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.

This is a tighter record than the first volume, particularly the come-to-bed cheek of Cabaret, featuring his current chart competitor Drake. Things get slushier towards the end with Only When I Walk Away and Not a Bad Thing.

They stick to straightforward pleasures.

Where TMLT fails, it’s because of Stickles’ long-windedness and the self-obsession at the heart of this work; almost certainly a by-product of his diagnosis. Mostly, though, this lament is no tragedy, but a spirited two-fingers; a celebration of the artistic payload of atypical brain chemistry.

There's enough crunch to their hooky electropop to dispel accusations of unwarranted hype.

You are either in the mood for this depth of wallowing or you are not.

You feel that Slow Club’s own best version of themselves is yet to come.

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).

Telling of new beginnings and lost love, the breeze in her voice and her easy-going melodies act as a smokescreen: these are often direct takes on pain.

Warpaint’s third album is aptly titled, given the startling outbreak of focus here.

Just another solid Pet Shop Boys album.

This compilation of Juan tour-only EP tracks, plus remixes and so on may be a stop-gap between Juan albums proper, but it doesn't feel like filler.

It's hardly a treasure trove of unreleased material but the tape hiss, traffic noise and acoustic arrangements make it an invitingly slackerish alternative.

As ever, Beth’s theorising is air-tight, but ironically, the album stutters most when it is being most provocative.

The commercial emo that has earned Tennessee's Paramore platinum sales is still present on their fourth album, as are the unremarkable ballads, but there's also a new willingness to try other genres. The results are mixed.

There’s plenty of straight-up R&B--No Sleeep, Dammn Baby and Night find Jam, Lewis and Jackson on nicely updated form--but Lessons Learned, for one, is a country-leaning guitar ballad, one of a large handful of songs about hard-won maturity and making the world a better place that play more to the Oprah demographic.

Too much of the material on their fifth album is content to merely sit in the background, not something from which they usually suffer.

Side Boob and Razor’s Edge don’t even bother with the middle men, heading straight for the infectious propulsion of Is This It. Elsewhere, however, Hammond makes a creditable stab at the sunny nonchalance of Mac DeMarco, while a crunching Arctic Monkeys riff underpins Caught By My Shadow.

French pop in its purest form hasn't really got its groove back since the 60s, but, wisely, it's this very era that this Perpignan duo mine, marrying fuzzed-out psychedelia and agreeably rambling rock with the pop sweetness of that decade's chansons.

ally fun. For a new band, this would be a perfectly serviceable debut, but with Ex Hex having flown so high previously, It’s Real is a disappointment.

Easier Than Lying is shouty and electronic, while You Asked for This finds Halsey fronting a Smashing Pumpkins pastiche. Amid all the Sturm und Drang and sludgy oompah (The Lighthouse) there is some high-quality writing, chiefly in the pizzicato niggles and Jesus analogies of Bells in Santa Fe (“it’s not a happy ending”) and Whispers.

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.

Throughout, a commitment to heartfelt songcraft remains the most “country” thing about Sound & Fury.

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

A set of retro-inspired songs that don’t, frankly, refashion the wheel, but boast a certain tremulous, lived-and-loved appeal.

A collection of earnest, country-tinged rock, comes loaded with the hallmarks of Lightbody's band--plaintive vocals and choruses that lumber in the direction of anthemic uplift--but scant evidence of the more nuanced talents surrounding him.

The musician is famously exacting when it comes to sound and, predictably, the album is impeccably produced. What's shocking, though, is that at moments it sounds--whisper it--delicate.

The appeal of this low-key grower lies in Berninger’s woebegone baritone, rubbing up against non-National music that is neither taxing nor obvious. There are feather-light shuffles here like Sleepin’ Light, or pretty, piano-led outings like No Time to Crank the Sun.