On Don’t Forget Me, she’s found a beguilingly relaxed momentum.

It’s a record that sucks in all of the band’s best-known sounds and blows them out in a wild confetti blast of twisty-indie-anxious-punk-jazzy-joy.

Variously embracing fado, jazzy whiskey-bar blues and tensile, grandiose strings, ... Eastern Esplanade is easily The Libertines’ most expansive and ambitious record.

Their rock’n’roll friends, from Beck to Noel Gallagher, are on hand to lend the album a rabble-rousing tone. Ohio Players sounds like a house party where the whiskey is flowing.

Across 27 tracks, almost all with compellingly muscular melodies, she whips and neigh-neighs through every conceivable form of classic and modern country, roping in elements of opera, rock and hip-hop at her commanding, virtuosic whim. .... Cowboy Carter keeps on dealing aces.

There are more hooks here than on Lenker’s previous albums, 2020’s great but ethereal Songs, and its companion album, the lyricless Instrumentals. Tracks like the gentle, mellifluous “Cell Phone Says” showcase Lenker’s skill with a soulful folk guitar riff, while the lively and finger-picked “Fool” is a standout.

The songs on Tigers Blood feel natural and unstudied.

The result is a mixed bag. “La Fuerte” (“The Strong”) would be a forgettable club banger were it not for Shakira’s lyrics, still raw with grief. “Tiempo Sin Verte” and “Como Donde Y Cuando” are more interesting thanks to their minor chord acoustic strums and angsty one-two punch of electric guitar.

Beyond these introductory tracks and a couple of others (“Give It Up for Love” struts to a Nile Rogers beat), the album chugs along at a pleasant mid-tempo pace.

The record’s sprawling R&B slow jams are more likely to inspire snoozing than shagging. Weighing in at a bloated 18 tracks, it’s got the soggy dead weight and wonky springs of a fly-tipped mattress.

Deeper Well is a revelation – as though Musgraves stumbled on an oasis after months in the desert.

While there’s a moreish quality to the off-key guitar of “Imperfect for You” and an unexpectedly golden flush of brass on “Ordinary Things”, Grande’s delicately conversational tone is often left having to compensate for her lack of strong melodic snags.

Bleachers occasionally lets Antonoff’s genius shine through, but more often it feels like an experiment gone awry.

You’ll hear the recycled riff from the Beatles’ Paperback Writer (“Rain”’s original A side) on their new song “I’m So Bored”; the hook of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” smoking its way through “Love You Forever”; and the brooding melody from the Stones’ “Paint it Black” on “One Day at A Time”. The pair poke fun at their own slapdash songwriting process on “Make it Up as You Go Along”. But still, there’s fun to be had with the way Gallagher tows teenage ‘tude into middle age.

She’s still in her prime, as you can tell when she delivers a knockout vocal on the guitar-backed ballad “Broken Like Me”. .... But for all her promises to show us the “real her”, it’s a struggle to see it in the slick and sexy production of tracks such as “Mad in Love” or “Rebound”.

How you feel about that will depend on your threshold for Coming Home’s smooth-bossing seduction style. What Usher lacks by way of foreplay (“I wanna be inside ya/ I’ll be coming” is the album’s second line) he compensates for with stamina: smooching his way through 20 tracks of mostly silky-solid grooves. Coming Home is enlivened by a cool cast of collaborators sharing the mic.

Prelude to Ecstasy gleefully delivers.

It’s wonderful to find so many moreish layers in music that was, apparently, composed so quickly. Grab yourself a bean bag and settle in for the long haul with this one.

Tight and heartfelt if ploddingly unoriginal.

Pink Friday 2 shows flashes of the inventive brilliance that made Nicki such an undeniable superstar, but like so many legacy sequels, it mostly just makes you wish you were listening to the original.

The tracks on i/o grow both on and in a listener like seeds germinating. Those who like their song structures neat and tidy may struggle with the jazz odysseys, but Gabriel asks very little of his fans – just time. Give him that, and you will find this album gently becoming part of you on a cellular level.

His grievances on For All the Dogs seemed exclusively directed at women, causing some to wonder whether we’d ever see a return to his puppyish, boy-next-door type. Scary Hours 3 isn’t that, but it does even the playing field somewhat, not least by praising the women in his life and castigating the men.

Rockstar is so long that it can feel like a bit of a slog.

So many ideas have gone into I<3UQTINVU that it’s almost a new album in its own right. So while it’s not quite as brilliant as I Love You Jennifer B, it does suggest the restless duo are moving into more thrilling terrain.

McCartney gives Lennon’s vocals space and prominence, blending his own voice sensitively into that wondrous brotherly harmony we thought we’d never hear afresh again. The lyrics – while reading like a typical holding-pattern Lennon love song until greater inspiration stuck – resonate now after 40 years of loss. .... “Now and Then” is the musical event of the year and one of the greatest tear-jerkers in history.

This revamp does at least serve as a reminder of the album’s untouchable greatness.

The album could have been shorter and catchier but fans will feel their cockles warmed and their pulses raised.

Although she’s got the makings of a great songwriter, she needs to push the sounds into sharper corners to give her narratives more distinctive definition. Because this album delivers many shades of grey but never the promised punch of black.

A late-career Exile on Main Street? Their best since the Seventies? Arguably, but such hyperbole undeniably rests on the broad shoulders of the seven-minute “Sweet Sounds of Heaven”, the album’s spectacular spiritual crescendo.

It doesn’t pack quite the same melancholy, melodic punch as Carrie and Lowell. But it’s lovely to feel all the heavy stuff just breeze past you.

On tracks such as “Daylight” and “Fear of Heights”, he strains to fit over the futuristic “rage” sound popularised by Playboi Carti. For better or worse, the album is at its best when Drake’s not there.

There’s no standout tune on here to match Elgar’s “Nimrod”, of course, but there’s enough soupy seasonal sentimentality to fill the Royal Albert Hall.

That’s what listening to Tension feels like: 100 per cent “Whheeeeeee!”

At various points across the album, Doja Cat channels her predecessors. There’s a gorgeous D’Angelo croon to “Often” and on the punchy “Demons”, she emulates Kendrick Lamar’s silky, dangerous tones. Notably, though, there are zero features on this record. Scarlet holds up all on its own.

It’s true that listening to The National often makes me feel I’m hearing ghosts of their previous songs. Old chords and thoughts stalk the halls of different songs. But it’s hard to resist their shimmering, shapeshifting companionship. And on Laugh Track the ghosts are floppier and friendlier than they’ve been in a while.

The subtle melodies on The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We can take their time to gleam through the murk. So give it time and space at night, when you’re alone, to allow its wild darkness to shine.

Blake clearly revels in the invention and freedom of the exploit. “Fall Back” comes across as a very organic, found-sound kind of ambient concoction, as if someone has worked out how to recycle DJ software out of firewood and hemp.

GUTS sees Rodrigo smash her way out of the confines of small screen life and arrive kicking and screaming into her real life. No more red lights or stop signs in her way.

She can do all sorts with those pipes and Hit Parade finds Murphy celebrating her many textures.

Warmth rises consistently from I Told Them, with its easygoing mix of Afro pop, rap and R&B. You inhale it – soft, nourishing and moreish as if it’s steaming off freshly baked bread. There are moments of nutty chewiness, but mostly it’s stretches of pleasant, if airily bland, doughiness.

On their third album Mommy, their blistering garage punk is finessed, their songwriting, sharp and sardonic.

There’s so much deliciously analogue texture to cherish here – all bakelite, mahogany, coconut shells and bougainvillea, with woodwind you could drink and percussion you could tuck behind your ear. It’s 2023’s hippest release. Get up, get down, kick back to it.

He goes straight for the pop-rock formulae. This would have worked better over a shorter span, but yawning as it does on the same mid-tempo pacing means that tracks blur to filler and some good lines get lost in the sludge. The lack of guest vocalists doesn’t help either.

A soundtrack that is always fun, if undeniably erratic – Ronson can’t decide on a consistent tone or approach, instead ping-ponging between satire and celebration, sincerity and spoof.

If such bittersweet reflections came packaged on a solo Albarn release, they’d probably be set to sorrowful, detached, acousto-electronic sounds. But his old friends have alchemised those sentiments into songs that elevate his suburban tristesse into moments of sheer ecstasy.

You’re bound to find yourself dancing to it at some point over the summer. It’s safe. Still polished. Nothing special.

The past typically isn’t the most comfortable place to inhabit, but Swift embodies her younger self fully, imbuing these tracks with the same immediacy and emotional heft as she did all those years ago. Country twang or not.

I suspect that those who’ve always found Harvey a chore will find much to mock. But her fans will be all in for this mucky pagan whirl.

It’s an album that cools and shimmers its way through a delicious range of nuanced moods and subtly layered musical ideas. Delightful.

Some tracks on The Good Witch serve as incantations to manifest a better lover; others spit curses on past ones. All of them, though, convincingly set Peters up as the next musician to confidently march us into another sad girl summer.

Admittedly, with 15 full-length tracks, the record does run a little long. That said, there’s something alluring about such an unapologetic and candid album.

There’s some filler. But melody-lite tracks such as “Sicily” and “Negative Space” bob by on their bass line grooves.

This new collection finds Horan moving towards the lusher production sound of his former bandmate Harry Styles. Laurel Canyon references mingle easily with Eighties synth-pop and Noughties guitar rock. It’s beautifully cohesive.

Paranoia, Angels, True Love is too long and rambling to bring Christine and the Queens any new fans, or much action on the singles chart. Its self-indulgence may even tire some existing fans. But if you give it time to grow its wings, it can really lift you up.

Clocking in at a scant 31 minutes, you could call The Age of Pleasure a quickie – but one that more than manages to scratch that itch.

As a tribute, and a farewell, it could hardly be better.

Council Skies is guaranteed to make the old fans feel right at home.

My Soft Machine is a punchier, poppier outing for Parks but the record shares a lot in common with its predecessor. .... It’s when Park veers off her own path that things get interesting. “Devotion” is a risk that pays off.

His is the sort of personable charm that even the slickest PR machine can’t drum up. It is also, unfortunately, something that’s too often missing from this album. That and variety.

Gag Order comes loaded with deliciously weird and compellingly urgent hooks.

At no point does The Album push for edge or originality. But you’d have to be the barbecue grinch to deny its lovingly crafted, feel-good vibes. Pure, safe sonic ketchup.

Lyrically, the album does fall short, but then Sheeran has spent over a decade trading in vague yet universal issues. ... For the most part, Subtract is testament to the old adage that less is, often, much more.

It’s realistic, reassuring, and rather soporific.

It’s an album that makes a church of its elegant electronica: all vaulting arcs of yearning melody and glimmers of stained glass that dance upwards, to the familiar urban spire of Thorn’s beautiful, hangdog voice.

72 Seasons may not see Metallica doing anything new – but it does find their old machine firing on all cylinders. Old and new fans alike will be headbanging happily throughout.

By the time her vocals roll in on “God Above”, you’re already caught in the slipstream of Drop Cherries. ... Marten dials back her sound to paint tender, intimate moments using only strokes of orchestral watercolour.

Most of them slot together with an appealing combination of simplicity and enigma – like those little puzzle cubes made of three types of wood. All the while, you can hear the careful questioning with which the songwriters have honed one another’s thoughts until they slot smoothly together to become satisfying tactile emotional experiences.

By avoiding clutter, both in lyrics and in instrumentation, each song feels like inhaling a gulp of cold, crisp air.

Her sweeping, layered ninth album is more ruminative than reactive: questions of family and legacy, memory and death swirl around one another until they’re one in the same.

Ultimately this is an album of shadow versions that leave you yearning for originals.

A lovely long bask in Cyrus’s maturing talent.

UGLY is a powerful and direct transmission from a brilliant, beleaguered brain.

Food for Worms sees Shame confidently embrace their flaws and resign themselves to the messy, beautiful chaos of their live shows. It’s all captured within this bedhead of a record.

Signs that Cracker Island is designed to be a summer album sizzle though the heat-haze synths of “Silent Running” (featuring soulful contributions from Adeleye Omotayo) and the hip-sloshing dancefloor pulse of “New Gold” (feat Tame Impala and Bootie Brown).

[“Valentine” is] the most endearing entry in an album that has its moments but doesn’t quite leave a mark.

The record’s problem is that it never settles on one cohesive sound.

After releasing all the pent-up adrenaline in the album’s first half, Paramore’s melodies lumber likeably to a sludgier, shoegazier speed after that. But the band keep things interesting by accessorising that sound with a synth flute (on “Big Man, Little Dignity”); a rattle stick tap (on “You First”); a twinkling keyboard; and low horn effect (on “Figure 8”).

A very brave, strong record. Hats off, Raye. These blues are smoking hot.

Smith’s vocals are, of course, beautiful. Creamy and curvaceous; liquid with emotion. But I often feel their voice is searching for tangier tunes to wrap that molten wax around. Without any sharpness to offset it, listening to the repeated wobbly rise of Smith’s lovely, dollopy notes can feel like the aural equivalent of watching a lava lamp.

Måneskin are a band who know what they are and what they’re good at – because while it’s true that Rush! starts to feel amorphous, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single moment in its 50-minute runtime where you’re not enjoying yourself just a little.

The older he gets, the better the conversational-confessional flow of his rapping, which allows him to stroll through a 10-minute bragathon like “Mel Made Me Do It” without breaking a sweat or losing the listener’s attention. He raps about trips to Dubai and giving up weed like he’s sitting beside you at a London bus stop.

There’s a little electronic noodling going on to remind us that, though Mering sounds supremely grounded, a part of her is still in exiled orbit around a damaged world. It’s soulful, and a little spooky.

Those more open to a ramble will find themselves easily led through the whole journey by Redcar’s commitment to the grooves and expressive vocals. It’s worth taking the whole trip with him, as the mood gradually lightens towards the dawn of final songs “Angelus” (on which he imagines angels descending from the “pissing sky”) and “Les âmes amentes” on which he hails golden sunshine visions of bees and birds and naked bliss. Easy for the cynics to mock, but it’s hard to fault the earnest artistry with which Redcar reaches back for lost innocence. Angelic.

All 10 tracks are stacked with hooks, making it as good as their 2009 breakthrough album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. ... Mars’s sophisticated stream-of-consciousness lyrics operate in perfect synchronicity with the album’s sound. Melancholy themes of mortality are balanced by a giddy commitment to seizing the dance floor moment.

Ultimately, Dry Cleaning start to sound like a one-song idea dragged out over two albums. A slog.

The subtle melodies of Midnights take time to sink their claws in. But Swift’s feline vocal stealth and assured lyrical control ensures she keeps your attention.

It’s Turner’s persona that gives The Car its charm and intrigue, though. Where Tranquility Base… provided his obtuse lyricism with a sci-fi framework, here it roars off in every direction, as wonderfully imagistic as it is largely impenetrable.

The narratives are dependably punchy through this record, and they’re carried by solidly danceable Eighties and Nineties club beats. Not an original sound, then. But one that allows her more challenging or subversive thoughts to slide slyly into a night out on the town.

Despite the occasional challenge of big blasts of (gleefully disruptive) discord on tracks such as “trolle-gabba”, those considering dipping a toe into avant garde pop will find the waters are warm on Fossora. Give it time – it’ll grow on you. Like a fungus.

The eight tracks of Cool It Down (a real mission statement of a title) make for a quasi-gothic synth record that beefs up the Eighties revivalism of the past decade... even as it leaves behind the yelping dynamism of their youth for a more considered and placid middle-age.

Happy hour at the all-you-can-eat alt-rock buffet is clearly open. ... It’s all delivered rambunctiously enough that it’s easy to simply enjoy Gulp! as the alt-pop pick’n’mix it is. Go gorge.

It feels uncomfortable for me to point out that there aren’t a lot of tunes on this record. This stuff has to come out the way it wants. It’s hardly singalong material. It is – necessarily – heavy. But it also fulfils Mumford’s intention, learnt from Beyoncé, he says, to leave us with hope.

Hold the Girl is eclectic and searching, a little glossier than Sawayama’s debut, perhaps, but also much more introspective.

Emotional echoes of this complicated public history reverberate through Jude’s solid collection of mature mid-tempo rockers and ballads. ... Lennon’s production is clean, steely and a little claustrophobic.

The record is more fun than the lyrics suggest. Watt’s production flirts with Muse’s epic grandeur and the anthemic metal of a Red Rocks Oasis. ... But by the time he’s rhyming “asphyxiation, masturbation, degradation” on the Hawkins co-write “Degradation Rules” – the second Iommi appearance – things are getting a little ridiculous, and at over an hour the record drags.

Harrison has a knack for narrative and a snagging vocal that lifts potential mediocrity of this vibe into a warmer and more engaging experience. He’s at his best at his most British, when he channels the conversational intimacy of The Streets’ Mike Skinner.

Pre Pleasure is one of those rare records that reveals the whole artist, cheap kicks and all.

Holy Fvck, from the title down, then, is a classic shedding-the-pop-facade record, bristling with defiance and real-me rebirth. And, as is the nature of such emancipation albums, it’s extremely horny. ... Amid the buzz-rock howls and air-guitaring, though, there is plenty of space (on a frankly overlong record) for more subtle emotion.