There are duds, mostly when Aitch is chasing LA acclaim and aping US trap rappers on tracks like Cheque or Fuego. But when he leans into the silky, bumpy ’90s-era smooth-licking RnB that he raised himself on – see Sunshine or R Kid – he’s hard to beat.

While this album invigorates and intrigues, in future I would hope to hear her expand lyrically, while exploring the hauntingly melancholic sounds her violin can produce. For now, at least, the defiant joy her work evokes is a stimulating jolt to the senses.

Mabel also retains the tender, thoughtful quality that infused her debut album High Expectations (2019), and this makes for an impressively nuanced flow.

The 12 tracks that make up Expert in a Dying Field are lean and propulsive, with hooks that get under the skin.

He's made the kind of record that every kid rummaging through boxes of Seventies vinyl at the car boot sale hopes to find. One that lovingly reassembles a 21st-century impression of that era's warm autumnal hues and tactile textures.

This would all be simply infuriating were it not for the melodiousness that binds these strange sounds and images together, the feeling stirred up by Vernon’s voice, and his gift for chord progressions that sweep you along almost against your will.

The kids might not understand, but rock fans should be delighted that Kerr and Thatcher are still in the ring, giving it everything they’ve got.

Sharper production focuses the singer's woozier tendencies, revealing a succession of hooks to adorn his take on Neil Young's grooving folk-rock and Blur's twisted indie.

It’s infested with the collective naughtiness and layered irony of a B-movie all-nighter.

This is an album of mature, accessible pop-rock. The singing is beautiful, the playing immaculate, the sound warm and rounded, with nothing to scare the horses.

These are songs rich in detail, soul deep, often burdened with worry and a lifetime’s baggage, yet it’s the hazy sense of a drifter’s freedom in New Magic II which wins through, lifting your spirits time and again.

Her command over that mass of bodies remains.

Lisa Hannigan is on confident form in her second solo release since the split from Damien Rice.

She really does sweep the listener away, spinning wild webs of sound and carrying us off to her own aural dreamland.

It is as if one of the saddest albums you will ever hear is masquerading as a set of party hits. Nevertheless, No Shame should be compulsory listening for every young wannabe who still thinks pop stardom will be a panacea for all their problems.

Wild Beasts have shed a lot of excess, offering a stripped-back amalgamation of analogue Eighties synths, snappy machine rhythms and industrial rock guitar buzz, coloured with great swathes of harmonic panache, that is lean and mean enough to pass for modern pop. This newfound purpose is the real revelation of Wild Beasts’ strongest album to date.

The Civil Wars offers up 12 perfectly elegant, subtly arranged Americana songs of bad love, misplaced emotion, cheating hearts, fighting and fleeing.

Dealing frankly with love, rejection, frustration, self-doubt and self-acceptance, almost every one of the 10 tracks is catchy and distinctive enough to become a hit.

A defiantly bravura set of melodic metal on which the 73-year-old genuinely sounds as though he’s having the time of his life.

A side project should be challenging and unusual; it should stretch the boundaries of the artists involved. Since that is what this characterful, strong, self-contained album does, you really have to like it or lump it.

The result is furiously syncopated, no-holds-barred rock made marvellously strange by Camara's squawking fiddle and invocatory singing.

Given the circumstances surrounding its creation, there is unsurprisingly a sadness at the heart of Two Ribbons, but even in quieter moments such as the acoustic Strange Conversations, or the atmospheric interlude In The Cemetery, the air is of light breaking through. And, equally often, there is a redemptive clarity and a wonderful sense of healing.

With the right collaborators she can conjure golden moments.

Thoughts on suicide, homelessness, injustice, heartbreak and mortality are framed with supple grooves, melodious chords, gorgeous harmonies and lushly detailed arrangements.

Sour is a melodramatic pop opera of broken teen dreams: right now, it puts Rodrigo in the driver’s seat, and woe betide anyone who gets in her way.

His pensive, personal songs often evoke nocturnal drives on dusty highways with hypnotic allure.

Muse are a blockbuster band, and this is another box-office-demolishing spectacular – it would feel like self-denial not to surrender. Honestly, the end of the world has rarely sounded like so much fun.

Hideous Creature doesn’t possess the same pop immediacy of Sim’s day job, but it does feel like a record that needed to be made: vital and beautiful.

Drill is a music aimed at dedicated acolytes rather than general listeners. But strip away the lyrics, and the strange mix of electro loops, nervous beats, sad melodies and sci-fi sounds is utterly compelling and contemporary, evidence of a cutting edge local music scene that continues to thrive even with venue doors barred shut.

The two make a fine vocal duo, but even more astonishing is their instrumental virtuosity.

He knows how to fill a dance floor. But his music comes with the sharp awareness of how it feels to stand, alienated and feigning aloofness, on the sidelines.

In terms of emotional insight and sheer singer-songwriter genius, it is not in the league of such heartbreak classics as Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks and Joni Mitchell's Blue, but at least it reaches for such heights.

Without a feeling that it’s intentionally waiting for the rain in order to go out dancing in it, it draws on its authors’ memories of the good times – reflecting, according to Philippakis, right back to their earliest days – and projects them huge and bright.

Coexist may not sound as dramatically original as their debut but it is every bit as other-worldly, like eavesdropping on intimate conversations between forlorn lovers on a space station orbiting around a distant planet.

If I have a caveat, it is that it is all so single minded, it lacks the dizzying splendour of Monae’s earlier epics. But on its own down and dirty terms, The Age of Pleasure is sheer pleasure.

Ugly Season may seem just that to those who prefer Hadreas’s smoother side. Yet the most compelling elements of his work remain, and the album is a culmination of one of the most consistent and emotionally generous artists today. Without the focus of the dance performance, the onus is on the listener to concentrate – but the rewards are as rich as ever.

Spirituals is tonally consistent despite its range of distinctive influences and talents. Just when Santigold threatens to lean into the corny, as on the SBTRKT-produced Shake, she pulls back, adding a whimsical, purposefully on-the-nose rattle sound at the end of each wedding disco-like “shake, shake, shake it” hook. It’s a joy to hear her back in her creative swing.

The sexy android cover and star-studded collaborations (including alternative icons Lizzo, Haim and Christine and the Queens) on her third album, Charli, suggest an all-guns-blazing pitch for blockbuster status. But the contents are far weirder than that implies. ... Come the century's end, you can almost imagine future critics scratching their AI-augmented brains and still touting Charli XCX as the next big thing.

Indeed, for all the slick but formulaic pleasures of the album’s mainstream pop push, it is arguably that Cyrus is at her most compelling when she dances like no one is watching.

Morrison’s joy in tackling this rich repertoire is palpable.

A guest spot for Little Dragon's Yukimi Nagano adds spice to this unexpected feast.

Their pairing might well be bananas, but it works. Buckley is certainly no luvvie on leave. This is, at times, a dazzling album.

Neither lets down an album that features songs by some of country music's finest lyricists.

Sometimes, Cage the Elephant’s lyrics can veer into a teen angst that jars against their middle-aged image: “I don’t want to play those games, will we ever be the same?”. But when they sound this good, they can just about get away with it.

Covering Black Tie, White Noise, The Buddha of Suburbia, 1.Outside, Earthling and ‘hours…’, this box set is a welcome opportunity to re-evaluate that period with a more forgiving spirit and historic context. Because (as they say in sport) form is temporary, class is permanent. And Toy is further proof that Bowie was always a class act.

The album is both consistently breezy and emotionally upfront, going to-and-fro between galvanising dance anthems and gentle, psychedelic country ballads à la Kacey Musgrave’s Golden Hour.

At 66 Raitt’s warm graze of a voice is better than ever, balancing the confidence of experienced with a more nuanced perspective. Inspirational.

This album won’t be for everyone, but it’s quite the trip.

Sometimes, Forever, though on the whole a rockier, more grown up record, still has its moments of teenage innocence: Shotgun and Feel It All The Time seem like continuations of the biggest singles from color theory, royal screw up and circle the drain, that became sad anthems for disenchanted youth.

What Volume 16 really demonstrates is that Dylan has a certain rock and folk comfort zone, and it was a mistake to ever push himself out of it. The most surprising treat is the sound of Dylan in fine voice warming up with cover versions of old favourites, including a soulful take of The Temptations’ I Wish It Would Rain, a steamy run through Elvis Presley’s Mystery Train with Ringo Starr on drums, and a slowed-down and heartfelt version of Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline.

As a direct follow up, Evermore may lack the impactful frisson of Folklore, but is nevertheless another treat of classy, emotional songcraft.

Amid all the delightful nostalgia comes one glaring disappointment. When Swift committed to the re-recordings, she promised they wouldn’t lose the heart of the original – and the lyrics would stay the same. But on Better Than Revenge, a bitter rebuke to a love rival, she’s done just that.

Wilson unpacks her heart with poetically intimate lyrics about relationship troubles in a blur of downtempo RnB grooves and hip-hop flow, showcasing Wilson’s sensational multi-octave soul singing and masterful instrumental playing, all filtered through atmospheric digital effects that lend her old-fashioned analogue skills a contemporary sheen.

Del Amitri’s bracing feel-bad pop-rock won’t be for everyone, but for those of us who appreciate sweet melodies set off with sour sentiments, it is perversely good to have the old curmudgeons back.

Power Up is as exultantly fierce, furious and – let’s be honest – belligerently dumb as anything in their catalogue. It is no-nonsense, headbanging, fist-waving, foot-stomping, raw-throated, hard-screaming, riff-ripping, pedal-to-the-metal maximum rock and roll all the way.

Arrangements are simple and sparse, everything lightly touched, with only swells of strings and brushes of horn, harmonium and other instrumental colours buoying up her guitar and clear voice.

Pacier than her self-titled 2018 debut, the new album is still too long. But lengthiness suits R&B’s slow-burn tendencies: lingering over syllables and songs, letting new albums simmer.

British rock desperately needs a big new act to capture the popular imagination. Though hyped in the music press and rising extra-fast, this London-based quartet lack the vision to fit that particular bill.

While they make no claims to be a wildly original band--they listen to Black Sabbath and they have been described as the all-female Joy Division--what makes them so compelling is their fierce focus.

An assured and imaginative album.

Paul Griffith (drums); Amanda Shires (violins/vocals and a gifted songwriter with her own album Lightning Strikes just out); Chad Staehly (keyboards); Jason Isbell (guitars) and Mick Utley (vocals) add the expertly jaunty sound to Snider's ironic and enjoyably dark lyrics.

There's a confident, bouncy feel to Give Me All You Got.

The excellent Sara Watkins joins on fiddle, guitar and vocals for an eclectic mix of songs.

It's an introspective work - family breakdowns, fractured romances and his own restless, addictive character pour forth in a variety of low-key yet lush arrangements featuring sombre brass accents.

A pleasant, enjoyable album from a multi-talented man.

The 13 songs, written between 1972 and 2001, show off the range and subtlety of Lowe's songwriting.

There are much more vibrant records and live songs in Los Lobos's back catalogue but this is a sweet reminder of their talent.

This CD won't replace the originals but it's a tribute with some memorable versions of great songs.

It's a cleverly constructed, well-written and cohesive piece of work - albeit possibly, at 13 tracks, two songs too long.

Andy Cutting (accordion), Jon Boden (Hields's partner and the Bellowhead frontman is on fiddle, guitar and double bass), Sam Sweeney (fiddle, viola, cello), Rob Harbron (English Concertina and fiddle) and Martin Simpson (guitar, banjo) provide the classy framework for Hield to interpret 11 traditional songs.

Mike Bub (bass) and Kenny Malone (percussion) make up the tight musical unit on 13 enjoyable songs, which were recorded in Nashville.

There is nothing particularly daring about the album but it's classy and enjoyable.

The music is an acquired taste but Tales From The Barrel House is certainly a modern musical artisan at work.

The 'Revue Boys'--Jonny Bridgwood (double bass & rhythm guitar), Robin Gillan (harmonica), Jason Steel (guitar), Dave Morgan (percussion), and the two Paleys --swing nicely across a range of styles and songs.

The album is full of great music, the sort of bluesy, R&B material master guitarist Cooder does so very well.

After The Ball, a classic waltz in 3/4 time and a song of heartbreak as powerful today as it was more than 120 year's ago, is just one highlight on this super musical history lesson.

The highlight [of Mystic Pinball] is an affecting ballad called No Wicked Grin. It's Hiatt at his tender best.

The 58-year-old, who is writing his memoirs, is as busy as ever, and he's still got what it takes.