Deadweight is an ominous-sounding opener sugared by some lovely falsetto, while the lilting, reggae-tinged Won’t Follow deals with loss but ends with Gallab sweetly crooning “I feel new”. A compelling reminder of the uplifting power of music.

The restlessness is counterweighted by wit and songwriting power.

The results fizz and bob like a Berocca for the ears.

While this seventh album continues the band’s slow move away from the anthemic drama of The Seldom Seen Kid, there’s a richness of ideas here that rewards repeated listening.

Tinariwen’s call-and-response vocals roll inexorably, entrancingly along. They are still the champions of the genre they created.

Loose, heady and sensual by turns, Garden of Ashes surveys both the parlous state of the world and blasted inner landscapes with resonant instrumentation, rattlesnake percussion and a thousand-yard stare. And yet, on songs such as Sleep, the overriding impression is one of succour.

Every listen throws up some new, previously unnoticed innovation.

Among the standouts are a theatrical version of Ewan MacColl’s The Fitter’s Song, the crazed instrumental Love Lane, and Carthy’s own You Know Me, an empathic comment on the refugee crisis.

[Thile’s] vocal style may verge on the eccentric, but it’s perfectly in tune, and it soon becomes obvious that he and Mehldau are well matched in their musicality.

Like its parent film, T2 Trainspotting’s soundtrack eschews cosy Cool Britannia nostalgia for something weirder and better.

The meandering midsection of Warm Hands is a slight misstep, but this is another impressive addition to Segall’s canon.

Its [The second track's] eerily distorted saxophone, a nod to Low, takes six minutes to surface, but then takes centre stage, a mournful motif subtly evolving over the next quarter of an hour. The multilayered title track, meanwhile, is a less immediate drone, but proves hypnotic well within its 17-minute timeframe.

Carner’s scuffed, wry flows grab you by the feels from the get-go and do not relinquish their grip.

Only woolly lyrics stop the album achieving the sharp quality of its influences.

The tunes attest that she’s not spreading her talents too far and wide.

Her lyrics can be oblique and occasionally ungainly. But her voice--soaring, delicate--brings vulnerability and heat to this vision of a post-human world.

Wiley is back, and with a banger. There’s no dud on this rattling tour de force.

Abetted by some sparse orchestration, the beauty of Not Even Happiness takes effect even if you can’t make out Byrne’s measured poeticism: the voice is a balm.

Using samples for the first time, they have tweaked their sound in myriad ways, while still retaining the sense of proximity within spaciousness for which they are famous.

The album’s mix of soul, R&B, grime and trippy, jazz-tinged interludes is at times a little muddled, but Simz’s lyrical agility and deft rapping sit comfortably with a variety of production styles.

It’s the warmth and personality of her voice that rings particularly true.

A late 2016 highlight.

Hard to believe it was 50 years ago. Nobody’s done it better since, and few have even tried.

Throughout, the sound on Blue & Lonesome captures the clatter of a largely live band loyally rendering the music of their heroes. Despite the title, and against the odds, it is an album full of joy.

Throughout, Glover’s genre fluency is unimpeachable; the only minor drawback is the overmannered air of some of these period pieces, where there could be more straight-up abandon, as on the persuasive Me and Your Mama.

Home recordings, small group experiments and the spoken credo of I Am an Instrument make for a rich, eventful ride.

Do Easy is harmless, a little preposterous and quite beguiling--just like all good goths.

This 20th-anniversary set fills a bootlegger’s jug with 21 outtakes and demos of Orphan Girl, Annabelle and the rest. The pick of its eight previously unreleased songs are the caustic I Don’t Want to Go Downtown and the homely Wichita, but every drop is delicious.

Highlights abound, but a thrilling Aerial and a sumptuous Top of the City deserve particular acclaim.

Her sixth studio album shows her versatility at its best, its songs not so much genre experiments as joyful costume changes.

When they lock into a winning riff, as on Confusion and Atlas, Rise!, there are still few better bands around.

In a year of superb, politically charged albums by black American artists, Alicia Keys’s sixth record is a standout, on which her signature piano takes second place to her urgent voice.

The reversals in the lives of African Americans are front and centre; this most conscious of hip-hop crews remain exemplary bellwethers.

Flotus is a calm, cumulative album about lasting love, unfussily filtering ancient through modern.

Although there’s no hit to rival the Selma soundtrack epic, Glory, and a reunion with its vocalist John Legend is the worst of furrowed-brow, gluten-free beat poetry, this is intelligent, impressive work.

This sixth album is well judged, treating eight old songs to varied arrangements and adding a brace of originals.

The mood is austere, studded by encounters with mortality, but the accompaniments from Oysterband’s Ian Kearey are full of subtlety and surprise, with delicate guitars and blasts of squeezebox. A late-flowering triumph.

Yes, it’s over-AutoTuned, and the ballads are still rubbish. But this somehow smooshes Cut Copy, ELO and Daft Punk into a honeyed mess that leaves you licking the bowl and twitching for more.

There’s also great ingenuity in the shorter interludes comprising little more than random chatter over a simple melody (Can’t Stop). An album with this much flair and originality is hard to fault.

You Want It Darker could be addressed to fans pining for a return to Cohen’s bleakest songwriting; or a lover, or a higher power.

The rediscovered intimacy suits him--there’s a bracing directness to these songs that’s been lacking over the last decade.

Reflective and exuberant by turns, it’s an outstanding album.

[A] short but highly intriguing record from Norwegian pop experimentalist Jenny Hval.

Happy Day (Sister My Sister) has the languid swing of the Band, Like a Mirror Loves a Hammer feels like a classic cut of southern funk. But this is much more than an exercise in loving hommage, not least because his lyrics brim with personality and feeling.

Perhaps Tempest’s greatest achievement is not to fall prey to the pressure for unnecessary revolution; her work sits more comfortably in the tradition of perfecting the groove, not changing it. That perfection might be illusion, but its pursuit can produce wonderful work, as it has right here.

It all makes for their most coherent album since 2004’s American Idiot.

Joyous, maudlin or gritty, it’s marriage country-style. Delightful.

Normally you’d change carriages to avoid someone sounding this unhinged, but the 15 dosages Brown dispenses here are worryingly addictive.

It’s safe to say that though big sis Beyoncé has run her close recently, she’s once more the most intriguing Knowles sibling.

It’s an album that revels in its creative freedom.

With composers ranging from Stephen C Foster to Tom Waits, Willie Dixon to Linton Kwesi Johnson, the only subject they seem to have in common is life itself, but the candour of Peyroux’s approach, the warm intimacy of her voice and the incisive clarity of the arrangements draw them together.

It’s one of the year’s most riveting musical self-portraits, in which trap beats alternate with string sections, and demi-monde specifics with universal needs.

Almost everything else, however, is a treat, the successive iterations of Communication Breakdown and Dazed… showcasing the evolving chemistry of one of Britain’s greatest ever bands.

It occasionally loses focus, but overall the decision to open up has worked wonders.

Their 10th album is surprisingly straightforward, its 12 songs concise, uncomplicated, largely acoustic affairs. However, listen more carefully to Jeff Tweedy’s lyrics and there’s a bitterness that’s at odds with the gentle instrumentation.

Skeleton Tree shares sonic DNA with its predecessor, 2013’s Push the Sky Away, but there is something inward-facing here, something of the solo, piano Nick Cave, or of The Boatman’s Call.

Here she sounds more assured, even in her darker moments, and her strong, versatile voice is as extraordinary as ever.

With its hypnotic vocal sample, unnerving silences and ever-changing beat, Burial collaboration Sweetz is one of many standouts.

Trick feels more celebratory than melancholy, mostly because of the bruising passion and commitment Treays loads into every syllable, every bar.

In his songs, Ocean is not in control. In fact, he is attractively lost.

Indeed, this is one of those rare albums that reveals a little more with every play.

The whole thing makes you want to punch the air--or maybe even strip off.

Producer Aaron Dessner, of the National, takes few risks and overplays the solemn piano chords, but Hannigan’s soaring vocals never falter.

Landlord is fantastic, crafted, big-stage trap with the lissom, conversational feel of a mixtape.

This is a kaleidoscopic, hard-hitting record designed for the feet as much as the synapses, healing by frequencies.

Gnomic titles, introverted lyrics directed at a vaguely defined “you”, and yearning vocals rippling through an extravagantly brutish soup of sound: this band’s 30-year narrative arc is a straight line.

Throughout, Nao balances some very aerated sulking about unsatisfactory relationships with defiantly old-school touches. You can hear everyone from Janet Jackson to Aaliyah in this confident artist’s deceptively dreamy tones.

Stith creates musical friction in a way that’s brilliantly compelling, and there are passages of calm here too. Summer Madness, in particular, shimmers with impressionistic beauty.

Occasionally it sounds like the worst sort of shallow, awfully English electronic funk, but mostly the seductive cradle-rock rhythms drag you in deeper, like quicksand for the ears.

She dazzlingly updates the genre she has dominated for a half a century while restating her sassy, feminist persona.

Hazy and mellifluous, theyesandeye possesses a Nick Drake-like attention to detail.

It is eminently danceable, but not braindead. Funk bubbles away down below, but the lyrics are well worth tuning into.

A pastoral, wistful brand of psychedelia holds sway throughout this absorbing record.

With Lyme disease in abeyance, these 13 new songs fizz and rage with a mixture of girl-group sass (key track: Rather Not) and surf-garage buzz.

Peppered throughout with snippets of audio from old home videos, Nothing’s Real feels like a properly curated album, and one of the year’s best.

It’s clear the fierce, weird and wonderful Biffy still have plenty of ambition.

Innovative and imaginative, IV overflows with ideas throughout.

Summer Jam is as aimless as the name suggests--but overall this is almost a match for 2011’s wonderful English Riviera.

Even more intriguing are the songs that go beyond quietly epic reportage into a kind of otherworldly state, in which Power’s own selfhood comes under attack--something of an occupational hazard in intense relationships, not least motherhood.

A deceptively sweet-sounding set which, once you cotton on to the pianist’s way of treating a few mainly well-known tunes, is absolutely absorbing.

Although Mirrors requires several listens to fully appreciate its beauty, it is definitely worth the effort.

Sonically, however, Blood Moon stands alone as a perfectly judged synthesis of conventional songwriting skills and detailed, cinematic music that revels in the silence between the notes. Superb.

Spaciously produced, it’s a classy piece of modern Americana.

Case/lang/veirs have hit upon a sound that is gentle yet resonant, and wrestled out of three fiercely independent careers, an alt-country record of depth and scope.

Modern Country is a beatific and expansive ambient record daubed in acoustic and electric guitars, analogue oscillations, some really scary bells and no words; its meaning can be fluid.

It may be post-punk in the way that the Fonz was proto-punk, but Musa’s tail-thumping ambition to construct the perfect chorus lifts even the lesser songs.

A tight, cohesive record bathed in a hazy West Coast glow.

His final studio album proves an affecting swansong from the late New Orleans composer, producer, pianist and legend. Here Toussaint treats jazz classics by Fats Waller, Billy Strayhorn, Bill Evans and others to his intricate yet funky piano skills.

The musical chemistry is undiminished on their third album where a languid kind of heartache holds sway.

It all makes for an excellent follow-up to 2012’s comeback album, One Day I’m Going to Soar.

Simon is even more sonically restless than usual: microtonal variations say so much.

At times, the high-definition production sheen feels smothering, but overall this is a multilayered, emotionally engaging pop confection.

Moments such as the opening melody of This Belongs to You or the gradual unfolding of Born are just plain elegant. There’s a similar quality about saxophonist Chris Potter’s playing, and all four are so relaxed in each other’s company that everything flows beautifully.

There are thrills galore for fans of the Knife and Róisín Murphy (like Murphy’s Hairless Toys, Tempo is inspired by ball culture documentary Paris Is Burning), and nagging hooks too.

Despite its sunny origins, there’s a shard of ice speared through Kidsticks, a frost that burns fierce as fire.

If it’s revealing to find the Dead rendered succinctly, this collection’s sonic ambition is also exemplary.

Partygoers collapse or embarrass themselves; strings, clarinets and lush Harry Nilsson-style moments all add to the snapshot of an accomplished new voice.

Held together by Grande’s skyscraping voice, Dangerous Woman throws a lot at the wall and, brilliantly, most of it sticks.