It certainly gets close to chaos at times, but these live shows often did. From that point of view at least, it's truly authentic.

It treads a fine line between swashbuckling versatility and a lack of cohesion. Versatility largely wins out.

Equal parts funky electro throwback and prog chanson monster, St Vincent's fourth album feels like the culmination of a trajectory from the margins to centre stage with a minimum of intellectual loss.

The only downside is that Kiwanuka could have been even braver.

Even though these arrangements are not gratuitous, and All Mirrors is beautifully wrought, it never quite devastates. More weirdness would have helped, and less default goth-pop. Strangely, Olsen’s voice gets a bit lost in the mix, a little too ill-defined, atmospheric and understated to stand up to the operatics surrounding her.

Crutchfield rides a middle road here. Same producer yet different band; same sprightly Americana vibe yet more emotionally placid than its predecessor, which recounted a troubled reckoning with her newfound sobriety.

There are “interludes” and “intermissions” aplenty; the blissed-out Beltway has shades of The Girl from Ipanema in its melody, and Binz is as catchy as a playground clapping game--but both are over before you know it. Exit Scott (referring to another street in Houston) uses a gospel sample that could--and would, in the past--have been stretched out to make a hit single, but here it is, just one minute and one second long.

Bright Green Field has a hurtling energy, each song shifting restlessly, repeatedly in style and pace. It’s a shame, then, that the vocals of drummer and lyricist Ollie Judge so often pull it back to earth.

These 16 tracks (17 on the deluxe version) play out quite pleasurably in their entirety, the joins between Swift, Dessner and Antonoff ultimately only of niche interest. But Swift’s powerful songs reach their climaxes with bittersweet orchestrations, rather than blows to the solar plexus or a ringing in the ears. Everything hovers; little truly lands.

While her pure, clear voice is as expressive and engaging as ever, Valentine is more accessible and less interesting.

There’s a sharpness in these songs that still unsettles. It’s there in Crutchfield’s vocals, louder and fiercer than before, and on songs such as Fire, which is also difficult to love. Her lyrics, tackling subjects including addiction and self-hatred, often feel too verbose, but they become surprising and refreshing on closer listen.

Prince’s tightly controlled production style, down to his proteges’ smallest inflections – the Time’s Gigolos Get Lonely Too is a spot-the-difference exercise – also means there’s little that differs substantially from its more polished released version, delicious as it is to hear him sing Martika’s blissful Love… Thy Will Be Done.

On this sequel, Gibbs mostly sounds bored, aggressively bored or boringly aggressive. The ever creative Madlib chucks in everything he can find to dazzle the listener. When this coheres--in the vicious swamp-beat of Massage Seats, for example--it’s sensational. Often his work sounds too dense to compete with mass-market trap, and struggles to support Gibbs’s gruff rhymes.

Packed as it is with all this goodness, Art Angels fails to comprehensively blow your mind. Ultimately, Grimes has not reinvented the pop wheel, she’s just driven it off road a little.

Separate Ways and Try are wounded but tender breakup songs, Kansas a gentle reflection on a one-night stand. An unremarkable band blues and an unlistenable finger-on-wineglass affair contribute little to an album that’s well-found but, like much of Young’s recent output, for the committed.

Some moments fall flat – Lonely is cloying, paint-by-numbers EDM-pop that doesn’t fully land. Still, Indigo is a polished collection that spans both pop and rap with confidence.

Words make Arca’s tense, sad hyper-modernity a little more accessible, if no less strange.

A workable entente between past and future is struck on Edna. Headie One gets to flex, collaborate and try new things, while Irving Adjei feels safe enough to show vulnerability.

A handful more tracks and now, the full monty, reveals that there seem to be two Wet Legs high-kicking for supremacy: the knockabout, sly, absurdist outfit and a band that turn out to be quite like a lot of other bands.

McMahon follows up Love with Freedom, tackling troubled masculinity through a series of character studies and a mesmerising, still psych-indebted sound that has fleshed out even further.

Oblique lyrics provide few hand-holds; while his distress is palpable, it remains frustratingly nondescript.

Sophie’s defining hyper-minimalism has given way to a new lushness. While enduringly “other”, tracks like Infatuation and Pretending lack focus, and this wafty iteration isn’t as original as Sophie’s other modes.

[7 Rings] is a hit, but isn’t actually all that great, using Rodgers and Hammerstein’s My Favourite Things as its sing-song musical base. The rest of the album remains of interest for its evolutions in sound, delivery and attitude.

Not all of it gels, but as a treatise on male absence, Sturgill’s Guide is heartfelt.

Those happy to go with Van Etten will be rewarded by swooping pop noir, groaning organs and a sax solo, plus considerable hard-won wisdom.

A squally electric guitar solo lets you know Love & Hate isn’t just another slice of vintage soul, but something a little more intriguing than that.

The unremarkably housey SW9 9SL tries to up the stakes, but dreamy as the somnolent groove and sitar twinkle of Two Thousand and Seventeen and the nervily upbeat steel pan sounds of Lush are, there’s nothing with the jolting surprise of Kool FM from 2013’s jungle-flavoured Beautiful Rewind, and the album title feels, ultimately, misleading.

Where his debut was part Marvin Gaye, part Prince, blackSummers’ Night is light on funk, making its creator, in the era of Frank Ocean, look like the yesterday’s man of R&B.

These songs work a gentle charm, reflecting on life and mortality with an unhurried grace.

It’s a shame, then, that the songs accompanying Grohl’s most powerfully affecting set of lyrics so often fail to reach the same standard [as the Foo Fighters’ 1995 debut].

At its centre is Lambert's ebullient personality and a classic Texan voice that can deliver ballads or arena rock with equal ease.

It reins in the genre-hopping. Although some of the magic is lost in the process, it consequently comes across as a more cohesive album, one that’s suffused with warmth and optimism, giving equal weight to rock, soul and jazz.

It's more likely, though, that Shields is a grower.

Brevity sharpens the ex-Clipse rapper’s focus, though: rarely has he sounded as urgent, even with his signature laconic tempo, as he does on bravura opener If You Know You Know; or as authoritative as on Santeria, which packs three different movements into under three minutes.

This album is rather better when it is winking at you, rather than seeking to cryogenically preserve emotion.

It’s a perfect period production that only occasionally tempts the listener to wonder how much more affecting Yola’s songs might be if she turned her attention from “whip-poor-wills” and “the grocery store” to landscapes closer to home.

Their debut album, co-written and co-produced with Soulwax, is a treasure chest of funk, French house, sweaty techno and all kinds of dirty electronic weirdness to rival Moloko at their freakiest. But their takes on the fraught subject of wokeness on Esperanto (“Don’t say: I would like a black Americano/ Say: I’ll have an African American, please”), or sexual agency on the Timbaland-flavoured dark R&B of Reappropriate err on the side of basic.

There are moments here that are truly affecting, like the vignette anchoring Leaving LA, the album’s 13-minute centrepiece. The young Josh chokes on a sweet, as Fleetwood Mac’s Little Lies plays impassively in the background. You wish you could hear more from him.

Nothing else on Home Video can match this intensity [on "Thumbs"], but Dacus’s writing retains its forthrightness throughout.

As much as you want to applaud this idiosyncratic soul outing, the straightforwardly acoustic, demo-grade Fallin’ is probably the record’s most lapel-grabbing moment.

Tomorrow's Harvest is another intriguing Rorschach blot of a record from a splendidly arcane band.

For every guitar-driven bop such as That’s What I Want, there are times when Hill resorts to mainstream genre cliches rather than razing convention as he did on Old Town Road.

Mumford & Sons-style tunes are still part of the package, but Man on Wire possesses a depth absent from their old songs, while the highlight, Between the Saltmarsh and the Sea, is a sumptuous fusion of folk and electronica.

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.

The mood is prayerful and contemplative, the music a mix of synth drones, Krishna-style chants and Coltrane’s poised, yearning vocals.

These songs about love and existential sorrow feel purposely airy and unanchored – there’s no percussion – mirroring the psychological freefall of recent times. Ironically, though, they firm up the parallels between Lindeman and fellow complex Canadian, Joni Mitchell.

Across 32 tracks it tries to capture the experience of an era from all sides.

Never quite settling where you think it might. Biffy Clyro can seem like two bands: a trio whose ringing Gaelic positivity and guitar bluster can shake a festival headline slot, and a gnarlier, more messed-up proposition.

The smoothness of Hval’s musical vehicle, this time around, allows her ideas to slip in softly, almost subliminally: humanity as a virus, technology’s role in romance, bereavement, panic attacks. It’s an eerie sort of euphoria, but no less of a rush for it.

All their little watermarks reappear. We get irregular time signatures, birdsong and other found sounds; long, wordless passages and tricksy skits; and an intoxicating confidence in their arrangements.

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.

The drawback here is not that Bruner hasn’t made the out-and-out pop album his narrative arc as an artist might demand. Nor is it that he is showcasing his conservatoire-grade talents. It is, perhaps, that he doesn’t sit with one emotion, be it high or low, for a sustained length of time.

This 73rd studio album stands out from the somewhat erratic output, a winning mixture of confessionals, nostalgia and humour, co-written with producer Buddy Cannon.

If you’re looking for muted mystery, Jessica Pratt’s third album, as its title suggests, will enigmatically oblige.

This is fine internationalist guitar music.

Too often, though, you’re left wishing for the thuggish bass and head-severing hi-hats of less cerebral dance music. There’s not enough food for the brain or fuel for the feet here.

Currents details a painful rebirth, but you’d never guess as much.

It can feel a little lacking in direction – honed down from more than 900 home experiments, it’s eclectic almost to a fault, though there’s enough to treasure among its dreamy meanderings.

It's not cutting edge, but it does mean business.

In revving so hard, though, the Black Keys have perhaps left behind in the dust the subtleties that made Brothers such an intriguing ride.

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.

Its songs, by southerner Randall Bramlett, don’t have the heft of Dylan or Simone, but prove a good fit for Lavette’s heart-on-sleeve vocals.

Unfortunately, Gordon’s spiky, staccato delivery is too often drowned in distortion and diminished by tune-dodging cacophony. So many songs, such as Trophies, are tense yet torpid, and when the airless intensity clears briefly on Shelf Warmer it’s too late.

Slighter songs such as the Britpoppy My Gruesome Loving Friend or the trip-hoppy Barefoot aren’t as arresting, and the new-agey lyrics coupled with Isabel Munoz-Newsome’s impassioned, highly mannered vocals can grate. But overall, producer Dan Carey smooths their varied styles into a surprisingly magnetic debut.

A special evening, but one containing both chasms and confluences.

Sometimes it feels more like an oral history project, with first-hand spoken-word accounts by Liam Bailey (the title track), or Brown’s appreciation of her family on Just Be. Mostly, though, she succeeds in channelling her anger, sadness and defiance, all the while conveying gratitude for the richness of her Caribbean roots.

An overarching concern on Petals… is how Williams constructs a workable new femininity free from her old tomboy identity in Paramore. The blooming metaphor is, as a result, slightly overplayed throughout. ... Although there are a couple of low-key co-writes, Williams and York remain the organising creatives, and Williams sounds both free and in control.

The end result finds elegance trumping excitement.

More immediate songs such as In the Same Room are ineffably breezy, while other tracks illustrate her handle on ancient Greece (This is Ekstasis) and the uncommon control she has over textures and motifs, atmospheres and vocoders.

The songs often lean more towards the arty end of the mainstream, losing touch slightly with the startling radicalism of Sudan Archives’ early sound.

Frontwoman Tina Halladay’s voice appears to have only one setting: overblown, lung-bursting holler.

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.

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

While it’s a nice retro bagatelle, a regrettable lack of originality really hampers Foil Deer.

These arrangements are never overloaded, the brass remains stately and discreet. If Reid never quite poleaxes you with her insights, this remains a thoroughly lovely record.

While All Melody’s textures are magnificent, plick-plocking susurrations, his treatment of the human voice is like a gash in an otherwise beauteous canvas.

At 12 tracks, though, Fear Fun could do with a good trim.

There are tunes aplenty, making this second Protomartyr album a surprisingly pleasurable dose of swaggering anomie.

While there’s little wrong with the songwriting, only Love Is the Key By the Sea and Beautiful Morning linger in the memory, the latter coming on like a nature lover’s remix of the Jam’s romantic English Rose.

Garbus's voice is jostled too much amid the hectic production to allow its personality to shine through and, with some notable exceptions (the call and response of Real Thing), hooks are hurried on before properly taking root.

No chance of paunchy homage here; lyrics cluttered with Munch, war and the Chartists and the tightly coiled energy of its best moments, such as Misguided Missile and instrumental closer Mayakovsky, suggest they are fronting up to middle age rather well.

Musically, too, there are tempestuous moments (Missing Children; Sing Me a Song), but the quartet only soar when the lights are dimmed and ambience takes precedence over energy.

Looser, grungier, fuzzier and yet more abrupt, perhaps, than latter-day Wilco offerings, Star Wars is proof that you can get considerably more than you pay for.

A plethora of found sounds and jazz inflections keep everything compelling. But the hovering, sustained and gliding elements miss the brave sensory overload of Aviary and the pop nous of Wilderness. The best track is the simplest: Meyou, a warped, minimal vocal meditation.

It may not rank among Wilco's boldest works. It could have done with more wig-outs. But it captures the art of the almost with both hands.

Transgender Dysphoria Blues lives up to its title with candour and tunes.

This record is just shy of being truly groundbreaking. Polachek remains too much of a class act, a little too wedded to conventional beauty on songs like Look At Me Now, to really take her pop to the bleeding edge.

With this album, you'll be scrabbling for a lyric sheet because Homme seems so uncharacteristically unmoored.

In Stonechild, Hoop has streamlined her sound. It’s hard not to feel her sentiments could benefit from some similar pruning.

Though Pallett is guilty of trying too hard to impress ("Even as a child you felt the terror of the infinite," begins Song for Five & Six), the Canadian's melodies seldom disappoint.

On bravura cuts like EVP or the electronic ballad But You, Hynes has both funk and gossamer production skills, the better to unify this sprawling project. Elsewhere the patchwork of sounds don’t quite gel as heroically as you would have hoped.

Átta feels surprisingly unengaging.

Their debut album is shadowed by tragedy, lead singer Dan Klein having succumbed to neurological disease shortly after its completion. His keening falsetto is at the heart of the record, a set of elegant, tortured love songs that occasionally betray Klein’s anguish.

His first album in nine years contains decent orchestral tear-jerkers, such as She Chose Me and On the Beach, a vignette of an ageing surf bum, but its lead items fall flat.

On first listen it’s a little difficult but lopsided melodies emerge, the best of which call to mind the blues as played by PiL.

From Prologue, with its deep drone, wash of waves and circling, priestessly choral voices to the closing Adan no Shima no Tanjyosai and its sparsely plucked guitar and elegiac strings and flute, the album casts a still, soothing spell.

Stand for Myself remains attuned to these country-soul stylings, but the full ingredients list is long: old-timey doo-wop on Great Divide, Brandi Carlile backing vocals, plus subtle British inflections.

The band are less assured on the quieter numbers, however. The likes of Milk at McDonald’s and the dreamlike Sue’s are pleasant enough (and the former includes the arresting line “I don’t regret a single drop of alcohol”), but unlike their best work there is precious little in the way of nagging hooks to lodge in one’s head.