Twelve top-class tracks also feature Chicago-born guitarist Dennis Cahill.

There is the odd failure (23 is a saccharine ode to her husband, the footballer Gerard Piqué), but Shakira still traverses musical styles like few others.

If Laurel Hell is anything to go by, Mitski is only getting better.

As so many are today, it’s a lockdown special, and this shows both in its more ambitious production and its slight air of self-indulgence.

On his fifth album, he seizes the mainstream jugular with a lushly romantic, brightly orchestrated and delightfully optimistic collection of epic love songs.

The sound is lean and clean, sharply separated with individual instrumentation shining through and not a lot of over-dubbing or effects.

It is the 12 songs he wrote and co-wrote that sparkle.

Despite her weak voice and empty lyrics, the troubled Disney graduate has placed herself at the avant-garde of pop with this masterful mixture of über-cool dubstep and sugary pop.

At times she strives too hard for Tom Waitsian wonky Americana. But more often she makes the Canadian wilderness her own.

Knocking around for twenty years and now down to a duo, Cornershop are still coming up with brilliantly playful pop.

Del Rey has sometimes been characterised as a modern day torch singer but on Lust For Life she sounds like she is finally ready to take that torch and burn down her ex’s house with it. Lust For Life lets a bit of light into the darkness of Del Rey’s moody past works, hinting at emotional recovery without drastically altering her sensuous musical palette.

It's a heart-warming who's who.

A genuinely superior slice of small hours electro-pop.

Freighted deep with lugubrious rolls of oily bass, sandy inhalations of desert strings, holy intonations and salty lust, Push the Sky Away is the audio equivalent of bathing in the Dead Sea.

Amidst skyscraping Queen harmonies and portentous Pink Floyd melodrama there are sensitive touches, with some elegant, slow-unfurling lead guitar reminiscent of Dire Straits.

It’s a brief cloud over a lovely record that is the aural equivalent of lying down in a sunny meadow, located somewhere between Stockholm and Nashville.

It sounds like a romantic gift to his new wife and a sentimental salute to his own childhood--a minor gem from a major talent.

Its dark, off-kilter twists and trapdoors become moreish as liquorice.

The Painter harks back to the producer’s woozy, worldly chill out beginnings. It even features Orton on two tracks. This is ambient music for grown-ups.

This is glorious summer music, possibly the summer of 1974, but sunshine all round none the less.

Lipa’s cooly commanding voice holds the attention on expansive melodies that make the most of her range, flowing between rich low tones, a husky middle and sweet highs. It is precise, luxurious, energetic without ever really breaking a sweat.

He made this latest emotionally and intellectually supple album specifically for that dance community.

Hannigan rewards close attention, though. Lyrical phrases float up that demonstrate she is a writer of great care, with an eye for an arresting image.

It’s an impressive, tantalising work from an artist who has dared to take the path less travelled.

At the heart of Ezra’s mainstream pop appeal is a sense of joy that infuses his music with radiant positivity. In such troubled times, Ezra’s escapism is pure gold.

The new songs shimmer with languid, sun-kissed grooves, anthemic choruses that U2 would kill for, along with a fine line in tender romance.

Every track offers up a smart blend of snappy lyrics and catchy hooks, and at least half are absolutely glorious.

All 11 songs are of high quality.

ere are a few moments of awkward student theatre wailing, but they're blips in an otherwise richly rewarding odyssey.

A Dream Is All We Know is that rare thing: a perfectly crafted, concise collection of 12 songs that brim over with good-will and optimism.

Her second album, however, belatedly delivers on all Goulding's latent promise.

Some gripping songs of internal angst with rock touches set off by luscious strings and Harvieu’s timeless voice.

An album of real class.

This certainly isn’t an indie-sleaze revivalist album, nor is it an effort to prove their relevance. Cool It Down puts words and music to fears and concerns while shaking you into feelings of some radical hope.

Sonically speaking, Weller seriously kicks it.

The songs are sufficiently sophisticated and winning that The Waeve keeps sweeping the listener along on its intoxicating journey.

At times his roar-throated tone gets repetitive, but Denver singer/songwriter Esmé Patterson adds subtle vocal contrast on the haunting Silent Key.

This is What I Mean completely abandons the often very macho bullishness at the heart of hip hop, to show rap at its most sensitive.

On The End, So Far, the nihilistic furnace still glows hot, but amongst the fuming metal riffs, Slipknot also fume in a more creative way.

Coombes, a quite masterful musical auteur after three decades in the game, skillfully navigates the record away from one long mid-life nightmare. ... it’s another hugely satisfying listen.

Chinouriri has cited African choral group Ladysmith Black Mambazo as one of her major inspirations – alongside Coldplay, Lily Allen and the indie folk trio Daughter. It’s her range that lends Chinouriri success in this latest release.

Psychic Life is fully in touch with such early-Eighties weirdness, but is also fresh, approachable and thoroughly spellbinding.

This is a softer, more introspective approach than her barn-storming debut, but this 12-track album doesn’t lack the punch and bite of its debut in spite of this.

There is an avant garde boldness here that is, at times, quite amazing.

It’s the sound of a band subverting expectations in the most dramatic fashion possible. And it confirms The Horrors as one of Britain’s most intriguing bands.

The Long Goodbye is an angry, funny, clever and, at times, swaggeringly brutal examination of a national identity crisis, on which Ahmed demonstrates the skills of a master rapper, aided by the emotional edge of his thespian delivery.

What you get is pure and fluent Simpson musicianship.

For all its length (16 tracks) and elaborate staging (with videos for every song), the album has a focus and intensity unusual in multi-writer ensemble productions, a sense of purposefulness that holds the attention even when the songs sometimes drift off in search of a chorus.

What I like most is the sense that these two musicians are beyond caring about perceptions, simply determined to have fun. 44/876 is a treat for grown-up fans of either artist.

Sometimes [the strings'] swell threatens to overwhelm the quirkiness, but in the best things, such as Skies are Rare, they work perfectly together.

Delightfully daft.

These are powerful nuggets. Whether he’s addressing God directly or meditating on the nature of religion in more abstract terms (you never quite know), Cave’s words are potent and evocative.

She brings excellent phrasing to Haggard's powerful lyrics and there are two standout songs [Sing Me Back Home and Someday When Things are Good].

Furnaces is an album of bold and brutal self-examination of masculinity’s darkest aspects, in which Harcourt seductively acknowledges the appeal of giving vent to selfish impulses while implicitly acknowledging their devastating effect on others, and indeed the world.

The album has a bruised but tough essence, which comes across in 10 elegantly tailored songs detailing a disintegrating relationship.

Orton digs so deeply into her own personal spaces and memories that what she finds there is unique. Middle-aged discontent has rarely sounded so lovely.

It is only eight songs and comes in under 25 minutes long, yet it packs more hooks than a whaling armada. It is short, punchy and sweet enough to cause tooth rot, every moment crammed with crafted earworms and swaggering beats.

It's expensive but for Martyn fans it will offer hours and hours of fresh enjoyment of one of British folk's true greats.

Nutini has a voice that could transform any song, riding melodies with lazy restraint until suddenly unleashing notes that would have any throat specialist reaching for their speculum in alarm. On Last Night in the Bittersweet, he sounds like he’s having the time of his life.

Its 10 tracks offer a timely reminder of just why Oasis resonated so widely, empowered by a melodious and snappy songwriter with plenty of heart and soul.

Now 70 years old, she is back on form with her 15th album.

They capture Reed’s early processes, fragments of ideas that would morph into his definitive work. ... We sense that all that remained for Reed to do was to become Lou.

When you rouse yourself from Gardot's dream, it can be hard to recall any individual song, but the reverie is beautiful.

These abandoned sessions probably would have been ignored had they been released when first recorded. But to ears and sensibilities realigned to Cash’s brilliance, this really is a lost treasure.

The result wittily, emotionally and triumphantly affirms his position at the head of the British rap pack. Like many of our most fascinating pop stars, from John Lennon to Robbie Williams, Stormzy lies on a knife-edge between ego and insecurity, self-confidence and self-doubt.

Welch still has the love--and the tunes--we need to see us through.

The Australian singer-songwriter's fourth album evolves into a sweeping, original aural landscape through which she embarks on an involving journey of self-discovery.

This fifth album trades their signature Fender Stratocaster rock sound for hard-plucked acoustic guitars and lutes, conveying a majestic sense of space, the feeling that the music will unfold at its own pace, however long it takes.

The Kooks have come out fighting though, completely re-evaluating and overhauling their sound and the result is an exuberant fourth album bristling with character.

For although the album’s called Into Colour, its spectrum is mostly warm vintage tints: a cosy blend of sentimentality and sophistication.

This is an elegant, mature work of a songwriter and performer at the height of her powers.

The rapping hasn't been completely abandoned, but the emphasis here is on his sweet soul voice and a thumping Motown groove, an intriguing change of direction that's both passionate and populist.

World Record is classic Young: passionate, direct, ragged and beautiful.

Although King’s Disease III might have some tonal missteps, Nas and Hit-Boy should be applauded for bringing warm soul samples back into hip hop culture at a time of such darkness and uncertainty. This is Godfather: Part III if Michael Corleone retired without all the treachery; music about being comfortable with your place and making it to the other side.

There is something about the tension and balance afforded by Doves’ lyrical and melodic heaviness, the pounding thrill of their hard-driven grooves, and the glittering psychedelic detail of cinemascopic arrangements, that is mesmeric and compelling.

It’s a rarity to have an album in which every song could genuinely be a single, but they’ve managed it here.

Saturns Pattern is an album to wallow joyously in, even if the songs are as whimsical as Weller’s approach to punctuation.

The 17-track record is as hyperactive, heartfelt and honest as we’ve come to expect from the group.

It can get a bit messy at times, but if you like the sound of The National channeling Bruce Springsteen at a rowdy barroom hoedown then this could be one for you.

Brightest Blue is an album of sleekly produced, emotional gushing electropop elevated by Goulding’s vocals.

Ye is an album about Kanye’s state of mind, his family, and a narration of what’s been going on in his “shaky-ass year”. The beats are great. Lyrically, it’s fine. Whatever you think of his politics, his songwriting, sample-hunting and beat-making remain dynamic, surprising and ballsy.

Reputation is a big, brash, all-guns-blazing blast of weaponised pop that grapples with the vulnerability of the human heart as it is pummelled by 21st-century fame.

As big and bold as any fan could hope for.

This is highly advanced rap filtered through easily digestible hooks and musical choices. The beat variety on display is exquisite. Almost every shade of Megan Thee Stallion is here.

Mayer’s songs about bruised male egos, damaged hearts and hard-earned life lessons conjure up slow motion sequences from a long-lost John Hughes movie. It really is Some Kind of Wonderful.

A jazzy, soulful, understated account of breakup and recovery, that shimmers like a gorgeous summer groove and lets La Havas’s tender singing and cryptic lyrics carry the bittersweet emotion.

Overall, there's less headbanging potential here than on their finest moment – 2001's Grammy-winning song Boss of Me from Malcolm in the Middle – but it doesn't matter. This is still a brilliant summer listen.

The 12 track Volume 1 of Scorpion is a sharply focused hip-hop album, with Drake delivering eloquent zingers over stripped back beats and spine-tinglingly atmospheric hooks. ... Meanwhile, the 13 track Volume 2 showcases Drake’s flip side, sensitive R'n'B loverman whose simple two-note melodies offer nights of pleasure on dance floors and in bedrooms yet somehow always end with broken hearts (usually his).

Dornik’s voice wafts past like a poolside waiter, in service of the scenery, not standing out from it. Ultimately, the album has the same effect: but it’s still the season’s coolest British background music.

It is all quite delightfully nuts.

It is a witty, catchy delight that demonstrates Skinner still has his ear to The Streets sound.

With its intriguing cast, exotic songs and dazzling arrangements, AngelHeaded Hipster is a loving, rich, strange and rewarding delight for Marc Bolan fans, and Hal Willner fans alike.

Their love for their art is evident. When their voices come together, it is pure magic.

Everything may remind you of something you’ve heard before, but Gallagher remains a singer who can deliver utopian exhortations and sneering put-downs with equal conviction, even in the same song.

A sparse, mid-tempo acoustic account of lost love, almost the definition of a sensitive singer-songwriter album. Yet it is so focused in intent and precise in performance, it seems to mark an advance rather than a retreat, the mature arrival at the realisation that sometimes less really is more.

A straight-ahead album of gorgeous, elaborate, amusing and affecting songs.

Entering Heaven Alive may not be his most ground-breaking album and won’t entirely satisfy those who come for the great White guitar wail. But this master musician really sounds like he’s enjoying himself with results that are pretty heavenly.

With This Could Be Texas, Leeds-based quartet English Teacher have crafted a record really quite striking in its lyrical and sonic ambition.