This is one of the most confident and charismatic debuts in years.

The record doesn’t break any new ground, but it walks familiar paths with confidence.

As ever, a warm and humane kind of marvel

It’s a staggering, swaggering achievement more vital than anything they’ve done in the last 35 years.

Tracks such as Psychedelic Orgasm and It’s Dark Inside embody the claustrophobic and saturnine atmosphere on what is essentially an underground hip-hop record made by an inveterate envelope-pushing postmodernist.

At their strange best, they sound like Radiohead with an ABBA obsession. A special album from a special band.

The album certainly wears its influences on its (parka) sleeve but does so while maintaining a freshness and uplifting charm that carries the songs as they zip along. Putting the somewhat clichéd lyrics aside – although it’s not as though listeners generally flock to Liam Gallagher for Significant Meaning – there is plenty to savour.

It’s a record to fall in love with.

While Tangk may bring us a more compassionate, empathetic version of the band who seem to be trying to find something that resembles peace after years of tumult, they still haven’t quite lost their punk spirit.

The re-ordered track list reflects what had been noted in the MPL archive. At first it may seem like another money grab, before steadily, something rather beautiful emerges.

There’s not a weak moment in these 11 songs.

The opening Angel’s cavernous bass is a clarion call for Sisters Of Mercy fans pining new material, yet Sickly Sweet and Dream Of Me are simple, spiky pop made distinctive by Julie Dawson’s slow-build guitars. As singer, Dawson channels a quiet despair in the more vulnerable Nosebleed, but it’s the defiant full-throated charge elsewhere that’s likely to see NewDad emerge as festival favourites.

A fraught album that reaches out furiously for release, forming a push-pull of pressure and release around the band’s defining attributes: Tucker’s tumultuous vocals and Brownstein’s livid guitar.

Iechyd Da is his masterpiece, start to finish.

Latest must-have. .... Not only are most of these renditions drastically different to the originals, Young blends one reimagined song into the next without any pause, producing less of a medley than an epic, multipart ballad. When he’s gone, none will replace him.

Fifty years on and 50 tracks that never falter in their blistering energy and humour.

Up has always deserved more love and, 25 years on, this remastered anniversary edition, which adds an enjoyably relaxed live set, gives us a chance to hear it with new ears.

This is breathless in its intensity, an hour-long triumph up there with anything they’ve ever done, tales of the world today united amid the brooding shadows of a Victorian musical hall stage. That’s life, that’s madness… and it truly is the Madness we know and love.

i/o is an impeccable reawakening.

He channels snippets into new compositions played over an 808 with some rudimentary vintage synths, evoking memories of his teenage past sitting alongside a radio with fingers tentatively poised on play and record.

Not just a compilation, not even just a big compilation, The Roaring Forty is a moving trawl through the life and times of an extraordinary artist who has never stood still.

The bulk of the previously unheard material mainly comprises Prince’s original versions of tunes he gave to other artists. .... D&P showed how Prince could still work his magic while operating in narrower artistic parameters. This wasn’t the grandiose vision of Purple Rain or Sign O’ The Times but rather revealed Prince operating in a new guise, as an artisan who was tuned into the pop and rap zeitgeist.

Embryonic versions of …Summer Lawns cuts are especially revealing, rough clay immediately prior to moulding, while the live material plays up her strengths as an easy communicator of often obtuse ideas.

The Stones are the Stones; a law and legend unto themselves, with nothing more to prove and no need to compete with the latest crop of young turks who covet the crown but know they’ll never wear it. Hackney Diamonds sparkles brightest when it touches base with bygone precious gems.

Accentuate The Positive’s lively mix of swing, jump jive, R&B and classic rock’n’roll constantly plays to the singer’s strengths as a thoughtful, inventive interpreter.

There will be few debut records as accomplished or thrilling as Los Angeles in 2023.

It may occasionally sound warmly, comfortingly like the past, but this is an album with its mind fixed firmly on the future.

A mixed (body) bag it may be, but Danse Macabre is a fiendishly fun collection that only the undead would remain unmoved by.

Anderson says the album’s 10 songs form a loose narrative of journeys and experiences coming to an end, yet at the same time Pearlies points to a bright and fulfilling solo future.

Cosmic art country (Infinite Surprise, Pittsburgh) and skewed power pop (Save Me, Evicted) dominate, but most impressive are Sunlight Ends and A Bowl And A Pudding, moments of experimental beauty at the core of a constantly surprising album.

The 1970-71 period was arguably The Who’s, and Pete Townshend’s, most creative, and its celebration is to be welcomed at – almost – any price.

The country-rock songwriting tones of Tired Of Being Alone and Falling Into The Sun are rich and expansive, the themes of finding comfort and purpose in middle-age – whether through rekindled romance (I Left A Light On, I Will Love You), artificial means (Self-Sedation) or self-reflection (Middle Of My Mind) – ring true, and big emotions continue to be captured, seemingly without effort, on their canvas.

Black Rainbows magnificently roars around garage rock, jazz and even, on Erasure, Black Flag hardcore. Better still, Before The Throne Of The Invisible God is a heavenly soul-psych masterpiece, equally Sly Stone, Prince and Billie Holliday. It’ll continue to uncover fresh layers of magic for years, while being enticing from the off.

Throughout the curation of his archives, all but two of these recordings – that slower Sedan Delivery and the regretful Too Far Gone – have already been released elsewhere, across original albums and newly restored collections, making this official Chrome Dreams an exercise in fan service that would have been a worthy Record Store Day title – or, we hope, an indication that the Archives Vol III box set is approaching.

Relentless is a masterly achievement, tasting of truth.

Across the years, the album has often been discussed in terms of its proto-Britpop ‘moment’. But it holds up superbly freed from that context as a deeply distinct and thrillingly flash statement of what Suede do, creating its own world while doing practically everything it can to grab the attention.

The result is a beguilingly inquisitive album, its meanings and methods nurtured into rich, sun-blushed blooms.

The Ones Ahead is billed as his first collection of new music in nearly 20 years, but it feels no less vital or inventive than his most celebrated work.

The past might be an albatross around Lydon’s neck, but he demonstrates superhuman strength at times, achieving lift-off in a way that nobody was really expecting. If the end of the world is nigh then PiL are going out with a bang.

The second half is a striking electronic makeover: the Baxter Dury-ish title track and the Prince-like S&M cosplay electro-strut of the sultry Goddess Rules are joltingly un-Dexys. If the premise is laid on a bit thick – Rowland never does things by halves – at least torch song My Submission is the most beautiful thing Dexys have ever done.

The passion in ANOHNI’s voice lifts meandering mid-album cuts Can’t and Scapegoat. But the Marvin Gaye-indebted Why Am I Alive Now is the standout.

With expressive restraint, key collaborators John Parish and Flood utilise instruments and field recordings to tactile effect, while leaving room for Harvey’s voice to resonate. The results hold their folk-horror secrets close and harbour dark suggestions on investigation.

While this is a deeply personal work whose soul-searching recalls the defences-down honesty of Blur’s art-rock masterpiece 13, it’s emphatically not a solo album… Though it could be a duo album. One of the most touching elements of The Ballad Of Darren is hearing Albarn and guitarist Graham Coxon singing together.

Lyrically, Chatten’s world is still tumultuous, yet he’s learned to coat it around a romantic, less uptight sound. Hopefully Fontaines D.C. can carry some of these moods forward but, whatever happens, this is a superb interlude.

This collection is called Smash for a very good reason.

In the Shadow Kingdom, the smooth seduction of I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight comes out downright lusty, while the jinking melody of It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue ebbs and flows here, seemingly dragged by swollen waves of sound. Some lyrics are subtly changed, others are turned on their head – the devotional To Be Alone With You transformed into something dangerous and desperate (“What happened to me darling, what was it you saw, did I kill somebody, did I escape the law?”).

This is not an overly confessional collection: if you’re looking for self-revelation, you may have to wait for a forthcoming autobiography, but nevertheless there’s much to enjoy.

This is exactly the album Gallagher should be making to remind people how good he can be.

The voice charms at every turn, brimming with personality on what might just be the party album of the year.

Those who fondly remember Goldfrapp’s early noughties primal glitterball electro-pop peak will thrill at Alison Goldfrapp’s debut solo effort.

Here he’s just one of the gang, trading songs and in-jokes with singer-songwriter Jeff Blackburn, Moby Grape bassist Bob Mosley and drummer Johnny Craviotto, his wiry lead guitar slicing through the good-ole-boys’ country-rock.

A 12-minute version of the album’s title track is more séance than song. ... Elsewhere, the audience’s enthusiastic response to the first few bars of Helpless is rewarded with a despairing deconstruction of the CSNY favourite, Nils Lofgren’s funereal accordion aiding the communal catharsis taking place onstage.

It’s typical of Merchant’s trademark lyrical articulacy, her passion and poetic vocabulary illustrating how she remains powerfully evocative writer over a 40-year career peppered with high watermarks.

The result is an album of scope and dynamism, sometimes hushed but tooled for outreach on the urgent Dandelion and baleful Neptune, where a choir lifts Tonra’s sunken vocal.

There’s a new sense of confidence in the vocals, the clarity of the melodies, and production flourishes. Lyrically, too, there’s a shift – the troubled soul-searching has (mostly) given way to a sense of joy and acceptance at his place in the world. There are songs here that do not so much start as saunter into earshot, in no rush to reveal themselves and all the more seductive for it.

At 70 minutes, False Lankum is definitely a demanding listen, but an extraordinary one.

Not everything works. The aforementioned Always You leaves little impression and the clunky Caroline’s Monkey, which shoehorns in every hackneyed junkie reference you can think of (“holes in her skin”, “ice in her veins”, monkeys on backs, etc, etc), is just about rescued from oblivion thanks, again, to its auditory nod to Kraftwerk’s locomotive-fixated sixth studio album. But otherwise, Memento Mori is brimming and sometimes soaring with immediate pop songs.

Van Morrison’s voice is in fine a form as ever. The important thing is that while he – and the rest of the crew – head down a well-travelled road, they certainly don’t sit in the middle of it.

Brothers & Sisters may also be the last recorded work of Mason’s friend and recurrent collaborator Martin Duffy – a fine way for him to finish, on an album full of intelligence and love.

Inhaler avoid difficult second album problems by sounding more like they’re on a confident fourth record.

If it is a mess, it’s a glorious one.

It’s an album of unlikely collaborations. Day One features the operatic talents of Dina Ipavic, while Are You Alive, sung by Lily Wolter of Penelope Isles, floats into moodier, more analog territory. Best of all are The New Abnormal (Golden Girls’ Kinetic turned inside out) and the anti-gammon state of the nation rant of Dirty Rats.

End-times prophecies have always been a part of Gorillaz’s world view, but here Damon Albarn’s lyrics allude to personal burnout. There’s something poignant about hearing Stevie Nicks’ weathered voice twin itself to Albarn’s while singing about reaching a place “when you can’t help yourself anymore and the madness come”.

Fragments: Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997) serves the showman well, making this era sing, one of The Bootleg Series’ most intriguing investigations so far into Bob Dylan’s working practices and mindset.

Their unpredictability and magnetic power remain undimmed by the years.

That Bad Reputation deep cut – as well as five better-known extras including a spine-tingling Still In Love With You not heard before – reminds us we are in what was, for so long, uncharted territory. ... Live and definitive!

Cale remains the star of the show, however, still crafting richly textured songs that don’t always go where you might expect them to, and refusing to pander to expectations.

This is a thoughtful, and thought-provoking, set of songs from a writer whose responses to the world around him illustrate an ever-deepening maturity, which is intriguing to chart across his four solo releases to date.

Cacti might show Maries in survival mode, but revealing vulnerability has seen her songwriting soften and come into its own.

Whether you prefer him pensive or primal, his 20th solo album brings that big time.

The scattergun concept inevitably results in a broad range of styles and not all of them are entirely successful. ... Still, the above are minor quibbles, as the bulk of the album is a gorgeous concoction of disparate inspirations finding hitherto elusive homes. The guests get their works in progress nailed by an esteemed craftsman, while Rundgren himself, a man with a partial history of self-sufficiency bordering on the behaviour of a control freak, sounds reinvigorated by allowing others into his world.

A take on the Star-Spangled Banner provides a waymarker here, but its playful cadence offers little warning of the unholy commotion to come.

A cappella mixes of studio material have been a hallmark of every major Beach Boys box set, and those on Sail On Sailor deliver as expected. ... Further studio outtakes underscore the group’s range and versatility.

And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow is a rich, nuanced and brilliant reflection of a world in turmoil.

Those lyrics [from previously unreleased demo, Tired Of My Life], slightly tweaked, would also make the final It’s No Game; that they date to this period of self-doubt and self-discovery and ended up bookending one of the greatest decade-long streaks in music is revelatory. Demos of Hunky Dory standouts have fewer surprises: written during a spate of fevered creativity in Haddon Hall, his boho Beckenham pile, everything is all but there, a few lyrical improvements aside.

While it’s certainly not as upbeat as 2020’s Gold Record, the directness cuts through in a way that 2019’s Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest didn’t. It’s an album that finds Callahan in great form.

The kids aren’t alright as decades get mashed; conspiracy theories and misanthropy, leavened with wit, abound. A fantastic record. You auteur hear this.

It’s hands down the band’s most powerful and compelling musical statement to date; a vivid snapshot of an important inflection point in their career trajectory.

The Car is a slick mover, immaculately appointed and often beautiful. What it’s driving at, though, can feel naggingly elusive.

Sorrows Away is a landmark album by an extraordinary band, full of brutal truths, hope, and moments of musical transcendence that will resonate for generations to come.

From heavy skiffle to serpent gods to ponderings on Pacino, noir and mortality, this charms and challenges.

Stumpwork demonstrates that the Dry Cleaning business is going from strength to strength.

After a handful of stirring ballads set to create further communal festival experiences, Here Is Everything peaks with Magic, golden funk worthy of Odelay-era Beck. The album cover depicts singer Jules Jackson during her pregnancy: her band have given birth to something magical here.

Heaton remains the go-to chronicler of the Everyman condition, but let’s not underplay Abbott’s vital contribution as both equal-billing foil and relatable conduit of female perspectives in these songs. Plays not just for today, but for weeks, months and years to come.

An album that taps into Suede’s galvanic guitar-rock drama without falling prey to that dread declaration of stagnation, the back-to-basics album. Perhaps deceptively, Suede’s approach here is forward-thinking.

How Do You Burn? finds the Whigs in particularly lusty form.

The contents, which comprise the first volume of the Lou Reed Archival Series, are of enormous cultural significance – fascinating, extraordinary, at times revelatory.

After a 39-year hiatus, Altered Images pick up more or less where they left off with Mascara Streakz, a perfectly retro-fitted album, with enough of the modern added to retain interest.

First single Town And Country is a band-backed hymn to city-loving Wainwright’s current lifestyle that adds a touch of rock’n’roll pizzazz to proceedings.

It is a warm and free record, benefitting from the improvised jam sessions that took place on both US coasts in Brooklyn and Burbank. You can feel the sense of openness at either end of Heartmind’s musical spectrum.

Reset takes shape as a tribute to the consolatory powers of music and companionship, brimming with convivial charm and inner-voyage invention.

Sound Of The Morning displays an irrepressible knack for songwriting. There’s a nimbleness, too. ... A real treat.

It adds up to White’s most relatable – and accessible – record in some time.

Daniel Kessler’s guitar lines remain inventively distinctive, but a gentleness now exudes from Paul Banks’ voice, and his pseudo-absurdist lyrics consider that things might not be so bad after all.

A layered, atmospheric, darkly playful headrush of a first offering.

The result perhaps misses the conceptual cogency of earlier Tree peaks. But it doesn’t want for controlled reach. Over a tight 48 minutes, C/C weds a reinvigorated affirmation of band identity to expansive energies, all to confident effect: “The sum of all, of new and old,” as Wilson’s lyrics put it.

Far more than an indulgent side project, A Light For Attracting Attention deserves to be taken on its own merits as a daring, invigorating and often very moving piece of work in its own right.

The hardcore will need these and it’s hard to argue with the performances and the sound quality. Both shows find Young introducing new material from Harvest, released later that year, and beyond.