Hinson has largely succeeded in creating a bewitching Americana record that is quite his own and his most accomplished work to date.

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.

Her third album stays close to the formula, though with a slightly darker, starker turn.

These songs move from the personal pain of a breakup--Seven Words, with its sentimental organ, heartbeat pulse and clouds of choral glory--to the planetary pain of environmental disaster and our Snapchatting detachment from it.

As elegantly crafted as it all is, it does become a little homogeneous, and well before Other You’s 50 minutes are up, you do find yourself craving a gear change somewhere.

A surprising trip to an altogether other time and place.

Her fourthcorrect, country-tinged album is no mere musical mope, but features writerly vignettes and restrained introspection.

On this sprawling, often horizontal record, Lacy’s default setting is a blissful Los Angeles funk that bleeds easily into punchier hip-hop passages. Occasionally, he’ll show off his Prince 2.0 soloing skills on songs like Love 2 Fast.

Living My Life and the seductive Duplex Planet hark back to the dream-like delicacy of Halcyon Digest, but Leather and Wood is an amorphous mess. Thankfully, the best songs are saved until last.

A dense, angry, complex rock album.

As middle of the road as this singer undoubtedly seems, there is, however, much to commend her debut album, Not Your Muse – a gutsier, wiser and more elliptical set of songs than may at first appear.

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.

There are fractured beats, and tendril-like melodies, but here nothing really lands--as either protest or revelation. ... But mid-album, Cherry and Hebden hit a very sweet spot indeed as Natural Skin Deep finally syncs Hebden’s rhythmic dub jazz and Cherry’s pop nous.

The jumps between genres barely jar once you realise how good Doyle is at all of them.

Mergia’s approach is often unorthodox. His melodies, snaking up and down the pentatonic scales of Ethio-jazz, are hypnotic and mysterious.

The MC born Ché Wolton Grant is on fire, yet in some danger of losing his individuality.

Two of these cuts have already graced the top 10; the rest of Disclosure's debut album showcases a sound in which the echoes of two-step, UK funky and older house records recombine into a surprisingly timely and moreish soundtrack.

Though a new fondness for electric guitar and Hammond organ adds buoyancy to material like A Whole Life Lived, the album too often trades his former wit for bitterness.

So: slow going. It is emphatically not a record for people in a hurry. And all this dawning can feel a little like groundhog day if you're not in the mood to receive this rich album's central idea: that your load will probably become easier to bear when there is some light on the path ahead.

James Holden has never actually sounded like BOC, but this time around he shares their penchant for analogue gear and mantric, pagan repetition.

On close examination, his songcraft often stalls at the pupal (but promising) stage, but there is enough chutzpah here to steamroller such reservations.

It’s an intensely, intentionally stressful listen, the occasional victory of thumping, clanking grooves over the scraping, grating racket offering an illusion of normality before snatching it away again.

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.

It promises much but never quite delivers.

Rather than arcane and austere, though, his fifth album is by turns bleakly beautiful and playfully rampant.

Kimbie's levels of invention are such that this album still feels tricksy and cutting-edge.

It’s hard to keep up, then--but worth it.

The title is optimistic: few of these vocalists display obvious potential, and their presence amid Hinton’s finely calibrated beats can be jarring. The clockwork production accentuates their awkwardness.... It helps that Hinton’s regard for these wannabe superstars seems genuine.