The voices of Callahan and Oldham provide a through line in what can occasionally be unexpected stylistic forays. Least best is a version of Billie Eilish’s Wish You Were Gay: High Llama Sean O’Hagan’s flippant, tinny beats point to a grave generational misunderstanding of digital pop. But almost everything else succeeds in having revelatory fun with old favourites or hitting the listener hard– or both.

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

There’s only one misstep: the slower Candles turns into a dispiriting trudge. Otherwise, The Far Field is another accomplished, engaging set.

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

Well-delivered and exhilaratingly fun.

Not all of 4everevolution shines--tracks such as "First Growth" feel like Manuva by numbers--but there are some gems here, and it's good to hear the veteran south London rapper adapting his gruff tones to such a wide variety of material.

Pleasingly, following a hit-and-miss attempt to incorporate more whimsical strains of psychedelia into their sound on 2013’s Indigo Meadow, their fifth album marks a return to the threatening drones that made their first two so powerful.

A welcome time warp.

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

Animals continues seamlessly, using a raft of guest musicians and rappers, its rhythms shuttling between drum kit and electronica.

Short Movie’s best songs are all about Marling’s ongoing voyage of self-discovery; an indulgence we not only permit musicians, but pay them for, on the condition we can listen in and pick up tips. There are plenty of those here.

The album’s two mightiest bangers are already out: Pulse boasts the kind of bass and 808 combo that gets your rig banned from venues, and Accumulator layers elements on with the skill that comes from ratcheting up the pressure on ravers for 30 years. But there are more workouts here invoking everything from electro to the eeriness of Boards of Canada.

Each song is presented as a character sketch, and while the stories are impressionistic, often opaque, they feel richly textured: they live and breathe.

Beautifully packaged, it’s a world fan’s dream present.

Singles are by nature the juiciest bait, but what's cheering is that so many of these tracks match Lariat for sheer breeziness.

It’s a successful enough reinvention for Anderson surely to be wondering why she didn’t make a solo record sooner.

Pastoral moods pervade ballads such as False True Piya, the 15-minute devotional Halleluwah rocks furiously and Yorkston’s The Blues You Sang pays sweet tribute to a fallen friend. Top drawer.

Even when the tempo – and urgency – of these songs occasionally drops, they are rescued from mediocrity by Herring’s affecting lyrics: several songs contemplate the wreckages of toxic relationships with unflinching honesty.

The 71-year-old Texan returns with a striking set of songs that typify his drollery and open-heartedness, all delivered with easy-rolling grace.

It may be an intimidating undertaking, but one that is well worth the time.

A welcome return to form.

More introspective and contemplative than his previous two multi-platinum albums, Gold Rush Kid finds Ezra becoming a man for all seasons.

McCartney III Imagined is a classy set of remixes from assorted studio alchemists that allows Macca to experiment further by proxy.

It is not wild hyperbole to say that he might be the finest master of his craft alive today.

Here, straightforward prettiness often abounds, particularly on the country-leaning tracks, some with the odd female backing coo.

It’s less jazz and neoclassical than its predecessor, and more space rock--tracks such as Kelso Dunes introduce motorik beats into Shepherd’s modus operandi to no ill effect.

The song structures of the demos here don’t differ radically from those on the finished album, but shorn of the string section and piano that embellished the final versions there is a more intimate feel.

Charli, her third official album, finally hits a noisy, sweet spot. It is, hands down, the best iteration of XCX yet, the one where Aitchison’s pop capabilities line up most persuasively with her avant garde ear.

This 21-track centenary tribute underscores what a fine songwriter he was.

Their eighth outing reaffirms their wordless eloquence.

Springsteen sings brilliantly throughout, gritty on Hitch Hikin’, Orbison-operatic on the more elaborate pieces, and though the high notes can prove elusive, he retains the cadence of a born narrator. Brave and intriguing.

The new record doesn’t really break any moulds but it is a masterpiece of texture.

An (almost) unexpected pleasure.

Honeymoon is arguably the most Lana Del Rey album Del Rey has yet produced.

Like its most recent predecessors, Reputation is a roman à clef that begs the listener to decode which kiss-and-tell relates to which A-list former beau.

With its atmospheric melody and operatic harmonies, it’s a truly evocative listen.

A sleek, enticing record that certifies Cakes Da Killa’s place at the forefront of this sound.

It might lack some of the energy of their youth (best captured on the How the West Was Won live set, recorded in 1972 and released in 2003), but this is still a mightily impressive monument.

Yet beneath the noise, the songs seem more fully realised, more memorable, than on their at times fragmentary debut.

An always thought-provoking record.

Essentially, there are three types of Pet Shop Boys albums: life-changing, great and OK. This one’s great.

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.

The Prelude finds T’s distinctive flow and trademark “yeuch” of disgust allied to uncommercial but excellent beats.

Here are evergreen contemporary songs in which gratitude and fortitude are exercised in no facile fashion, but with spittle and swagger. The love songs are present and correct.

There are excellent Miles trumpet solos all over these tracks too, proving that he’d got his sound back after his late-70s breakdown.

On first listen, their third album sounds undercooked but dig deep and, gradually, the five-piece are revealed as a tranquil indie-rock outfit whose songs evoke the innocence of your early 20s while shot through with a sadness that imbues them with depth.

These aren’t vast nocturnal canvases, but immersive miniatures that repay close attention.

In short, if you fell out of love with dance music at the end of the 1990s, this may be the record to get you back in front of the big speakers.

The star power of Alexander: an articulate, thoughtful frontman with depth as well as acting-out genes. Here, pop star after pop star (Britney, a little J Lo, the list goes on) is invoked on an album that sounds like a Spotify playlist.

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.

This might not be Harvey’s most immediate collection, but it’s as fascinating and rewarding as ever.

This electrifying, uneasy record stops, starts and turns, often within the confines of one track. The beats are restless; few comforting grooves are allowed to build for very long.

Orquídeas’s variegation means it’s not quite the no-skip concept album that was Red Moon. But in a rapidly decompartmentalising pop landscape, where Spanglish is increasingly a lingua franca, Uchis’s flair and depth cuts across whatever notional cultural barriers might remain.

Over eight CDs (or a big download) is the story of one of the most intriguing partnerships in British music: the silvery folk-rock duo Richard and Linda Thompson. It is a tale worth retelling – and shelling out for.

The result is an artfully realised exercise in melancholic, grown-up pop with textures that owe much to the Swedes’ later work. It’s also a welcome return to form, after 2018’s water-treading Resistance Is Futile.

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

The National’s busy polymath Aaron Dessner is producer, bringing this excellent album, full of fear and succour, into focus.

It's as an impressionist composer that the latterday Ahmad Jamal really excels. Two of these pieces in particular, "Autumn Rain" and "Morning Mist", are quite exquisite.

The usual downside of a live recording is that you’re left with a somewhat faint imprint of the feeling in the moment. But this album elevates the form, and further marks Dawid out as one of the most vital avant-garde artists of her time.

There are simple and undeniably lovely moments here--the hymn-like opening to Today is especially beautiful--but these are heavily outnumbered by displays of muso virtuosity.

It can sound like being plunged into a dark, Dante-esque forest, with only a muted aortic throb to guide you home. Immersive, to say the least.

An assured, ear-opening debut.

The album takes a step back from the vast productions of Welch’s most famous work, with nods to the Rolling Stones (Dream Girl Evil) and plenty of unexpected chiaroscuro, the better to foreground her luxuriant voice.

These tunes, particularly the winsome Burn Out Blues, are spry and familiar yet steeped in mystery, as befits an album that steals from everywhere.

It’s hard for any artist on their fifth album to cause you to sit up and pay attention as much as Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell does, let alone for an artist who is such a past master of the disengaged, dissolute swoon.

There’s so much to take in that it requires many listens before all of Metronomy Forever’s charms reveal themselves, in part because of the palate-cleansing interstitial drones spread across the album. It’s worth the wait.

Almost as good as a new Radiohead album.

The restlessness is counterweighted by wit and songwriting power.

Nookie Wood finds him in rude creative health; a gruff, Pan-like affirmation of continuing musical restlessness.

Aided by woozy, expansive production many of these songs shimmer with warmth and light. There's a brittleness here too though.

The fine line between euphoria and melancholy is negotiated brilliantly on tracks such as Can’t Do Without You.

Ultimately Styles is more concerned with mood than minutiae. On Harry’s House he’s created a welcoming place to stay.

Written on keyboards rather than guitar, Pre Pleasure was recorded in Montreal with Marcus Paquin of the Weather Station; you can hear the uptick in arrangement and production in the painterly thrum of the instruments.

Jeremy Earl’s songwriting is as strong as on last year’s City Sun Eater in the River of Light, and his psychedelic folk-pop band manage to sound forward-looking.

The harmonies on Woman of Secret Gold might call to mind Harriet Wheeler of the Sundays to some; the chimes and cello accompaniment on the closing title track leave you wanting more.

This is a Crazy Horse record that is both raucous and highly tuneful, saturated with in-band bonhomie.

This encounter with three outstanding Malian musicians dazzles, however, partly because the quartet hush their chamber strings and let the African trio strut their formidable stuff.

The wheedling estuary vowels can get over-stretched (“What care I fer me goose fevver bed?” as Seven Gypsies has it) but there’s joy and mournfulness in originals like Me n Becky and By of River while standards like Hard Times of Old England and Bows of London emerge urgent and tragic.

Flu Game’s bouncy productions tread a nimble line between trap beats, international party music and London forms. If these 16 tracks sound like end-to-end bangers (three have been hits already), the slight downsides are also familiar.

This is a very good record indeed, just not the record the more hidebound Cave lifer would instantly press to their breast.

With all this shiny surface comes depth, too – the hard-won emotional content of these songs is all Mvula’s own.

Though there are enough intricacies to keep you interested – ornate percussion, switches in pace and vocal delivery – largely this is a warm and easy listen.

Burna Boy’s fourth album lands in this powerful spotlight, continuing the singer’s boundary-hopping mixture of laid-back Caribbean swagger, Fela Kuti swing and multilingual communiques on a range of concerns.

Yes, some people will say they rarely change, that there isn’t enough variety across this or any Dinosaur album. Only Take It Back’s funky mellotron truly surprises. Elsewhere I Ain’t, To Be Waiting and I Ran Away stick fruitfully to the script. Yet that’s what good work is. Showing up, hitting your marks, doing what you do best. Some people are staring at the bricks, not noticing the palace they built.

Country-rocking backing band the Jayhawks are on top form, and the duet with Karen Grotberg, A Place in Your Heart, is affecting. The cod-Native American field holler of Change for Change and the shuffling, jazzy I’ve Heard That Beat Before are highlights.

The production of Malcolm Catto, of London’s Heliocentrics, adds subtle, atmospheric touches, notably on the squelching dub of Land of Ra. Deep and inspirational.

The finest songs here land immediately and hum with urgency.

Chasescene confirms Knox as a master storyteller, and is a record to settle into on dark nights, glad that you’re only a listener to its frightful tales.

Throughout, there’s a feeling of being in safe hands, in sync with the Brewises rather than merely being impressed by them.

Kozelek, it seems, has nothing left to hide, or lose: the effect is utterly riveting.

A challenging yet satisfying listen.

His British debut is a gem: a warm, sun-dappled record with an appealing snag of heartache.

Strays adds heady organ grooves and hypnotic southern rock to her band’s considerable chops. ... And throughout, her mountain stream of a voice retains its country authority, even when she’s writing a pop tune.

Their soundtrack for supernatural French drama The Returned is just as good [Mogwai's music for the extraordinary football movie Zidane]; no less absorbing whether you encounter it through headphones or on TV.

[On Election Special] the first world is in dire straits and it's all the fault of Republicans – architects of Guantánamo and unfeeling people who tie their dogs to the roofs of their cars then drive off (Mutt Romney's Blues).

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.

Acoustic or not, the killer grooves remain (try Lover or the title track), though downbeat pieces like Hear the Rain Come may need warmer weather to appreciate.

There is much to distinguish Moriondo, whose sense of mischief is as strong as her pop-punk desire to tell it like it is.