Despite the turbulent backstory, at first listen these songs sound effortlessly sunny.

The Dream is another enjoyable stroll around the band’s latest curiosity shop.

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.

I’ll Tell You What! doesn’t have quite the same crossover potential as Jlin, whose Black Origami album on Planet Mu topped almost every best electronic album list last year. But it’s a definitive statement of a sound that has staying power--and packs a triple-speed punch.

Push past the weaponised irony and you’ll find Another Weekend and Feels Like Heaven are his most seductive melodies since breakthrough album Before Today.

Like her previous EPs, this latest release showcases Archives’ versatility, demonstrating how jungle lends itself to updates as varied as Brazilian party music, jazzy side notes and lo-fi introspection.

Almond is at his best on the compelling torch songs that have long been his stock in trade. Winter Sun reflects on dwindling romance; The Pain of Never is swooningly melancholic. More, please.

Those allergic to smooth pop-rock may find Days Are Gone hard going. Paradoxically, given this is an album of clever mash-ups, Haim's one straight-up R&B tune might actually be their best.

They haven’t completely ditched the relentless aggression--much of Paradise races past in an alluring blur of distortion and melody--but this is a welcome broadening of their palette.

This Is What I Mean is a bold album about showing vulnerability, and continues the erstwhile rapper’s overarching mission to transcend the roles allotted to him.

The lyrics to the album’s title track might undercut the fantasy of a luxe life, but the music is all opulence. Disco strings scythe; backing vocals dissolve into spatially aware stereo pans. Everything is buttery; only once does Lovett jump the shark, on Opening Night’s space-prog-funk solo.

Endless Arcade dwells on the end of love, as hymned on multiple TFC albums; on stoicism in the face of this emotional catastrophe, or – on Raymond McGinley’s songs – our tiny place in the cosmos and the importance of eking joy out of everything.

An album to light the way through the darkest hours.

It feels like there’s one last great album in him, even if this isn’t quite it.

It’s one of those albums that elegantly restates the appeal of digital music, expressing hues and states of being that fall outside the analogue spectrum.

Like their increasingly musical, but still weird, productions, Migos’s triplet-heavy, robotic non-flows have come on leaps and bounds, while retaining the group’s core starkness.

Grime is now a maturing genre, with room for a multiplicity of voices and subject matters. And in Novelist, grime now has an upstanding and versatile outlier.

If Wanderer promised more bold artistic statements, Covers pivots on sorely needed understanding. That feeling is relayed in turn to the listener: hugs galore.

A class act.

A whirlwind set.

At 20 tracks and 71 minutes, it’s perhaps a little long, but until the next Wilco album comes along, this will do just fine.

Sometimes, everything combines arrestingly: sounds, words and resonance. ... Where this record falters is when Ghostpoet’s writing turns prosaic, and when the echoes of other artists become impossible to ignore.

What’s new, though, are the traces of Talking Heads-style funk and a wistfulness prompted by parenthood’s demands. “I’m sorry if I’m ever short with you,” sings David to his wife on the closer, Stay Awake, while the touching The Morning Is Waiting possesses a depth hitherto absent from their work.

It's all very accomplished, but lacking in variety.

An entertaining exercise, though of Hank's celebrated yodel there is, alas, no sign.

Flutes is a terrifically chilly robotic workout, These Chains blends doe-eyed R&B and disco to fine effect. Night And Day's so-so electrofunk is the only casualty to this record's sense of adventure.

Not a great deal seems to be happening--then you are suddenly brought up short by the guitar that sings out on Back to You or the polyphony of Leaving Song.

The textures change constantly without sounding cluttered, the rhythms are compelling but unfailingly light and airy, and the tunes are, well, tuneful.