Shingai Shoniwa's vocals supply enough personality to elevate them above standard winebar fare.

This evergreen Glasgow outfit have only tweaked their sound rather than rebooting it decisively, though, making their fifth album a restatement of their core art school pop principles.

Embarrassed and Shame double down on how these emotions hold women hostage. Most personal of all is the Auto-Tuned and digitally spacious Midland’s Guilt, about how Somerville couldn’t wait to leave Tamworth but now feels aghast at losing her accent.

Album number two ramps up the risibility factor even further and will make most sense at one of the group's barnstorming live shows.

These songs move from the personal pain of a breakup--Seven Words, with its sentimental organ, heartbeat pulse and clouds of choral glory--to the planetary pain of environmental disaster and our Snapchatting detachment from it.

They are far more interesting when they let in some light, most notably on The Hum’s standout, the simmering Retreat.

These are mature, classy songs. They’re also abuzz with the thrill of a bright new musical friendship, audible in the confidences Brewis conjures on the punchy Watercooler, or Hayes’s unburdening of private griefs on the radiant, string-swept Springburn.

This is a well-crafted collection that could maybe do with a couple more heaters, but will keep the wider audience he picked up with Conflict of Interest happy.

Every rhythmic lurch and stylistic shift, though, remains in the service of the band's greater groove, giving these 10 tracks an ease that belies their ferocious complexity.

As the album hits its stride it heads squarely into AOR territory, and one or two tracks could have been a good minute shorter, but even tracks such as the pop-rock single Flying in the Face of Love are lifted by superior production.

Perhaps an editor might have come in handy: Dupuis can lose sight of the wood here, for the production flourishes. But Haunted Painting recalls the singular visions of fellow travellers such as Tune-Yards (who guests) or St Vincent, although direct comparisons are unhelpful.

At 21 minutes long it could do with a trim, but the closing part, a cover of the Velvet Underground’s I’m Set Free, shows that Eno remains one of the great shape shifters.

As elegantly crafted as it all is, it does become a little homogeneous, and well before Other You’s 50 minutes are up, you do find yourself craving a gear change somewhere.

The most exciting thing that can be said for the remaining tracks is that they're less maudlin than last time around.

Lana Del Rey's partying is fuelled by a knowing sadness, and sung in that laconic, hypnotic voice, which ultimately saves this thoroughly dissolute, feminist nightmare of a record for the romantics among us.

Even on the album’s softer moments – delicate strummer All I Wanted, the lovely mid-tempo Yellow – the mood is still resolute in its heaviness. There’s relatable catharsis here, but it can be a lot to carry all at once.

For the most part these songs are entirely lacking in bite, dragging through limp soft rock and even softer sentiments.

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

Only the more animated Here it Comes Again finds them delivering upon that early promise.

There’s nothing that really connects here; no flash of originality to distinguish them from any number of stadium emoters riffing on fantasies of the open road.

Song after song goes by far too slickly, showcasing Grande's good girl technical ability and her songwriters' hit-making formulae at the expense of lasting memories.

Perhaps rabble-rousing reels, big, dumb, bruising guitars and flag-waving, roared choruses of bromidic triumphalism just make more sense after several pints of Guinness.

His 17th album doesn't deviate wildly from the blueprint.

Too many songs start engagingly, become slightly less interesting then peter out. And as ever, Tucek’s lyrics fall between pleasingly quotidian and blandly banal, derailing promising tracks such as The Tunnel.

There are nice moments of nostalgia: banger Hearts and Flowers references Jenny from the Block, while the excellent Rebound is a throwback R&B jam accentuated by fluttering harp. But songs such as To Be Yours and Not.going.anywhere offer very little outside of simply soundtracking a cosy night in chez Bennifer.

The arresting Concrete, meanwhile, finds Odell busting out a slow jam that approaches R&B, the last thing you would expect. Most of the rest of Wrong Crowd backtracks hard, however, to the sort of house-trained, string-laden guff that gets you John Lewis ads.

Too much of Music veers towards chewy chart balladry and away from the amusing blues rockers where American Idol judge Steven Tyler maneuvers his mic stand around with a scarf.

It contains flashes of her former glories--This Ain’t Love’s soft R&B lilt; The Answer’s joyful chorus--but the rest is proficient, if hackneyed.