Justice are still capable of raw-edged excitement, but on Hyperdrama they find themselves too polished and bright.

By now, most listeners will know where they stand on Vedder’s distinctive holler and the band’s beefiness; little on Dark Matter is likely to enchant gen Z away from their own heroes. But the faithful will rejoice.

Bodega Bait or ATM don’t bring anything to the kids v commerce discourse that you couldn’t get from a jpeg of Nirvana’s Nevermind. Much better is GND Deity, a punchy metallic funk side-eye at the “girl next door” online sex industry, electrifying despite dated references to the long-gone web pages.

Nothing as pretty as 2019’s Debold, but it feels like his most accessible project so far – far more engaging than Headache, his recent AI-performed side hustle.

There are inevitable longueurs as well, mind: Pure Poor gives dirges a bad name, and closer Hey Lou Reid fancies itself as an epic but instead just feels like an extraordinarily slow six minutes. Still, the fact that Glasgow Eyes is three-quarters of a good record is reason for celebration.

Crutchfield rides a middle road here. Same producer yet different band; same sprightly Americana vibe yet more emotionally placid than its predecessor, which recounted a troubled reckoning with her newfound sobriety.

These highs could have been more musically vertiginous and the lows more chasmic. It is a privilege to have them back, but you wish their music had the courage of Gossip’s convictions. Don’t Be Afraid is an epic intentionally trapped in a cheap Casio keyboard: underpowered.

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.

Songs such as Jade Green are so focused on the minutiae of her life as to feel tedious. She finds a delicate balance between the two, though, on Anime Eyes, a dizzying, almost comically lovestruck track that finds Musgraves eschewing the tasteful zen of the rest of the album in favour of all-out lyrical maximalism. It’s a flavour Deeper Well could have used more of.

Unfortunately, Gordon’s spiky, staccato delivery is too often drowned in distortion and diminished by tune-dodging cacophony. So many songs, such as Trophies, are tense yet torpid, and when the airless intensity clears briefly on Shelf Warmer it’s too late.

While Bleachers is far from being a bad album, it’s even further from being an exciting one.

This is a well-crafted collection that could maybe do with a couple more heaters, but will keep the wider audience he picked up with Conflict of Interest happy.

Bubblegum Dog is more engaging for its muscular delivery and surreal lyrics, and there’s a sense of space to the soaring Nothing Changes. Ultimately, though, for all its gloss, Loss of Life feels a little disappointing.

Grip is OK, but it should make more sense on stage.

There are nice moments of nostalgia: banger Hearts and Flowers references Jenny from the Block, while the excellent Rebound is a throwback R&B jam accentuated by fluttering harp. But songs such as To Be Yours and Not.going.anywhere offer very little outside of simply soundtracking a cosy night in chez Bennifer.

It’s when Larsson gets earnest that things start to falter. Nothing cribs too readily from Rihanna’s 2010-era balladry, while Larsson’s full-bodied delivery jars with Soundtrack’s soft strings. She’s better setting those emotions to big floor-fillers, as on End of Time, which peaks as a desperate Larsson belts “until the end of fucking time!” For that sense of pent-up release, Venus works perfectly.

If Insano is to be Mescudi’s musical curtain call, it showcases his capacity to attract big names, without delivering on distinctive songs.

Although the likes of the punchy 1981 and the poppier Suzie Chapstick roll back the years, too many of the songs here sound laboured and/or pedestrian, and there’s a real paucity of memorable material.

Sometimes it feels more like an oral history project, with first-hand spoken-word accounts by Liam Bailey (the title track), or Brown’s appreciation of her family on Just Be. Mostly, though, she succeeds in channelling her anger, sadness and defiance, all the while conveying gratitude for the richness of her Caribbean roots.

Benjamin has woodwind form. He contributed flute to the soundtrack of Everything Everywhere All at Once and played clarinet on 2018’s epic tribute to his mother, Look Ma No Hands. New Blue Sun is more weirdly charismatic than either of those.

You don’t have to strain too much, either, to hear a plausible feminist reworking of songs such as (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, when Parton joins larynxes with Pink and Brandi Carlile. But overall, Rockstar is both a savvy commercial package and a fudged artistic opportunity.

The title track and single Tantor are decent, and Shakedown a warm beachside strut, with Brown’s lyrical ice shards speared through. Bass Jam is lovely nostalgia, shimmering harmonies surrounding him like ghosts of his former selves. Otherwise, the beats feel slightly tired, casting a pall greater than any of Brown’s recent misfortunes.

It doesn’t quite match the standard of late-career high point The Liberty of Norton Folgate (2009), but the album is not without its moments.

Ultimately, Heaven Knows needed to move beyond PinkPantheress’s TikTok formula to break new ground, but is still stuck in the sounds of the past.

Party music looms large, thanks to tunes like Out of Luck, Ghost! and What Ya Know; range and depth comes in the form of Wasp’s husky R&B. But the feelgood moments, though nagging, can’t help but feel slightly anodyne compared with Maidza’s more lethal modes.

They’re at their best on their more focused songs: there’s a swagger to opener My Little Tony, and Worlds Greatest Emoter has a winningly upbeat bassline. But when the tempo drops, the likes of Calm Down With Me and Bibs are indigestible dirges, and too often The Twits feels like a heavy-going triumph of style over content.

The album takes off when Jung Kook can focus on his honeyed falsetto, as on the supple disco glide of Standing Next to You, or on 3D’s exhilarating chorus. Golden is full of bright spots, but only fully shines on occasion.

While technically accomplished, Selvutsletter doesn’t do enough with its occasional moments of wonder – the glorious chorus of Hvals that arise during Sea White, for one – to justify its many lengthy, meandering sections.

Full of defiant brio and what you might charitably call unreconstructed Stonesiness – the Sydney Sweeney-starring video for Angry is a case in point; the LP’s Bill Wyman cameo is another – Hackney Diamonds is packed with convincing echoes of the band in its pomp.

Ultimately, the album is burdened by its own weight, striving to exorcise the group’s creative urges. Perhaps with more time together, Animal Collective could jam into a sense of consistency again.

Sometimes, he brings to mind Massive Attack, but then quickly the impression dissipates. Loose and cinematic, Sublime combines breakbeats with guitar, piano and strings. Not every element here is as assured.

While not quite a return to form, the album’s sleek yet plaintive production is a welcome reminder of what Blake does best.

Homo Anxietatem is at its best when it throws the genre doors wide.

There are gestures towards something deeper – rapper Roots Manuva rattling his baritone at the end of You Ain’t No Celebrity, or the harsh, thumping bass of Holding On – but largely, Volcano trades on Jungle’s same, safe formula. There is little new in the nostalgia of these 14 tracks.

End of World is frustratingly hit and miss – the staccato glam-rock stylings of The Do That are particularly annoying – but then you suspect that the arch contrarian Lydon wouldn’t have it any other way.

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.

Although always listenable, Austin soon gets tired and whiny.

Perhaps the slightly stentorian tone of Cosentino’s vocals is at odds with the fragility of some lyrics – she sounds pretty much invulnerable whether celebrating love, or admitting she never thought she’d be worthy of it. Still, when she stretches herself, as on piano ballad Easy or the moody alt-country of Real Life, it feels as if she has a real future on her own.

The catch is that some passages here feel featherlight and unmemorable; a record about such transformational jubilation deserves to sound more characterful. A surprise sitar solo on Keep On isn’t quite enough.

While masterfully engineered as always, the album is too polite, lacking the monstrous, alien menace of the band’s bassier efforts. It’s an album that could do with a dub treatment.

Átta feels surprisingly unengaging.

Its songs, by southerner Randall Bramlett, don’t have the heft of Dylan or Simone, but prove a good fit for Lavette’s heart-on-sleeve vocals.

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’s a shame, then, that the songs accompanying Grohl’s most powerfully affecting set of lyrics so often fail to reach the same standard [as the Foo Fighters’ 1995 debut].

Too many songs start engagingly, become slightly less interesting then peter out. And as ever, Tucek’s lyrics fall between pleasingly quotidian and blandly banal, derailing promising tracks such as The Tunnel.

What’s lacking is a standout floor-filler. There’s nothing here that comes close to Ooh La La, and some of these slight but elegant songs just fade too far into the background.

Subtract is palpably a grownup record on which he swings from coping to not coping. ... Artistically, things are less clear cut. If this is not a time for frisky, funky percussion, the watery tropes on these songs are matched by the album’s misty sound.

Mostly, this post-genre approach works. But pure electronics are her strongest suit; you want to cheer when the housey oscillations of Sky River arrive after too much derivative wafting.

In its themes of longing and Berninger’s baritone vocals, it has all the hallmarks of a National record, yet lacks the vitality to stand out in their back catalogue.

Standouts such as Run a Red Light and No One Knows We’re Dancing provide clubland demimonde vignettes, while a number of expansive, impressionistic sound-beds allow for more matter-of-fact lyrics about loss (Lost) and cutting oneself some slack (When You Mess Up). Less memorable are the songs – like Caution to the Wind - where the two coast pellucidly along.

For all Hetfield’s soul-baring, however, as a whole 72 Seasons seems to mark the end of their late-career renaissance and is ultimately far more solid than spectacular.

Ultimately, this is a fragmented listen – the sound of Bailey attempting to find her feet and stumbling as much as she succeeds.

Ultimately, this is the work of an artist in transition, catering to old fans and well-trodden styles while attempting to settle on something new.

A small step back in the right direction, but at times they still sound somewhat leaden.

Her more experimental material can be heavier going: the sparkling funk of Pump’s first half gives way to an interminable coda that’s far more annoying than clever.

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

Patchy but playful in places, Trustfall is reliably Pink.

The duo’s first full-length project stays close to the club, proving Dickson’s canny ear for foot-twitching rhythms accompanied by exuberant Bollywood strings. However, on songs such as Hurricanes the spiky drums and candied orchestration submerge McAlmont, leaving him politely fighting for attention down in the mix. It’s mostly fine – Happy Ending, Otherwise and The Fever are fun – but that succulent voice, lighter than a fly on a feather, needs more space, more time.

Smith is an easy fit for disco pop. ... But then Ed Sheeran crops up on Who We Love, bearing the unnecessary gift of a midtempo wet blanket.

This record is crying out for the calibre of musicians that helped Bowie make Blackstar, or Bill Callahan’s painterly band, or a truly dial-moving producer – or perhaps some intellectual assaults on the very notion of music itself to pin the listener down and inform them that John Cale – John Cale! – is in the building.

Pop uber-producer Max Martin is somewhat inevitably on hand to make sure the album gleams even harder than this sharp, lurid foursome do on their own. Unfortunately, Rush! is also a record that dashes about trying to tick all the boxes, with Måneskin’s English-language songs far outnumbering the Italian ones.

The songs are sad but considered, their melancholia held at bay by Habel’s strength of character and touching lyrics.

Their four quite different flows still work reasonably well together, from $hort’s lubricious bars to Cube’s truculent pugilism, over comfort-zone beats of electro, P-funk and other familiar 1980s grooves. Yet harmless nostalgia predictably succumbs to charmless bluster.

It really says something when the desolate ballads (Morning Show) and spoken-word interludes on an Iggy Pop record are the tracks you want to go back to. It feels like elsewhere, Pop is impersonating himself.

It treads a fine line between swashbuckling versatility and a lack of cohesion. Versatility largely wins out.

Best listened to as discrete tracks rather than as a whole, and never quite scaling the heights of Paradise or 2014’s Deep Fantasy, this album is a pleasing but flawed swansong.

Some moments fall flat – Lonely is cloying, paint-by-numbers EDM-pop that doesn’t fully land. Still, Indigo is a polished collection that spans both pop and rap with confidence.

There’s enough good material here for this to have been an excellent 40-minute album; as it is, it’s a flawed 80-minute one.

Springsteen is looking back on looking back; nostalgia, squared. If there is a criticism to be made of this big-hearted wallow, it’s not only that the mood here is galvanising, rather than anything more subtle or bruised.

It is a brave experimentation through unexpected sounds, including Depeche Mode-style new wave on Sainted, but Big Joanie are on more stable and satisfying ground when they put the glittering melodies aside.

Even on the album’s softer moments – delicate strummer All I Wanted, the lovely mid-tempo Yellow – the mood is still resolute in its heaviness. There’s relatable catharsis here, but it can be a lot to carry all at once.

Little sparks surprise and delight, such as producer FaltyDL’s creative use of unpredictable backing vocals, and Anohni’s gossamer hook on French Lessons. On the other hand, Ketamine proffers a disorientating rhythm and queasy vibe – presumably designed to recreate a K trip – that is oddly not that enjoyable to listen to. However, the main problem is a constellation of guests.

Out of Heart may not be a home run, but Flohio still scores with her acrobatic rhyme patterns and experimental sonics.

Part of the pleasure of covers albums is comparing the original with the nuanced update; this album misses that moment when the three Horsepeople wrap their dulcet pipes and jazzy arrangements around an ancient, oaky institution. The past, though, is still very much present.

This is an album that perfectly reflects Burgess’s guileless, up-for-anything, good-egg nature.

Crossan never strays from the formula. Each track is a verse-chorus sugar rush, giving the listener a three-minute hit of predictable entertainment across radio-friendly styles.

Respite comes with the atmospheric closer, Gaia – a nicely understated duet with Elissa Lauper that also features the Blue Nile’s Paul Buchanan – but it doesn’t make up for the pedestrianism elsewhere.

This may be billed as his serious opus, but clearly growing up is boring.

This adds welcome colour to the xx cinematic universe, but it’s no blockbuster.

It’s slightly overlong and unnecessarily repetitive, but clearly made with great care and affection.

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.

These are easy wins – a sonic sugar rush that crashes once each three-minute track is over. Yet when Armstrong gives us a glimpse of life away from the party-rapping – exploring his anxieties on Belgrave Road and his relationship with his sister on My G – he showcases a newfound vulnerability.

Holy Fvck has its flaws – Lovato’s powerful voice is unnecessarily finessed and Auto-Tuned, and 16 tracks is too long. But its gutsy ambition is a thing of substance in and of itself.

They continue to live and die by the watercolour synth wash. It’s a good job they’re masters of the form – as Broken, this album’s crystalline ballad, proves.

The eerie indelibility of Days are Forgotten, or Fire’s lumpen power, are missing, leaving the strings of lyrical cliches that Pizzorno ladles up horribly exposed. Alygatyr, Rocket Fuel and Chemicals are all right, but this feels like a coda, not a new movement.

While All 4 Nothing marks a partial progression for Leff, he still has some way to go to make his records memorable – whether they stand at 21 tracks or a baker’s dozen.

There’s an easy-going beauty to this music that is more redolent of succour than anger. Some might find this record a little too pretty.

There’s something irresistibly joyous about the low-stakes funky feel Harris summons at will, no matter who’s at the mic.

Much of it is pretty dispensable, with new songs Smiley and Acid Horse generic and lacklustre, offering little of the gift for transcendent melody twined around tough beats that made Orbital so iconic. Fortunately, the tour-ready updates of Chime, Impact (The Earth Is Burning) and Halcyon + On + On are much more engaging, and a trippy, strung-out Belfast rivals the original for quality.

Where Expectations saw Kiyoko taking space to explore her own voice, Panorama feels like a leap backwards, trading personality for affectless tracks that fade into the background.

Though Burna has always subtly weaved elements of pop into his music, it feels too omnipresent in the second half of the album.

You could, just about, call these psalms remixes, in that the thematic stems hold true. But there is respite, too, in the gentler notes and oscillations of Splendour, Glorious Splendour.

As an album, it never comes close to Guided By Voices at their mid-90s peak; it isn’t even the best one by this incarnation of the band (that’s possibly 2019’s Warp and Woof). But this is yet another solid addition to one of the most impressive canons in US indie rock.

Borrowing 10 beats from inventive producer Soundtrakk’s vault, Lupe tries out different flows with varying success.

Certainly, there’s an appealing directness to the maximalist likes of Wake Me Up, with its bellowed chorus seemingly precision-tooled for festival crowds. ... Unfortunately, the quality flags as the album goes on, and the undistinguished likes of Crest of the Wave only succeed in coming across like an ersatz Everything Everything.

O’Brien’s music, while often smart and sharply played, is rarely exciting as it skips from dusty funk to spiky electronica, and her poetry isn’t quite limber enough to enliven the bare scaffolding supplied by her band.

There are flashes of the full-throated musicality that made her an exciting prospect, but the album falls short. Perhaps hampered by a pressure to take her sound in a fresh direction, Balbuena loses the vitality that distinguished her in the first place.

Gallagher still has a voice that can imbue even the most meaningless lyric with more feeling than it deserves. But the old adage about cooks and broth holds true, because for all the efforts of the crack team surrounding him, the results are largely unremarkable and at times, as in the case of Oh Sweet Children, downright cloying.