CYR may be a good record, but even with its overblown 20-song length it leaves the listener wanting more, given the context of this band’s capabilities.

Billed as the spiritual successor to 2017’s Flying Microtonal Banana, sadly a lot of this new record feels like exactly that, the musical equivalent of the yellowy orange filter Hollywood tends to put on films and TV shows to indicate that it’s the Middle East. Yet as flippant as that may sound, there are still some flashes of innovation.

Adulkt Life prove middle aged doesn’t mean middle of the road.

Confetti is a dependable album with recipe staples, but to keep future interest piqued, something new is now required in the mix.

Positions is a perfectly fine light pop/RnB album by the numbers, but Grande’s relentless work ethic over the last few years means that the shine on her songs is starting to dull a bit.

The decision to feature Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons on Lay Your Head On Me is baffling but not disastrous, as a soulful guitar lick dances around earnest vocals about honesty and intimacy. Trigger featuring Khalid is woefully boring, his low-key delivery rubbing up against sludgy chords and a weird mixed metaphor in the hook. Rave De Favela is by far the best track of the record, with hard-edged 4×4 beats, novel sound design, infectious syncopation and lively performances from MC Lan, Anitta and BEAM.

Love Goes wallows too much in its comfort zone to be truly memorable.

It’s unsubtle and it’s inconsistent, but Ultra Mono has an awkward frankness to it that isn’t entirely without charm.

Epworth packs some interesting sonic tricks into this record, particularly the chaotic crescendo of interlude The Eternal Now, but overall Voyager doesn’t have the memorability or consistency to justify stepping into the limelight when semi-anonymity has served him so well.

If you can get past the vocal onslaught and the occasional uneventful passage, it could prove more broadly rewarding over time.

There’s no real new ground being broken on Agora, but it does make a good entry point if you’ve not been acquainted with Gilberto’s music before.

The album is brief, almost EP length, and doesn’t end nearly as well as it begins, but Spell My Name still features some great tunes and is proof that Toni Braxton’s smooth alto can grace a trap instrumental just as well as a Darkchild production or a slow jam.

Plum does little to rock an established boat. Going forward, consistency is the key Widowspeak must aim for, because if you took their top moments from across all five albums then you would have an absolute classic on your hands. Plum needed a larger smattering of their best capabilities to warrant repeated listens.

It’s atmospheric, after a fashion, but it feels overproduced and it’s often physically difficult to listen to.

She has not made Smile to impress critics, but rather as an emotional catharsis, and in some tracks this catharsis does sparkle. But it would be great if, in her next creative venture, she focused less on just her smile, as wonderful as it is, and more on the complex emotions that make up the main draw of Smile.

The Front Bottoms here have underperformed with what is a tiresome collection of repetitive songs that don’t require much effort to listen to.

If shiny, overstated hooks and operatic melodies are your thing, stick on the Twigs’ latest LP right away and you’ll have a ruddy glorious time. But for many, Songs For The General Public will be an overwhelming, even frustrating listen. The brothers wear their huge list of influences so prominently on their sleeves that it’s hard to put your finger on who they really are – and what they’re trying to say.

This is a pleasant diversion for Whitney fans waiting for a follow-up to Forever Turned Around, and if it has the side-effect of directing people to the hitherto undiscovered treats of the likes of The Roches, Jurado and Moondog, then so much the better.

The formula is executed well, while the production and songwriting keep the Australian four-piece ahead of any imitators. ... Yes, new music is good to have and good to experience, but when the tunes become interchangeable that notion starts to feel hollow.

The album may not carry the sort of dance-fused electro-pop magnificence they’ve made before, but moving away from the more ‘expected’ type of pop song you think of when Erasure crops up in conversation seems to have worked wonders.

At a time when mainstream house music is becoming more connected with both its past and the underground scene, ‘alternative’ interpretations like this are quickly becoming stale, and Articulation too often sounds as if it’s merely going through the motions.

Steve offers a simple, risk-free avenue to access a very deep, very meaningful cultural history that is seemingly inaccessible to newcomers at first glance. Put simply, you’d have be pretty miserable to think it wasn’t harmless fun, and if it turns one person on to the real thing, then it’s definitely worth it.

Heartache has inspired countless songs and albums over the years and if nothing else Old Flowers shows how humans will continue to turn to music for comfort in times of sadness for many years to come. These songs have clearly provided solace to Andrews and it’s likely they’ll do the same for others in similar need.

While Mordechai falls just short of providing that ‘sit up and take notice’ moment many of us have been waiting for, there’s certainly a lot to admire about Khruangbin – not least their formidable crate-digging skills.

Burial is the most important influence across Civic Jams, but while his productions, his songwriting, his structures carry a real emotional heft, Darkstar sound for the most part as if they’re playing for time.

Annual feels like a one-paced, indistinctive first step into a new world and one that is begging for just the odd about-turn to maintain interest.

It’s an undeniably pleasant background to a warm summer’s day. But, like the output of many of the chillwave notables it resembles, once Headroom has finished playing, precious few details remain lodged in the brain.

While there’s no denying that when they hit their default groove – as on To the Nth, for example – GoGo Penguin are a mightily tight, impressive unit, this album does leave you wanting more from a very talented band clearly capable of greater things.