The main issue that dogs this album is weak composition – few of the ideas are outright bad, but they don’t earn their runtime.

As there is little deviation, you wonder if the band had control with the various producers largely going along with what the band wanted rather than trying to exert their own influences over the record. Whilst it does work at times, Life Is Yours will probably find itself confined to the list of also-ran albums of 2022 as a whole.

This album’s half-in-half-out approach is unsatisfying.

The only problem with Inside Problems is that it’s possibly too arch and mannered to appeal much beyond those familiar with Bird-lore.

A perfectly paced album, but despite the elegant sequencing, there are definitely tracks you’ll come back to far more than others.

C’mon You Know’s problem is that, after the initial bluster of his two preceding albums, it just sounds distinctly pedestrian, complacent and reflective. The addition of wisps of trippy phasing, looped drums and a diversion into dub (eek!) all add up to songs that seem just a bit too contrived and calculated to really feel like he ‘means it man’.

Flume is stuck between innovation and the urge to party like it’s 2014, and though Palaces has real highlights, it is weakened by this indecision.

They’ve had their day doing one thing, they now need to do another, and while further albums are even less likely than this one, Happiness Not Included feels like something of a missed opportunity.

The music is uniformly simple but beautifully effective. It sounds like what it is, one man telling you stories and weaving beguiling tales of distinct and not too distant lands through a carefully intricate and delicate soft rock tapestry.

Invisible Forces is a deliberately minimal affair, as even formal notation is eschewed in favour of an intuitive musical journey, and if this makes the album repetitive it will surely still be put on repeat by fans of this sort of thing.

This album at its best can be genuinely explosive – see Holding Back with its booming trap beats and chipmunk-soul hook – but Banks’ central problem on Serpentina is how to channel emotion without straying into musical indulgence, and how to evoke situations without wallowing in them.

To produce songs that listeners want to stick on over and over again is the holy grail, of course, and although the whole album doesn’t manage to maintain this level, the highlights could stay with you for a considerable time.

It features roughly one good tune to every two mediocre ones.

The idea that synthetic beats only serve to sterilise is ridiculous and passé – but while they show potential for something really interesting here, they do have the effect of cooling and sterilising an otherwise warm and welcoming record.

Heterosexuality is in many ways bold, both stylistically and in terms of message, but what goes missing in its weaker moments is akin to the ghost in the machine: that compositional spark which would elevate the record beyond the sum of its parts.

As a study of a man starting to slowly regain his feet after a major relationship break-up during a pandemic, Extreme Witchcraft has plenty to say. As a collection of Eels songs though, it unfortunately falls some way short of the band’s best work.

The music is fun and easygoing, whether it’s the title track’s blissful 80s-style chords, or Make It Out Alive’s sparkling synth line, or the dizzying strings of Sweet Talker (a far better Galantis collaboration than Heartbreak Anthem with Little Mix). When the pace drops the results become more mixed, as Intimacy sports a clumsy riff under melodies that don’t gel while 20 Minutes is nice but forgettable.

As ever with Marshall’s covers project, it’s a mixed bag, but there’s more than enough here to keep Cat Power fans satisfied until her next album of original material comes along.

Fragments does not outstay its welcome, but only because it isn’t distinctive enough to be consciously welcomed in the first place. Recommended for owners of trendy cafes and companies in need of hold music.

This album works best at moments like this, sweet and soothing – not exactly ambient, but soft and comforting like a nest of scatter cushions.

If you’re a fan, you’ll still be a fan and if you’re not, you still won’t be.

MONSTA X, formed through a reality TV programme, display versatility, emotion and style on their second English-language album. If their third is a tad more ambitious they’ll really be onto a winner.

Aside from several unwanted bumps in the road that fail to impress at all, he has at least managed to produce something that resembles an echo of past glories in a few places.

These are earthy songs to be played on the road, to be enjoyed around a roaring fire. These are new songs that sound well-worn and well-loved – much like Crazy Horse themselves. If not that surprising a listen, it’s nearly always an enjoyable one.

Despite her albums being snapshots, sometimes a little more diversity in subject matter would be a good thing. Ultimately, while some intriguing risks have been taken, 30 is probably the weakest, as well as conversely the most intimate and in many ways bravest, Adele album to date.

Actually You Can probably isn’t the best album to introduce the uninitiated to the delights of Deerhoof. By now, you very much know what you’re getting with them, and Actually You Can is another example of why they have such a strong cult following.

As it stands Water is a transition record, signalling a direction of travel but inconsistent and frustrating.

It’s different and at times more uplifting than most Parquet Courts albums, but it’s an album for the band, not for the fans.