote about both things so well. The versions of Prince’s better-known songs may disappoint some--Purple Rain is a meandering snippet--but what stays with you is the sense of talent, hardening to genius.

Although neophytes might struggle with Holley’s shruggy attitude to tunefulness--his free-ranging sound recalls, at different times, Tom Waits, Gil Scott-Heron or RL Burnside--a coterie of associates help to flesh out Holley’s non-linear storytelling into something more conventionally accomplished.

Here, as with Grimes, percussion is used as a weapon; none of the lyrics are clichéd top 40 pap. Unlike Grimes, however, Letissier has a bold, synthetic funk payload to commend her, and her lyrics are more obviously personal.

14 tracks stretches the hooks a little thin, but My Mind Makes Noises boasts pop craft to rival big-money production teams, and much better eyeliner to boot.

Weller sounds at ease with this more introspective material, the lush orchestration acting as a perfect foil to his voice.

It’s a beautifully crafted, upbeat pop album, and MNEK’s voice is compelling and gorgeous; the only small quibble is it’s a tad long.Colour , a triumphal duet with Hailee Steinfeld, feels a little tacked on in an effort to emulate the success of his Zara Larsson collab Never Forget You, and the conversational between-song interludes likewise feel a little extraneous, if all part and parcel of MNEK’s unique, mellifluous Language.

The finest songs here land immediately and hum with urgency.

Kamikaze finds Marshall Mathers revelling in his Slim Shady rabid underdog role, fulminating at critics, boggling at Lil Yachty, and sneering at the Migos flow on Not Alike. How riveting all this finger-wagging is probably depends upon your birth date.

The melodies are simple but lovely, often spelled out on tumbling acoustic guitar, as on Like Water, before being taken up by the group. It’s wonderful to have them back.

Bloom is a bare-faced record, thrillingly honest and defiantly queer, proving Sivan is one of pop’s most essential voices.

She still struggles to throw off what must now be very tiresome PJ Harvey comparisons. That said, this is very much a resonant record, set in the here and now, with melodies to the fore.

What makes for a happy life is this album’s implied question, and as well as all the necessaries about love, Honne offer up idiosyncratic takes on cars (the Peugeot 306, no less) and shrinks.

Flight of Fancy and Number 10 impress too, but elsewhere the quality is more variable: Daniel Kessler’s delicate guitar lines aside, the slower Stay in Touch lacks any light or shade. The equally uninspired closer is called It Probably Matters; on this evidence it probably doesn’t.