Not much here creeps up on you so engagingly [as on Gotye's "Someone That I Used to Know."]

Songs such as Beginning to Fade maintain Django Django’s easy pop touch. Much of the rest, though, is merely good filler rather than truly great floor-filler.

Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes doesn’t match up to In Rainbows--it’s closer in style to 2006’s introspective The Eraser--partly because, delivery method aside, there’s little in the way of surprises.

The unhurried pace and her soft intonation make a mildly intoxicating combination, most notably on Never Wanted to Be. But well before the end of this 33-minute album I was longing for a change of pace, or something unexpected.

The rest of Wysing Forest rewards patient exploration, but nothing else quite matches Amphis for effect.

Jagwar Ma are still playing catch-up with their compatriots, Tame Impala and the Avalanches.

For the most part, though, these spare reworkings are dramatic and wonderfully arranged. The highlight is Abbey Lincoln’s The World Is Falling Down, a bewitching snapshot of society in meltdown. For the most part, though, these spare reworkings are dramatic and wonderfully arranged. The highlight is Abbey Lincoln’s The World Is Falling Down, a bewitching snapshot of society in meltdown.

There is little drama here, just plenty of shorthand (sad pianos), a total absence of risk and, perhaps worst of all, no evidence of the deranged hedonism that catapulted Smith into a funk.

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.

These 11 songs balance mainstream appeal (Someone I Don’t Know) alongside an intimate sense of being cocooned with someone who has plenty of worth to impart.

Tracks such as Hearts, the gently pulsating Your Domino and Last of the True Believers (featuring the Blue Nile’s Paul Buchanan) all perfectly showcase Ware’s crystalline vocals--you just wish she’d step out of her comfort zone more often.

The Way Is Read gets better the further in you get, the thrilling closing title track highlighting the talents of both parties.

A repetitive wash of acoustic guitars and consoling choirs dull the emotion, and Sandé is too polite to go for the jugular.

For the most part these more outward-looking conceits are housed in familiar musical settings--the Bond theme-lite Guilty feels like a song she’s released five times already--but there’s fun to be had in Til I’m Done’s plastic disco shimmy and the skipping, featherlight pop of Kings and Queens.

Ample evidence of why Mercer's songs are so widely cherished. But there remains something a little clinical about the efficiency with which he dispatches these studies in perky wistfulness.

The feather-light touch of La Havas’s voice can be deceptive; for all her apparent ease, there are sufficient quirks and depths to her writing, not least the scientific analogies on Wonderful (electricity) and Unstoppable (astrophysics).

Black Sabbath's first album with Ozzy Osbourne since 1978 is bluesier, leaner and substantially less cringe-making than a great many reunion cash jobs.

Gaslight seem so hellbent on heroics, they often end up more Bon Jovi than Boss [Springsteen].

This is the band’s first self-produced album, and it’s stronger on detail than as a unified structure or statement. But there are plenty of ripe pickings, revealing a new depth to Teen, and intriguing potential for the future.

It might not be the craven product of a marketing meeting, but it sounds like two talented, successful guys making nice tunes, no less, no more.

The project's brevity certainly explains the lack of coherence over the 14 tracks, although that's not to say there aren't some thrilling individual moments.

Stewart remains a firebrand intent on creating skull-splintering sounds and society-skewering words.

There’s a decent amount of groove and swagger here too, not least in the low-slung funk of Smashed Pianos, and singer Tom Ogden’s vocals, are pitched engagingly between the rough-edged croon of Alex Turner and the florid yelp of Brett Anderson.

The Trouble, with its richly twangy slide, spooky reverb and oblique enchantments, is particularly powerful, but throughout, Middleman’s voice is dark and engaging, her songs possessed of a deceptively subtle charm.

A skilfully aerated record in which loneliness, the far east and naff cologne all play a part.

A set of songs that, if not remarkable, are at least an upgrade.

Ultimately, you conclude, Jones's golden voice was built for hooting, hollering and hubba-hubba-ing at the ladies, not mulling things over.

It’s all consistently inventive rather than dull, but also endearingly daft rather than chilling. Still, that makes for Muse’s most enjoyable album since the 00s.

Freak-folk currents still run through tracks such as Fireplace, but Grapefruit is more wilful and abrasive than his last effort, 2013’s Bowler Hat Soup.

The album sags a little in the middle but there is much here to justify a nearly five-year wait.

The best songs – Give a Little, Say It, On + Off, lean harder into the hip-hop grooves, Rogers’s strong and soulful voice gaining a bit of grit. Overnight and The Knife, however, fall into melodic predictability, Fallingwater drowns a more interesting structure in ersatz gospel and Past Life, the overportentous, dragged-out ballad at the album’s heart, reminds you that viral doesn’t always mean catchy.

May's an engaging and entertaining storyteller on the more breakneck material, particularly the dynamic Wild Woman and the melodically astute Hellfire Club. The ballads, however, are less distinguished.

Yes, musically, these songs – all co-written with former Morrissey sideman Michael Farrell –are for the most part her stock-in-trade windswept power ballads and unremarkable soft rock. But while there’s nothing as thrillingly angry as You Oughta Know, it’s a far more palatable set than 2012’s insipid Havoc and Bright Lights.

Automaton seems an audacious comeback, to say the least, but also strangely listenable.

Bloated and self-indulgent, it plods along, with barely a memorable melody or thought-provoking lyric among its 17 tracks.

The mordant songwriting redeems The Civil Wars.

Despite the divergent inputs, Pollinator still has the feel of a coherent album that’s enjoyable, if hardly essential.

On the unreleased tracks, genuine surprises are few. But the campy prowl of My Oh My and the high-stakes breathiness of Bad Kind of Butterflies keep the balance tilted away from syrupy dross, in favour of fun.

At times, however, they come across as a little too ponderous, the likes of Haunt and stadium-indie plod Echo noteworthy mainly for their complete lack of spark. It makes for an album that, weighing in at an hour long, can feel rather bloated.

More of a curio than a proper follow-up to May’s Deafman Glance, and is likely to be of far greater interest to DMB completists than the casual listener, but it makes for an at times intriguing project.

Nothing here quite matches up to his 70s/80s imperial phase, but Ferry still sounds admirably fresh, even five decades into his career.

It's only when hazy melodies begin to pierce the fog that their psychedelic rock strikes the right balance between hooky immediacy and cosmic ambition.

The most striking song (discounting the Personal Jesus reenactment The Calling) draws on Flowers’ own childhood experience: the surging, synth-laced Tyson vs Douglas, inspired by his shock when the champ hit the mat, could touch gloves with the band’s best.

The soul vocals of 22-year-old Yorkshire lad John Newman helped send the hit ["Feel The Love"] into anthemic stratospheres. The rest of this debut doesn't quite take off in the same way.

Nothing here feels like filler, however; not least two versions of Drawn to the Blood, one electronic and one fingerpicked.

Really, though, her graceless output remains unaffected.

While there are moments when everything falls into place (the Erykah Badu-assisted "Hey, Shooter"; a rare Albarn vocal on "Poison"; the sense of space on "Extinguished"), too often technical proficiency trumps songwriting.

These moves are still tentative, and talk of artistic progression is often the kiss of death, but Girl Ray have moved out of a place of limitations into more kaleidoscopic musicality.

What Praxis Makes Perfect might lack in fresh musical directions--their percolating analogue-digital pop remains little altered--it makes up for in apposite italophile detail.

The arrangements here, courtesy of PJ Harvey collaborator Rob Ellis, seek to relocate Spx in too elegant a vein, making her sound less singular and more assimilable. It is a shame.

While hardly a move into brave new musical pastures, it's not without charm and the use of a female voice puts just enough distance between this and the original.

Mostly the mood is personal and reflective, with Tilston’s guitar supported by deft touches of bass, autoharp and piano. Classy work.

But stretched across 15 tracks and almost 70 minutes, the highlights are spread too thinly, the likes of Show Me the Sun and Cornflakes mired in mediocrity. There’s unevenness within these overlong songs too.

Some of the sparkle fades as the album goes on, with Run the Races and Outside the War especially ponderous, but this is another sure-footed set aimed as much at the head as at the hips.

The best tracks (Fol De Rol, Gibbus Gibson, Groundsboy) flirt with disaster yet retain their discipline but, as is so often the case with the Fall, the music is less interesting than the song titles.

While it starts thrillingly--the title track and Lights Out as good as anything they’ve ever done and reminiscent of Queens of the Stone Age at their most imperious--they fail to sustain their momentum, the middle of the album suffering from a surfeit of unremarkable filler.

The human guests all serve some purpose. ... But the instrumental tracks that don’t bother with female vocals, or opera, are just better.

Too much of the material sounds formulaic, most noticeably a Strokes pastiche, Darkness in Our Hearts, and the Verve-by-numbers Out of Control.

Patchy but playful in places, Trustfall is reliably Pink.

A little paunchiness suits the skanking bounce and wobble of their songs and a good time brassiness dominates even on the more meditative tracks.

There are a few missteps--the awkward retro stylings of What You Need, the horrendous Private Show, Do You Wanna Come Over?’s half-baked chorus--but there’s still enough here to excite.

They're at their best when they do a little less, as on the surprisingly melancholy and lovely Henrietta.

Too easy on the ear to be convincing – more getting deep round the campfire than genuine soul-baring – but highlights "Black Flies" and "Promise" are nice enough studies in soft-focus angst.

Derivative Gorman may be, but he’s also confident and distinctive with it.

Even with Pete Doherty clean, and their songcraft to the fore, Anthems for Doomed Youth has the unmistakable tang of opportunity squandered.

Good Sad Happy Bad--born out of a heavily edited jam session--feels more shapeless and, as a result, more frustrating.

The less good news is that although every pairing has juice in it – the inclusion of a Nicole Scherzinger-paired Hawaiian traditional is a great curveball – many of these songs feel like over-pretty drawing room star turns. Nothing here is slick, exactly, but much tends towards mellifluous pleasantness – even the songs about protest and murder.

It can be heavy going, most notably on the headache-inducing demented circus polka of Sugar Boats (imagine Tom Waits covering Fucik’s Entry of the Gladiators), and a gateway song such as 2004’s Float On wouldn’t have gone amiss, but this is a solid enough return.

For now they remain pretty comfortable with the idea of obscene over-inflation. So should we.

While there are flashes of brilliance--the pulsating Alessia Cara duet I Can Only; the bolshy strut of Fab-- too many songs feel dated or unable to properly showcase JoJo’s raw vocal (opener Music is trampled under the emotional weight).

Songs such as Waves may offer up intriguing oscillations, and some unforeseen guitar riffs ambush The Weeks, but more variety and definition would transform a very promising mood piece into a truly memorable one.

While Funk Wav Bounces hits all the right notes, Harris strains to maintain the relaxed vibe.

We get a campy take on I Get a Kick Out of You, a sashaying Night and Day, and yet another outing for swing album mainstay I’ve Got You Under My Skin. It’s on the less ubiquitous songs, however, that the pair seem to have the most fun. ... This ebullient album feels like a fond farewell rather than a solemn goodbye.

For his second album, the 24-year-old’s flow remains defiantly old-school, concerned with language and jazzy storytelling rather than the Autotuned postures that get the streams.

While Ti Amo is slow to reveal its charms, there are moments when the cheesy concept--a romanticised version of Italy--is made to seem like a brilliant idea.

A grime mixtape veteran, Jermaine Scott combines plenty of chart-friendly tracks on his mainstream debut ("Traktor" and "Unorthodox" have already been hits) with just enough erudite self-examination ("Forgiveness") to warrant more than a passive listen.

The album seems perfectly named, sounding like funk that's been melted down via psychedelia and stretched into gooey sweetness. There is though, a lot of getting lost too.

Knopfler’s music remains a reliable source of warm bluesy guitarwork; the Dire Straits-aping riff of Beryl is a familiar pleasure.

Fun to make, clearly; less so to listen to.

Once you accept the intimidating length and occasional clumsy lyric (see: “An attack of the mind / like Optimus Prime in his prime”), there’s plenty here to appreciate.

Overall, there is rather less doo-wopping on Unorthodox Jukebox, an album that, despite its title, deserves your grudging respect, and a little more hooliganism.

If it's a familiar trip, it's also a highly entertaining one--not least Sand Dance's sprightly, shamanic caper.

The impassioned ballad Mawal stands out as a contemplative reprieve, but it isn’t anywhere near enough to rescue the album.

More boring and pointless than Brexit.

Even Elton-sceptics can take solace in how producer T-Bone Burnett continues to improve the veteran piano man by filling the interstices of his work with detail, rendering songs such as the rather good Claw Hammer at least 43% more nuanced.

Such drama [as on Full Circle or Unofferable], though, is absent from Dark Eyes' second half, most of which could have been crafted in the 90s and, for all Portielje's efforts, is too sterile to excite.

Pharrell Williams and Andre 3000 add support on this hefty but intriguingly experimental 19-track marathon, while Willow Smith adds weirdness to Mescudi’s trademark humming on the dub hip-hop of Rose Golden.

Is anything here the equal of Uptown Funk? Not quite, but the opening three songs are excellent party starters. The mid-tempo cuts lack the lustre of the uptempo ones, and the album’s closing ballad--Too Good to Say Goodbye--isn’t as persuasive as When I Was Your Man off Unorthodox Jukebox.

Anachronistic at times, it’s still endearingly schmaltzy, with Kali Uchis’s delicious intonations, smooth rap from Blvck Seeds, and twinkling, Dilla-esque keys on Hi-on-Heels (co-written and produced by Snoop Dogg).

More than anything Oberhofer's optimistic, melodious pop-rock, all "oohs" and "ooh-e-ooh-e-oohs", takes its cues from the Beach Boys.

It’s all fun, though a little disjointed – and the less said about Elton’s trap song, Always Love You, with Nicki Minaj and Young Thug, the better.

The impression that Turner and Kane are soundtracking some kind of ironic double-bro-seven flick in their heads remains, however (not eased by Kane’s recent sleazy behaviour towards a female journalist), only partly tempered by Turner’s nuanced lyrics.

Fun while it lasts, but swiftly forgettable.

Taken as a whole, though, Who Cares? is so unvarying in its sentimental melodies that it begins to fade into the background, so unobtrusive that it becomes unremarkable.

It’s an intriguing record, unpredictable and weird even in its simplicity.

A bold, fleeting pop-rock record whose standout element remains Bailey’s gorgeous voice.

This trim nine-song set is packed with tuneful love songs that never outstay their welcome--knick-knacks to a haiku, maybe, more than monuments to an elegy, and all the better for it.

Despite all the disco grooves and psychedelic flourishes, this still feels like someone shouting: “Cheer up, love!” down your ear for an hour.