All in all, it’s a rich, absorbing work that rewards immersive listening.

The result is a fearless and powerful debut.

The album is meandering in places, evoking a sense of the unknown that’s become so familiar in 2021, but there’s a sense that the trio want to bring their growing fanbase with them into a new dimension. It will reward those who come along for the ride.

So while this endeavour can’t help but be tinged with deep bittersweetness, Electronic Chronic really exudes the warmth of a band tinkering about in their studio.

Coinciding with his turning 85, Bennett's latest sounds like a fantasy birthday party in full swing, one where an outrageously starry array of guests share the mic with a host as twinkling as ever.

Wealth is a recurrent theme, but musicality remains to the fore.

Call the Days, the track that heralded this brand new folk-inclined singer-songwriter’s extraordinarily assured debut, suggested an Antipodean Laura Marling, a talented 24-year-old with a preternatural ability to translate internal weather into chords and words.

N’Dour sings with accustomed majesty throughout; sometimes commanding, sometimes anguished, an always urgent force of nature.

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.

A concept album about death and grief during a pandemic? Now there’s bravery. Fortunately, Tunng bring a characteristically light touch to these tender, if not taboo subjects.

The lack of any sort of beat only adds to the disorientation. And yet, played loudly enough, Kannon sounds astonishing: by turns eerie, hypnotic and thrilling.

Some songs roll along with almost indecent ease--Somebody Was Watching, No News Is Good News--while some draw you up, like the Pops/Mavis duet Sweet Home.

The Unthanks don’t falter on what is their first “proper” album in seven years, though the nine minutes of the Sandgate Dandling Song, a Victorian ballad about domestic violence, inclines to the ponderous. They are better when airborne, as on The Old News or Royal Blackbird, a Jacobite song given a lively violin arrangement.

You might file her body of work under 70s-tinged alt-country. But Webster’s subtle accessorising – her eclectic production choices, like Feeling Good Today’s Auto-Tuned multitracking – always render these miniatures next-level.

While it’s an emotional listen, I Came From Love is not a difficult record, musically.

Sonically this is, unsurprisingly, a masterful album: echoey, soulful and old-school. What’s more, it finally feels as if Black Milk’s rapping is catching up.

It is both old news and a welcome opportunity to praise Letissier’s stylish, empathetic songs: bilingual, sexually fluid, influenced by R&B, hip-hop and glitchy digitals.

Letter to Yu finds this dancefloor native expanding his already imaginative sound design. It’s sad, but also full of diversions, with Pupul’s curiosity and squelchy sense of fun ever-present.

Caprisongs collates a set of more ephemeral pop tunes in which twigs broadcasts selfhood 17 ways, finding unexpected common sonic ground with artists such as Grimes, Charli XCX and Self Esteem.

It feels like a simultaneous (re)introduction to Lynn’s career, and a summing up, and makes for a worthy companion piece to Cash’s American Recordings.

A record to get lost in.

Musically, meanwhile, Where’s My Utopia? marks a huge leap forward, with co-producer Remi Kabaka Jr of Gorillaz helping to realise soaring ambitions.

Overall this is a deeply satisfying meeting of many minds.

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.

The tunes and recriminations seem to cut deeper than ever on their seventh album.

This is an album that, as with previous Lipa outings, preaches agency and self-worth; her high bar for distilling past dance forms into present pop bangers is maintained, whatever the spin.

All last year’s singles plus a dozen new drops here add up to an excellent, if exhausting, mixtape. Sensibly, songs confine themselves to three minutes or less, and there’s a wild joy to their commitment to entertainment.

Rock Or Bust isn’t nearly as monumental as Back in Black--few albums are--but for a band that really do go through motions, you don’t for a moment feel AC/DC are dialling it in.

Trilling flutes and whimsical clarinets break the mood of majestic ache that makes Fossora one of Björk’s hardest-hitting albums.

Pleasingly, it’s well worth the long wait, in large part because the realisation of these songs feels more expansive than her earlier, more pared-back work, with Mellotron, synths – even drums – appearing alongside the more familiar acoustic guitar.

Musically, Special’s a bit of a retread. Lead single About Damn Time, with its Saturday-night, last-song-before-we-leave-the-house vibe, bounces on a similar podium to 2019’s Juice, and the title track boasts imperious orchestration, just as it did on Cuz I Love You. But it works.

Archive samples evoke the wonder and majesty of mankind’s most giant leap, and they’re complemented by finely judged soundscape.

As woozy and restless as these multipart productions are, she packs in plenty of sticky stuff: melodies, hooks, insistent figures.

The record does what gospel should--lift you up.

Each song is coloured with a knowing intelligence and it all comes from her voice.

For the first time, Longstreth seems all too human, acknowledging failings and opening his inner landscape outwards.

Thankfully, The Theory of Whatever takes a gentler, more mature tack; no longer the mouthy street poet of the people, Treays is simply singing his heart out about his muted memories of love, nostalgia and hangovers. It’s a joy to perch alongside and listen to him reminisce.

A low-key, slow-burn delight.

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.

The title track and R.E.M. smush together her penchant for musical theatre and 90s R&B. Everytime bridges tight melodies with synths like a large elastic band being plucked, and God is a Woman feels almost tantric, with guitars and harmonies spaced between sweaty beats.

They hit a James Brown groove on Bamako, use fiddle on the Ali Farka-style Hometown, and let loose a children’s choir on One Colour, a delightful closer to a joyous, eclectic album.

The Solution Is Restless is an album that worms its way under your skin, reminding you of half a dozen records you love while sounding unlike anything else around.

Overall, Guts is perhaps missing Sour’s big pop moments, but as a snapshot of an upturned life it’s consistently fascinating.

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 better than West's last, impressive album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. With fantastically varied production, Watch the Throne marches hungrily forward, belying its genesis in a series of swanky hotel rooms.

After years of toying around, Hynes may have finally found the sound that suits him best.

This fourth album by Gothenburg’s master of the indie story song song finds him reinvigorated after 2012’s heartbroken I Know What Love Isn’t, kicked up the arse by drum machines.

Another tour de force.

Best listened to as a whole, Hellfire is as challenging and unsettling as it is exhilarating. About as sui generis as it’s possible to get in 2022.

Unlike earlier Jam City releases, this one aims to create friction, to disrupt the party, even if it doesn’t force its message down your throat.

The subject matter, then, is unrelenting. But Anohni’s impassioned delivery succeeds in making ecstatic music out of it, carried along by propulsive soundbeds; music that is equal to the apocalypse.

Excluding the syrupy 26 and seething No Friend, After Laughter could be one of the year’s best pop albums.

While there’s nothing here as instantly memorable as Can’t Get You Out of My Head or All the Lovers, Disco benefits from a consistent sonic palette, and one that nestles neatly inside the Kylie comfort zone. Free of the pressure of big singles in a streaming era that often sidelines “heritage” acts, the album also feels relatively filler-free.

Green Day deliver everything with such panache that the songs’ limitations don’t really matter, especially when they manage to make tired old tropes seem fresh, as on the swooning brilliance of Take the Money and Crawl and Meet Me on the Roof.

By turns angry, celebratory, mournful, hopeful, here’s an album for complex times.

If the lyrical content often favours navel-gazing, nearly every song comes with an expertly crafted, big pop chorus or a sonic gear-change – Flatlining, for example, shifts from warm synths to a four-to-the-floor beat and tumbling electronics.

There are moments, as on Every Child Begins the World Again, so musically numinous and epochally sad that Lambchop approaches Nick Cave’s recent work.

There is some respite in the poppy, piano-assisted chorus of New Morning Comes, but no trite redemptive arc: this is a sensitive and subtle response to living with grief.

This is not the kind of sunset in which mortality looms, but where the gentler evening light casts everything in a fresh aspect. There is warmth and succour here, undercut with a playful scattering of mischievous sounds; orchestral soul with eloquent quirks; nuances that hark back to Weller’s second band, the Style Council.

These are unanchored R&B songs for unmoored times, with Kelela’s alluring vocals holding fast, front and centre.

Tough, visceral stuff.

Here he turns in a set of fine, affecting songs, from the 80s soft rock of Anything I Say to You Now and Do You Still Love Me?, to the more introspective We Disappear, which recalls Paul Westerberg at his most intimate.

Except for all the bits about getting high, and the bit about begging his best friend not to kill him, Lysandre is a composite love story as old as the hills, but this retelling is surprisingly refreshing.

Their 2014 comeback Do to the Beast--featuring just Dulli and bassist John Curley from the original line-up--was a little underwhelming, but its follow-up finds them rewinding the years more successfully.

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.

Densely layered and richly rewarding, Wildheart is further evidence that Miguel suits his outsider status.

Crazymad, for Me doubles down on CMAT’s self-knowing “too muchness” with a meatier sound and more vaulting ambition.

It’s a brave album, at times raw with anger.

There are beautiful moments.

A seductive, original piece of work.

Magnificently, songs like Taste or The Fall are only energised by these diverse sonic signatures. The double-drummers are key, too: Segall’s in the left-hand channel, while frequent collaborator and multi-instrumentalist Charles Moothart is in the right.

The record is a career highlight from an accomplished artist producing luscious, storytelling music from experiences so foundational that they defy neat narrative.

Omar brings an elegant touch to Herbie Hancock’s Butterfly, and snappy vitality to opener Rules. Robert Mitchell’s piano shines among a supporting trio, and Pine, whether in contemplation or post-bop flurry, shows why he’s still top dog.

Overall, About Last Night… manages to keep the party going – it’s just more convincing when tears mix with the prosecco.

Daft Punk have shone a laser beam into dark corners of the 70s and 80s and made them sing again, with timbres more human than ever before.

A handful of derangedly catchy singles have already rolled off the tracklist, highlighting the pair’s fluency with nagging melodies and killer hooks. The glorious Mememe still offers up an earworm crafted from bass and tinnitus.

It all makes for his most coherent effort yet.

Even when battering his piano strings with a toilet brush, Frahm creates something mesmerising.

This is a record full of elegant consolation, but one that refuses to patronise the listener.

There’s a new slinkiness to some of these songs.

Fade returns to familiar territory so intuitively that it feels less like a return to form than a homecoming.

It all feels highly personal, with Antonoff still channelling underdog status on songs such as How Dare You Want More. There’s plenty of filigree too: string arrangements by Annie “St Vincent” Clark, input from Warren Ellis and a writing credit for Zadie Smith.

Noticeably more cheerful than on 2018’s heartbroken Ruins. ... Best of all, though, is Angel, a gorgeously upbeat lament to lost love (“I love you, even if you don’t love me”) that recalls Fleetwood Mac at their most radio-friendly.

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

Perhaps Money Plant is overlong, but the mournful coda of Ladder more than makes up for it. Yes, it’s a little one-dimensional, but it’s a lovely dimension.

At a time of such division, it’s a startlingly brave record and all the more necessary for it.

If the grain of this album is purposely rougher-hewn, with boxy acoustics trading off with the odd sub-bass boom, the songwriting remains complex and elevated.

Integrated Tech Solutions is another assured slam dunk: a loose concept album about our dystopian tech consumerism with bouncy retro production that crackles with vim.

A brave, thoughtful album.

Dave’s Mercury prize- and Brit award-winning debut, Psychodrama, became a classic overnight; now it has a rival for introspection, operatic quality and wordplay. Tender piano arrangements, unadulterated storytelling and sermon-like verses flood this topical album that is part confessional poetry, part social commentary.

Ultimately, this may be Swift’s most Swiftian album: the unhappiness profound, the details generous, the lessons absorbed.

Backed by a gospel choir, 16-piece string section and horn fanfares, HMLTD confidently tackle musical styles as varied as choral harmony (Worm’s Dream), hook-laden soul (The End Is Now), grungy rock (Saddest Worm Ever) and plaintive pop balladry (Lay Me Down). ... It’s this richness that gives the album its depth, harnessing a large ensemble to showcase HMLTD as a band capable of committing to grand visions with brilliant intensity.

You could argue some of what made her unique has been ironed out, but there are too many singalong moments here to really notice.

As familiar as many of these tunes now are, Product still sounds disruptive, a sound pushing the limits of what constitutes pop and what is just an annoying noise you are inexplicably paying money for.

It’s by no means a comfortable listen, but it is their most intriguing and fully rounded album to date.

Full of morphing grooves and moods of imminent revelation, it’s a quicksilver delight.

The rest of Happier Than Ever tells a richly nuanced story about how human beings intersect.

Their fifth album finds them playing it relatively straight, and it's no bad thing.