An (almost) unexpected pleasure.

Universal Themes is another chapter in the larger work in which the gruff San Franciscan transplant continues to grouse about hipsters (Cry Me A River Williamsburg Sleeve Tattoo Blues), count blessings, and ponders the cruel senselessness of the universe with intermittently startling guitar work.

There’s depth here too--listen 10 times and you will still be discovering new things to enjoy: clever wordplay, a subtle melody. It’s a joy from start to finish.

Old-school Africa at its finest.

The influence of shambly 1990s indie such as Pavement and, most obviously, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci is clear on their winningly gauche debut, but it stands in a longer line of British faux-naifs stretching back through Postcard Records and the Raincoats.

It’s all crowned by the confidence of I Got This, which reconciles Charlatans-esque country-soul Hammond to classy baroque-pop ba-ba-bas in a way that is unabashedly uplifting.

Marshall now has a manager, but Wanderer has that spooked strangeness of old. The grim reaper looms large. ... But there are tunes, too--pretty things like Horizon, which pays tribute to her family, while Marshall simultaneously eyes the exit.

925 packs in more than a few disruptive ideas. But Sorry haven’t yet acquired the musical vocabulary to pull them off.

It’s a relief to find Williams as thought-provoking and moving as ever.

Hollow Meadows, written while Hawley was at home recovering from a slipped disc and a broken leg, finds the crooner at his most affecting and fragile.

These grooves are floppy-limbed, loosely propelled by basslines that sound like ones Ian Brown left behind under a pub table.

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.

There are fewer surprises but no shortage of quality.

The man refuses to be parcelled up into neat bitstreams and that's never been clearer than on this uneven but involving album. This, it seems, is his message: embrace the sprawl.

Unashamedly uplifting songs about working hard and loving music.

Sometimes it's hair-raisingly great... Elsewhere, this incandescent music can stray into baroque perversity.

It's a slender, amateur volume but delightful.

It's Rhys's empathy with Evans and the humour and pathos with which he conveys his young protagonist's emotions that makes this such a vivid and exhilarating journey.

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.

Loose, heady and sensual by turns, Garden of Ashes surveys both the parlous state of the world and blasted inner landscapes with resonant instrumentation, rattlesnake percussion and a thousand-yard stare. And yet, on songs such as Sleep, the overriding impression is one of succour.

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.

There is nothing fly-by-night about Rita Ekwere, an artist in the classic mould – audibly from London, but gazing outwards. Empress feels hugely current.

These are mature, classy songs. They’re also abuzz with the thrill of a bright new musical friendship, audible in the confidences Brewis conjures on the punchy Watercooler, or Hayes’s unburdening of private griefs on the radiant, string-swept Springburn.

For all the Tarantino growl and spaghetti western shlock of opener Til the Moment of Death, this second album carries itself with more assurance than last year’s eponymous debut, with songcraft and witty wordplay coming to the forefront.

There is certainly greater focus this time around: only the eco-aware She Showed Me Love breaks six minutes, and it revels in the space it’s afforded.

As The Slow Rush builds, you have to hold on tight to the idea that, despite the musical lengths Parker used to go through to camouflage his lyrics, he is actually one of our most intriguing confessional singer-songwriters.

The palette of sounds she draws from on the long-awaited, and largely self-incubated, follow-up is familiar. ... She saves the most affecting song for last, Speaking of the End making its mark with just understated piano and her unadorned voice.

If some of Young’s ballads feel more conventional, the jazz-tinged Pretty in Pink reveals an artist who questions, but ultimately knows who she is.

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.

Miss Anthropocene is a deep, dark trip – shame the climate crisis bit isn’t also part of Grimes’s wild imagination.

McCombs’ lack of interest in easy interpretations endures and, if anything, prettifies, on this engrossing record.

Fortunately, there is nothing noticeably sub-par about the tunes – or Johnson’s voice or Young’s brio on the guitar.

In among all this pervasive beauty (which tends towards expansive prettiness and resonant succour rather than the sterner, more austere end of the ambience spectrum), it feels like only the eight-minute apex track Deep in the Glowing Heart rearranges the listener’s molecules in a transformational way.

DeMarco has always worn his talent lightly, but finally he sounds focused, reflecting on relationships like a millennial Cat Stevens, particularly those with his absent father and his long-term girlfriend.

Simple Pleasures aside, Kasabian sound a little less desperate to prove themselves to Oasis fans this time around.

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.

Her Big Grrrl Small World is not yet at the level of Hill’s peerless Miseducation, but there’s a greater musicality afoot this time and a more generous emotional palette; less rage, more nuance.

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.

Crystallised, in particular, kicks into a deeply satisfying psych-rock crunch halfway through - a reverb-heavy, robust foil for Prochet's feathery voice. But for much of the unfocused second half of the album, their sounds stray into Stereolab-lite.

These are resonant, grownup songs about going drinking on a Tuesday (Time), Okie ancestors forced to move during the depression (Eliza Jane) and the frustrations of transatlantic lovers looking at the same ocean (Telephone Lovers).

Another tour de force.

Their ninth throws in an unexpected brass section, some pedal steel guitar and even reggae, while retaining the band’s core mellifluousness. It’s a minor masterstroke, making City Sun Eater… a quirky but eminently listenable record.

There are anguished pyrotechnics from young Malian singers like Rokia Koné and Mamani Keita, sweet love calls and a restless, infectious energy to the album. A triumph.

Most of the sounds here are mellifluous, with ample space given to heavenly backing vocalists on the more heartfelt songs, like the standout Hudson Mohawke co-production Free Ride.

This diverse, engaging and immensely likable collection plays at least as well on headphones as on the dancefloor.

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

The best of these blues and folk-indebted songs carry the faint warmth and reassuring whiff of an old pub as frontman John Bramwell reflects wittily on life's disappointments. But there's a pervading drabness that they struggle to shake.

They blend together perfectly on this debut album of melodic acoustic folk, but it's a melding so perfect as to be (churlish though it sounds) pretty boring.

Tied to the Moon is a captivating follow-up to her 2012 debut, Under Mountains, offering a richer, darker take on the soft folk of that record.

Throughout, Raymond takes this roiling, rhythmic traditional sound and stamps her own imprimatur on it.

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.

An album whose title suggests razzmatazz but delivers Wagner’s customary laid-back profundity with well placed digital embellishments.

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.

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.

When that results in music that sounds like music, it's great.

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

They don’t manage to sustain such a high quality throughout--the final three songs are certainly expendable--but there’s plenty of promise here.

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.

If the concept might seem a bit Brexit, the execution is flawless and winningly witty.

Ejimiwe forgoes the disjointed electronic sounds of his first two records in favour of a hazy alt-rock backing, but he’s now at home in this style and his languid, sung-spoken monologues sound their most assured.

There are blank pages for fans to fill in. At nearly 30, the singer-songwriter remains an intriguing mixture of industry power-broker and giddy cat-obsessive. Lover is fine with that, but the real battle is where she goes after this.

It's not only Joel Little's minimalist production, all clicks, bass and empty space. The restraint lies also in Ella Yelich-O'Connor's treatment of orthodox pop themes.

Like salted caramel, they become seriously moreish, once you lock into Crutchfield's delivery, which is more sophisticated than it first appears.

As a whole, it's a highly inventive take on the house template, very much in keeping with the rest of the DFA label's output – though a pattern emerges that sees Void's languorous, treated vocals backed, and often dominated, by highly aggressive synth lines.

Ignorance Is Bliss handles the MC’s next steps with authority and, crucially, popping production.

Uptempo numbers such as the Pharrell-produced Tamagotchi and the chugging Talk, meanwhile, feel shoehorned in for radio play, removing breathing space for Apollo’s vibrato-laden voice and overstuffing the record to 16 tracks. Apollo’s aptitude for unexpected genres can provide beautiful results, as on the yearning En El Olvido, but it can equally speak of a jarring restlessness.

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.

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.

Thompson narrates this break-up in a voice tinged as much with near-eastern devotional music as it is traditional song.

Her fourth album is inspired by a return to instinct. If it feels less ambitious than its predecessor, 2016’s Will – which explored acoustic settings from a Moog factory to a motorway underpass – it’s also more ravishingly beatific.

This fifth album is arguably his most measured, setting his supple vocals to acoustic, subtly innovative arrangements.