Across a baggy 18 tracks, Egoli maintains a sense of purpose, but only comes into sharp focus when a particular artist grabs the reins.

At times, though, the bleepy, burbling “fun” gets too wacky and cheesy for even PSB’s long-standing irony to uphold.

If the production is too clean, it does at least reveal Johnson in glorious high definition with his Telecaster, simultaneously stabbing the chords while letting the licks bleed out with liquid heat.

Clocking in at over an hour, it’s a classy work which doesn’t try to reinvent its star, so much as give her a space in which to shimmer, simmer and occasionally simper her way through a surprisingly subtle and inventive spectrum of musical moods.... Lyrically, there’s often a lack of narrative, but Jackson succeeds in reining in the badly written sex talk which let down her last few records.

His fifth album, however, finds him still in peak form, voicing socially aware hip hop and outré electro-disco, all with an eloquence which often eludes the newer generation.

There is much to be admired here, rather less to be enjoyed.

She hits the mark with stripped-back Room Service, but the more mainstream, hook-laden numbers Antichrist and Into Your Room don’t measure up to her earlier anthems Scarlett and The Wall is Way Too Thin.

Even where the musical ideas are strong, they're sapped by the determinedly relaxed ambiance.

This is not an album that will make The Strokes new friends, but it might satisfy the faithful. Sometimes it is enough just to sound great.

Although what follows isn’t all as good as the opener, it’s solid, vertebrae-jolting stuff, often recycling old themes and melodies.

High point Honest Town, gives a slick, new-Millennial pulse to all the retro heartache. But title track Big Music is a wince-inducing reminder of naff, leather-trousered bombast.

Soft strings and Rapp’s silky vocals prevent it from being too jarringly TikTok-ready (though one imagines her record label will be hoping for just that). Overall, Snow Angel is a confident, accomplished debut.

It is not unappealing, but such portmanteau pop really needs strong guiding principles to add up to more than the sum of its individual parts.

Everything on this flashy, melodramatic album punches its weight. If it had come out in 1985, it would have ruled the world.

McRae is primed for success, though, and while her songs can verge on self-indulgence – there’s a fair amount of navel-gazing at play – they’ll surely speak to a teenage audience. This is well-made, ear-wormy pop music, guaranteed to hit a nerve.

On the whole, My Soft Machine lacks the clarity of Parks’s exceptional debut, and can veer too often into repetition; there’s a lack of journey in the individual songs, meaning you end in much the same place as you started. Her lyrics are, as ever, expertly crafted, but they deserve much more musical supporting oomph.

It feels more like a primer for live shows rather than an end in itself, a set of water colour sketches to be inked in later.

Pick-n-mixing sounds and being savvy about who they work with has paid off beyond trying to maintain quality from track one to track 13. So take it for what it is: a collection of songs that happen to be next to each other, some of which are glorious (most of the singles) and some of which are a bit cringe (Gloves Up, A Mess).

As always with Mehldau ambition often tips over into pretentiousness, but one forgives him because there’s a real musical sensibility at work.

Play it soft, and it drifts into the background. Play it loud and something much more vigorous and compelling emerges.

Goldfrapp hark back to the bombast of a time when electronica was all about man (or woman) versus machine. On Silver Eye, the machines are ascendant.

It's all an interesting time capsule and what makes it worthwhile for Cash fans is that there are 26 previously unreleased tracks. Disc 2 sounds a tad more produced but a song about dismissing a former lover--Wide Open Road--and the jaunty Five Minutes To Live are treats.

Real Life builds up to a pitch of doomed drama from a corrosive slash of guitar as Tesfaye confides that even his “Mama called me destructive”. But Ed Sheeran fails to rescue him on the tedious Dark Times and Lana Del Rey--who ought to be his perfect partner in pop-noir--adds nothing but a bored spritz of vocal perfume to the lethargic Prisoner.

In short, if you're stuck in a traffic jam, this is a record which will make you want to open the sunroof.

On Out of Heart, Flohio deserves credit for bridging the worlds of rap and electronica, but you’re still left wondering: who is the human being behind this aesthetic? If she’s to truly level up artistically, Flohio needs to give us a clearer idea of what the reflection in the mirror looks like.

With the jolly, moreish melodies in other songs including Danae there is much to enjoy in Mythologies. But it’s also a 23-track album that commands attention, sonically speaking, for only a fraction of its duration. A seat at the ballet itself is needed to best marry the music, stories and movement.

Without the hip-hop beats that peppered her first album, the songs here lack a sprinkling of brashness--a little of the Kim and Kanye touch would have helped.

Gretchen Wilson's version of Don't Come Home A Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind) is feisty and Lee Ann Womack is helped by having Buddy Miller on accordian and Patty Griffin on backing vocals but several of the 12 songs are pretty routine covers that add little particularly interesting.

The affection is winning, as is Metheny's mastery of the guitar and harmonic subtlety, but the tone of ruminative gentleness does start to seem unvaried.

City Planning certainly conjures the feeling of a commute into a sprawling metropolis, while Die Cuts is a supple collage of contrasting voices. But, sadly, neither will have you wishing you could listen to everything again.

Hardwired is two CDs, 12 tracks and 80 minutes of in-your-face, punch-to-the-guts, dense, harsh, shouty rage with absolutely no let-up. Frankly, if it was half as long it would be twice as effective.

Athough the two old giants of country music can't hit all the notes of youth their phrasing is neat and nuanced on their fourth album together.

This, for better or worse, is clearly the music Rihanna likes: leftfield, stoned and strange. It is Rihanna without hits. This strange album, released without warning over the internet for free, may well be a reflection of the fact that not even her own backers really expects this to be a commercial blockbuster. It is more an exercise in rebranding, transforming the hit girl into a serious artist.

It could have been mawkish but it's a simple, affecting and lovely tribute.

It remains a fairly relentless listen and at least a couple of tracks too long. Yet the album’s tale of survival against the odds has powerful personal relevance beyond its often clumsy social commentary.

The songs are slickly constructed but you can't help feeling it is familiar territory and not a patch on past triumphs.

The Now Now ultimately sounds exactly what it is: music made on the road as an escape from homesickness.

The album is the second in the four-volume Nomad series and the Cowboy Junkies said they felt they owed Chesnutt something. They have paid their debt in handsome fashion.

There are interesting multi-part song structures and deft modern production quirks, with touches of autotune and sampling that don’t overwhelm the more classic guitar and keyboard arrangements. Melodies are big and bright and everything is encased in walls of harmonies.

Even at its most ambitious, everything is swept up in a blizzard of overcharged guitars and stylised snarling that would have sounded old-fashioned in 1981, let alone 2024.

It's more Glee Club than cutting edge pop queen, and, as is so often the case with big pop albums, too many production teams spoil the froth.

Everlasting is an eclectic mix.

A string section and gospel choir barely add nuance to straight-ahead karaoke versions of Oasis classics and a few of Liam’s solo songs.

The melodies aren't as strong as those on Backwoods Barbie but Dolly Parton's wit, sincerity and plucky pragmatism allow her to get away with simplistic advice like: "Lead the good life, just treat this planet right and try to all be friends" and icky lines about painting pretty rainbows in the sky.

Fairport Convention are like the Stanley Matthews of folk music--age does nothing to erode essential quality.

The duo's sinister raps are as shockingly impressive as they are morally disturbing.

Their bluesy approach doesn't draw anything truly rich and strange from their vintage Cambodian material.

Elusive and ethereal, it hints at the late night soulscapes of the Blue Nile but remains boldly, if at times frustratingly, out of focus.

The 14 songs ooze energy and style and feature long-term collaborators such as Alan Kelly, Ian Carr, Roy Dodds and John McCusker.

Disco offers a set of familiar grooves. ... Her comfort zone is effervescence and escapism, in the pursuit of which Disco stays light on its feet and easy on the ear. We’ve heard it all before, but Kylie has the floor, and, honestly, she sounds like she’s having a (glitter)ball.

This appealing set of 12 short, sweet, heartfelt songs rattles along with gorgeous vocals, silvery guitar lines and perky bass and drum rhythms, stirring a jaunty singalong spirit of friends on a mission. But if the Lathums truly aspire to be the indie voice of a new generation, they are going to have to sharpen their quills or invest in a rhyming dictionary.

If you simply want to revel in the elemental pleasures of sleek, clever, catchy songs played with rough vigour by a band who love to rock, then the Vaccines deliver their usual payload. .... They lack the boldness of the bands that most influenced their sound (The Ramones, Jesus and the Mary Chain) or the flair and ambition of others still flying the pop-rock flag (The Killers, Arctic Monkeys, The Libertines). On this evidence, The Vaccines are approaching their expiry date.

This fourth may not reach those heights [of the first two albums], but it’s a solid effort from a band who, above all else, just sound grateful to have survived.

Concrete and Gold is an ambitious and entertaining album. But when it comes to a comparison with Sergeant Pepper, it doesn’t earn its stripes.

The Other Side of Make Believe scarcely risks driving away disciples. Nor does it cravenly go after fresh converts.

These soft shoe shuffles sway up and down the same few notes, with the affectionate embrace of mother of the groom dances.

When the harmonies blend and Andersson’s piano rings out, it sounds enough like Abba to have hardcore fans tossing their feather boas in the air. But the dancing queens have lost the spring in their step, and the result is out-of-time rather than timeless.

This highly enjoyable celebration of the Lord is co-produced by country star Jamey Johnson.

Buddy Miller organised a Grade A country guitarist convention, threw in some wonderful guest vocalists and then recorded, as if live, an impressive album.

This is an album you admire rather than love.

Positions is not as immediate as the work Grande is known for, though it will find many fans. There are no tentpole hits, no obvious hooks and far too many words crammed into 14 relatively short and sometimes samey songs. But it explores new territory for the singer: new relationships, a new sound, a new sense of self.

Unwanted calls to mind a Jacqueline Wilson novel transposed into an LP format, its 12 songs relentlessly circling over ‘difficult emotions’ – awkwardness, rejection, and, yes, it’s okay to express your anger. And these, of course, are well-worn teen-pop topics already.

Give Or Take presents Giveon as an undeniable talent who isn’t inclined to go deeper than his comfort zone for now; he coasts quite sweetly, between heartache and humblebrag.

Everybody sounds like they’re having fun, and listeners of a certain vintage probably will too. But it adds little of interest to Morrison’s incredible canon, which from Blowin’ Your Mind in 1967 to Irish Heartbeat in 1988 ranks with the greatest popular music ever made.

The best of the album is so fantastic it makes me want more from the rest.... Yet there is something tepid about the overall emotional temperature.

With the hard-hitting yet loose-limbed playing of Rage Against the Machine drummer Brad Wilk, there is a real sense of top professionals at work.... Osbourne’s singing, by contrast, is strangely unexpressive, perhaps because there is no real possibility of emotional connection with lyrics that strain for grandiose effect but are flattened by clunking phrases and trite rhyming schemes.

Not really a blockbuster, it’s the kind of album that makes most sense in the small hours, after the party is over.

There’s plenty to applaud on a promising debut, but, as yet, not enough to believe in.

Not as cohesive as their very best work, R.E.M.'s 15th album is still as smart, sonically rich and emotionally resonant as a guitar band can ever hope to be.

Every track is polished and purposeful, but the sheer busy quality of her singing and overactive variety of the production ensures that Liberation never settles into a coherent listening experience.

The album has to be judged a late-period triumph, even if I am not entirely convinced The Voice's avuncular judge is quite as deep as the material demands.

The don’t-bore-us, get-to-the-chorus model followed by the top half of Night Call works fine when taken in pieces, or as the beat-driven soundtrack to a gym workout. But it frustrates and alienates in its album sequence. Yet, Night Call delivers in affirming Olly Alexander as an artist capable of connecting with a varied, multi-generational audience.

Mascara Streakz may not reinvent the wheel, but it does stand confidently among their greatest hits while making a compelling case for having that fifth shot of tequila.

There are glimmers of his facility for earworm melodies and nimble grooves, but they tend to be overwhelmed by an air of bombastic stridency.

The fortunes of this soundtrack will ultimately rest with the success of the film but its brooding mix of old and new styles certainly wets your appetite to see it.

That Cabello is clearly a fine singer hasn’t stopped producers smoothing her with Auto-Tune. Romance is state-of-the-art pop yet it lacks the real romance of music made from the heart. If you feel like you’ve heard it before, it may be because you literally have.

Their tenth studio album kicks off in fine form with the first single, San Quentin. ... If only the whole album was like this, but instead listeners will get whiplash from all the genre changes, which spans American rock, country and frat-boy pop.

Simple but lovely.

[It's] orchestrally enhanced, romantic balladry of fair beauty.

All Bay has really done is exchange one set of generic production clichés for another.

[Willie Nelson] brings feeling and charm to these 11 covers.

That this is Manson’s most accessible and focused album in years counts for very little; there is simply no shock value when all you have to offer are cheap shocks.

There’s nothing wrong with these songs, exactly – innocuous fare that’s catchier than you want it to be – but they’re a far cry from Pink’s attitude-laden early hits: misfit anthems about depression and divorce that elbowed her a place in the mainstream.

It may be nothing more than an exercise in maintaining the brand of the 21st Century’s most vacant superstar but, in its perfectly distilled empty pleasures, Glory might just be Britney’s masterpiece.

The son of Richard Thompson is capable of writing his own striking lyrics but sometimes they are straining a little too hard.

From Out of Nowhere could be an ELO album from 40 years ago, albeit with a bit of added digital polish.

Easier to admire than to care deeply about, Youth should confirm his status as the go-to rapper for people who don’t really like rap music.

On the pulsing, electronic slither of Vendetta X, on which Astbury speaks menacingly of “sucking on a dirty blade”, it’s closer to his work with Unkle than stadium rock. In these moments, and on the glorious, closing title-track, Under The Midnight Sun is brilliant. For much of its second half, however, its magic doesn’t catch quite so well.

Inevitably, the singer’s less appealing views do invade the material.

Fans will find much to enjoy here, but it might be time for Knopfler to push himself out of his comfort zone.

There are a few tracks that could be spicier (Envy the Leaves, At Your Worst), but overall, Silence Between Songs seems like the album Beer has been wanting – and waiting – to make for a long, long time.

Sparsely arranged around piano, guitar and his gruff vocals, it's sombre, but affecting.

It's nice. A bit boring. The melodies are likeably predictable, warm and gentle.

SERPENTINA isn’t a coherent whole but rather a doggerel and ill-considered mishmash of disparate parts.

Madame X sounds like three different albums fighting for space. There’s the Latin pop album, in Madonna performs straight-up sexy dance duets aimed at the world’s fastest growing music market. There’s a strand of trendy, low-slung, sensitive trap pop that lacks the majestic swagger you expect from a grand dame of the game. And neither of these elements sits comfortably alongside the Mirwais spine of fizzy art pop marrying mad production with inflated lyrical themes. Madonna says she is fighting ageism but she is fighting on too many fronts at the same time.

As with previous Tarantino soundtracks, this is an enjoyable, carefully constructed set, throwing up more hits than misses--and the occasional gem--but ultimately its songs will be brought to life on the big screen.

It is an ambitious and technically impressive album grappling with big themes of love in a time of disaster. Lyrically, though, it is all a bit prosaic, whilst O’Brien’s voice is pleasant but lacking the kind of distinctive tone and delivery that makes you want to pay attention.

All 12 tracks are undeniably well-made and catchy songs, but it veers into all-too predictable territory in places.