In the past decade, it seems Jones has made a sneaky transition from dinner party backdrop to David Lynch soundtrack.

If Twice As Tall is Burna’s bid for global superstardom, then the music is polished to befit his aims.

Their fourth album is their best yet: bright, poppy and exciting.

It’s a cracking album, whose influences are delightfully esoteric.

With soulful vocals, delicate stories and vulnerable lyrics, Moss makes for a delightful listen.

This third comeback album unearths some of the band's less visible roots, in Broadway musicals, soul balladry, Stones-y orchestral pop and Fifties R&B.

Metallica have made their Metallica record again.

I have no hesitation in saying that McCartney III is every bit the equal of its predecessors. It is unadulterated Macca, with a little bit of cheese on the side – the sound of one of the greatest songwriters of our time, having the time of his life.

Lyrics and delivery suggest Imagine Dragons adhere to old-fashioned rock band idealism, but nothing is allowed to get in the way of a sparkling hook.

Seventeen Going Under would benefit from more such restraint, to really bring out the vulnerability and sensitivity underpinning Fender’s oeuvre. It is not much of a criticism to note that he doesn’t have the dynamic range of his musical hero yet. Fender may not be ready to take on the mantle of the Boss, but he’s a worthy apprentice.

Her fifth record is dark, even by her standards, full of bitterness and pessimism.

The pair bring a gritty stiffness to Tim McGraw's Open Season on My Heart and Harris brings a searing power to Patti Scialfa's Spanish Dancer.

She doesn’t do anything wildly original with them [musical genres], but she has fun.

Comparisons with Nilsson and early solo McCartney are high praise, but at his softer side it all threatens to go a bit Gilbert O’Sullivan. Yet this is a lovely debut and its innocence is a big part of its charm.

They take a sombre aspect of their native Northumbrian traditional music, regional accent and dialect intact, and, sprinkling in a few intriguing covers along the way, build something string-laden and luscious but also delicate, wistful and melancholy.

For an album that brings together so many threads of Weller’s career, there is not much in the way of rocky guitar drive or punk energy. Yet there is an open-minded spirit in the way Weller mixes songcraft with ear-catching sonic details and structural adventure.

The sticking point for some might be Broderick’s voice, which shares a boyish sweetness with singers like Jens Lekman and José Gonzalez--perfect for country ballads but which struggles to carry some of the slighter compositions.

It is lovely stuff, replete with bucolic images of sheepdogs leathering around autumnal hillsides. As Pet Shop Boys enter their heritage years, they are still taking dance music into unexpected places.

There are neat pedal steel guitar threads, horns, electric guitar and it's clear she is entirely comfortable with her producer, Tucker Martine.

Erasing the muscular power of an amplified rock combo, Edge explores ways to let other elements shine. In particular, the focus is on Bono’s older yet still powerful voice, devoid of posturing and mannerisms, really digging into meaning and melody. The subtle rumble of Adam Clayton’s bass and tastefully executed percussion from Larry Mullen Jr make themselves felt in all the right places, with full band arrangements breathing new life into a smattering of undernourished songs.

By the time Roderick closes out with a fully orchestrated baroque dismissal of a former associate (“I’d like nothing more than you darken my doorstep nevermore,” Vanian politely croons), there can be no doubt that Darkadelia lives up to its foreboding title. It also represents one of Britain’s most idiosyncratic and enduringly excellent rock bands, in thrilling form.

Multitudes is a perfect assertion of that power, by turns reflective and commanding.

It is as self-indulgent as Seventies progressive rock, albeit filtered through a 21st-century indie-rock sensibility that keeps things taut and edgy, with virtuoso posturing at a minimum.

When you are as talented as Fousheé, the temptation to show you're a jack of all trades must be intoxicating, and it's one of the reasons softCORE is such an unpredictable thrill ride.

The real deal, untampered with, apart from a slight cleaning up of the 1964 sound. .... This album won’t change the history books, but it’s certainly a welcome addition to the Coltrane canon.

They know how to knock a tune together and have delivered a pop party album thrillingly in tune with contemporary listening habits.

An unadventurous set list reworks some of his most thoughtful and sombre songs with a selection of classic covers, all given a lush production gloss by the late Phil Ramone. What lifts it to a higher plane is Michael’s smooth and expressive singing.

Cleverly, the arrangements draw attention to what richly layered songs Basement Jaxx have.

When it comes to lyrical audacity and dramatic delivery, rap’s most maniacal motormouth still wipes the floor with all-comers, albeit this time he might pause to wipe the microphone first.

What Kasabian have lost in aggression they have gained in depth and sensitivity, and the result is a vivid, adventurous album set at the outer limits of rock and techno.

It’s an assured and at times impressive debut for a blonde determined to have some fun with her image and her music.

It’s fervid, feverish and never less than ferociously funky. And far from unnerving the listener with a haunting voice from beyond the grave, Welcome 2 America serves as a call to arms for Prince fans. For all its lyrical and sonic contortions, the ultimate message is simple: even as twilight descended, his genius endured.

The focus is always on the smart, economical, classically constructed songs, boasting memorable verses, catchy choruses, intriguing lyrics and peppered with tremendous instrumental breaks. This is an album of conviction and purpose, from a band you can believe in.

Black Terry Cat makes confident use of R&B grooves as a base from which to explore more exotic sounds.

Some of the noisier blues are cheesy, but, in the main, this is a warm, authentic and durable record: the musical equivalent of a well-worn plaid shirt.

You can get lost in the whole EP, which possesses all the quality and thought of a full-formed album, but flickers by like the yellow windows of a train in the dark, travelling on to somewhere new.

It is, I suppose, all very tasteful and yet it retains the original’s inherent oddness.

Every number is cleverly honed to leave you wanting just that bit more.

If it doesn’t all quite hit past heights, the gorgeous, elegiac album closer The Last Song is a reminder that Wilson set the bar particularly high.

Let's hope the slightly odd CD cover image does not put anyone off discovering the music held within because Jarosz has produced a fine album.

It Won’t Always Be Like This amply demonstrates that there is more to Inhaler than family resemblances.

The album is full of strong characters and quirky observations.

It's a fun-loving, tune-heavy indie/punk/pop romp, with girlie la-la harmonies, a none-more-cheesy organ sound, and welcome vocal echoes of Britpop femmes Elastica and new wave heroine Lene Lovich.

Every Loser is a great, energising opening blast for 2023, a loud and lairy rock album jam-packed with the lust for life that has characterised Iggy’s whole wayward career.

They do owe a musical debt to Ali Farka Toure (whose songs they started out covering), but they’re definitely etching out their own groove.

Humanz is a giddy celebration of unity in difference, the sound of eccentrics, weirdos, outsiders and freaks partying together in defiance of convention. It is music where anything goes, as long as it’s got a groove and a heart.

In 2013, if rock is going to survive, it surely has to encompass the bleeps and beats of electro veterans who sound like the future is still catching up with them.

Each thoughtful sonic soundscape washes elegantly into the next, toward the long, lush finale.

It is a dream of an album. I’m just not sure it will make any sense when you wake up.

This is an uplifting concert--and here's to the next 50 years of The Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

From the headlong punk-meets-acid-house charge of Ill Ray (The King) to the stadium campfire singalong of Put Your Life on It, Kasabian deliver hooks, headshots and upper cuts in a barrage of punchy sounds and aggressive attitude.

This is music that is following its own agenda, whose funky energy is innate. It’s been absorbing external influences for centuries and is keeping on doing so in today’s crazy, accelerated postmodern world.

This is a hugely impressive introduction to a dynamic, arresting talent.

Though her career has been occasional, momentum from a recent Spex reunion has resulted in this terrific solo record, which channels her kitschy style into a synthy pop sound.

Following 2009's hookup with Drive-By Truckers, Potato Hole, his latest record finds him backed by hip hop combo The Roots, who nudge the 66-year-old organist towards his funkiest excursion in years.

Nelson’s bravura title track had a defiant vigour when Sinatra delivered it as a mid-life crisis anthem in 1966, but it takes on a different pathos when gently sung in the weathered tones of an octogenarian. ... Nelson’s jazzy combo and luscious string arrangements are more faithful to the old swing style. These versions are not intended to replace, reinvent or even rival the originals, simply to bring them back into the light.

Twenty-six years after their last album, 58-year-old Rowland and his roughly reassembled crew have made a record that manages to combine fresh new stories with the heart and nervous energy of classic Dexys.

Rizzle Kicks are evidently clever, well-mannered fellows. Refreshingly, they don’t pretend to be anything else.

The Thrill of It All is stripped back to bare emotional bones, shot through with vulnerability and sensitivity, not so much wearing its heart on its sleeve as proffering an open vein.

Cee Lo openly parades his retro tastes, but his outrageous personality invests them with a contemporary edge.

All 12 are of a consistently high standard and sung with feeling.

It may be interesting to hear what Flowers would do if he could resist the urge to turn the dial up to 11 every time, but you really can’t fault his ambition when he delivers another album that is all killer, no filler.

Over 13 songs, it’s almost impossible not to fidget and move to glitchy drum’n’bass (Kammy), dreamy dub-step (Bleu) or echoey R’n’B-meets-soulful house (Kelly). Fred has done it…(dare we say?) again.

They don’t quite sound like the finished article, but there is a virtuous sense of their trying to make music in service of something profound.

Forster all too humbly paints himself as a modest talent next to his late foil’s melodic genius, yet this eighth solo outing is packed as ever with minimal, carefully chiselled, acoustic-thrumming arrangements, topped by extraordinary lyric writing.

Formentera is a gratifying record stuffed with perfectly crafted songs by a band completely at ease in their own skin.

This whole album sounds like an attempt to seize and memorialise the giddy freedoms of youth. Like the best indie bands, the Big Moon sound like a gang you would want to belong to--whatever your gender.

His sound has matured considerably: he's less intent on blowing your ears off with dancehall's battery, than offering his own, still highly piquant take on slow-grind R&B.

The Dream is sensuous and seductive, but it often lingers on the borderline of turning into a nightmare.

A chamber piece that spills blood all over the hotel carpet, Room 29 is an understated triumph.

It may be resolutely old-fashioned and, for sure, we’ve heard it all before, but the sheer pleasure in Porter’s singing is all but impossible to resist.

Full of tunes and pizzazz, it's unexpectedly good fun.

The way their voices swoop and bend together is a delight.

It is another gem in an already glittering canon.

She elegantly smudges the borders of a brass and banjo-driven sound with sophisticated little experiments in rhythm, production and arrangement.

You feel each artist shares your yearning to hear Dalton sing each song herself. Haunted and haunting.

The collective’s strength lies in their snakelike energy: all coiled muscle, hypnotic sway and dangerous unpredictability. The flaw is that it can all get a bit lairy.

They're still chronicling gangster life, albeit a former one, but the beats are now funkier, offering a surprisingly accessible counterpoint to the cinematic, bloodthirsty narratives of star rapper Ghostface Killah. His caustic delivery propels the best tracks here.

The harmonies are gorgeous and the lyrics thought-provoking. A good start to the year for folk music.

Every track on Volcano flows beautifully, almost overloaded with hooks and harmonies, and charged with rhythmic intent. But the soundscapes are infinitely brighter and weirder and more thrillingly modern.

There's also something a little too contained, cling-filmed and... Keane-ey about it's measured percussion and guitar swells. Which leaves you feeling that although this is a very good record by a very talented young artist, it's probably not a patch on catching him live.

Fender is young enough to be immersed in the life he documents, not writing at a nostalgic remove. When he rises to longing high notes on weekend anthem Saturday, you can really feel him straining at the leash. I think Springsteen would approve.

His peculiar mix of antagonism and soul-searching may not be enough to convert non-believers, but this bold, ambitious debut suggests that grime has found its most accomplished ambassador yet.

It is music of emotion and imagination, shifting perspectives in ways that are deliciously intangible, intent on moving the heart rather than the feet.

It is the second half of the album that actually shows why country persists against all odds: at its best, it is unafraid of telling stories that dig deep into ordinary lives.

While some of the songs slip into genericity, such as the forgettable There’s a First Time For Everything, others are 80s-inspired, synth-led earworms. Smells Like Me stands out as one of the album’s highlights, a masterclass in pop writing with an ultra-memorable hook.

With Mirrorwriting Woon proves to be a genuinely exciting British soul star in the making.

Process seems unlikely to make Sampha a household name in his own right. Yet it has a drama and intensity that should increase his influence on those who already are.

Backed by his father's old orchestra, Fela Kuti's son Seun shows how afrobeat should be played: its irrepressible funky surge offset by truly scorching brass fanfares.

Whatever your political convictions, it is impressive to see a veteran superstar doing something to challenge and potentially alienate listeners. Streisand's 36th album is at once an overblown, schmaltzy epic, and a bold rallying cry that has the courage of its convictions. You won't know whether to cringe or cheer.

The band add welcome bite to proceedings with the result that this album is immensely more satisfying than Garvey’s fussy 2015 solo debut, Courting the Squall.

The music is stark and edgy, with inflections from doo-wop and heavy rock. Songs are ephemeral, and not easy to decipher without listening to them repeatedly.

Sheeran has delivered a solid commercial showcase of the power of contemporary pop music brands. It is a case of Superstars Assemble. A fan base shared is a fan base multiplied.

At its best, Born in the Echoes is gloriously disorienting, restoring a woozy mania to a genre in danger of self-combusting in search of ever more euphoric pop highs. The kids will probably look on aghast. But old ravers will find themselves transported back to a time when electronica really did sound like the future.

The personality that emerges here is surprisingly gentle, with lots of slow jams about self-awareness, positive personal philosophies and respect for others. Musically, it would seem that Alicia Keys is a stronger personal role model than Rihanna. For all the swagger, then, Kehlani proves rather more sweet than savage.

This latest effort is more muted, but no less complete, with fabulous images of rustic solitude and existential dread married to smouldering country-rock.

It is a bold concept for a dazzling album, although I suspect most listeners would be hard pressed to make much sense of it without Boucher’s interpolations.

Splashes of new musical colour correspond with a growing confidence and maturity in the songs themselves, but the overall mood remains intensely vulnerable.