The album feels baggy in places, leaving you wondering if they’re trying too hard to tick every box. But most of the risks the band take pay off. A very promising debut.

It’s hard to think of many other contemporary albums that are quite so beautifully arranged as this. ... This is a very special album indeed.

“Windows”, with its eerie synths and squawking delivery, recalls the dark psychedelia of Cypress Hills’ 2018 record, Elephants on Acid. But that then jumps to skittery R&B with “I’ll Take You On”. Nothing joins together. Brockhampton don’t sound self-aware as much as self-conscious.

This is the perfect moment for Fearless (Taylor’s Version): there’s no time like a pandemic to be given a dose of nostalgia, and it’s nice to have a refresher of some of the best pop songs committed to record. Even the six “from the vault” tracks that didn’t make the cut first time round feel oddly comforting.

The best of confessional pop – think Beyoncé’s Lemonade – finds an original sound for an original experience and demands the listener’s attention.

Though it encompasses a whole galaxy of observations and sonic structures, ultimately Head of Roses is worth getting lost in.

Instead of a too-many-cooks situation, which this easily could’ve been, Dessner and Howard find cozy nooks for everyone. The singer’s reedy voice is the drawstring that ties it all together.

A stunning celebration of Black, gay love. ... It is also a groundbreaking proclamation of personal acceptance.

For Those I Love is as much a piece of history as it is a work of art. ... A staggering album.

There’s still a nagging sense that the band are resting on their laurels. The record is still good – DFA are too talented for it to be otherwise – but it’s a little deflating for a band whose history is built on boundary-pushing.

With strong, clear-eyed subtext, overlaid by compositions that touch on every influence from TV on the Radio to Prince, Childish Gambino and Radiohead, Smiling With No Teeth is not so much an album as it is a memoir – a story both unique to Owusu and universal to anyone who has ever felt “othered”.

It’s a welcome opportunity to revisit Sting‘s lengthy collaborative resume; if anything, Duets serves as a reminder that not only has the man been doing this for a long time, but when he does team up with a new artist, he strikes just the right balance in letting the featured player shine, and letting the song belong to them as well.

An overstuffed pillow of an EP that seeks to calm all of the world's aches but just ends up sounding schmaltzy and smothering.

It’s been just over a year since Bieber released his worst album. He’s returned with his best.

A great storyteller, Del Rey consistently delivers the who, what, where and when. She picks out the telling details – turquoise jewellery, the TV in the corner, “on the second floor, baby”. She sketches a backstory (“I come from a small town”) and then tells you how it all feels.

This album is more Pringles than caviar. But it’s comfortingly moreish. When it comes to the Jonas boys, it seems that once you pop, you can’t stop.

Their latest EP, Lout, is only three songs long, but even in under 15 minutes, the short-player packs a wallop.

I wonder if Larsson boxed herself in with her theme (“I’m obsessed with love”, she told NME in a recent interview), then struggled to find new ways to explore it. Overall, though, Poster Girl has more than enough bops to keep fans happy.

It’s pleasantly – if forgettably – soporific. The sort of family motorway album that tired parents can hum along to without waking the kids in the back.

Rather than phone anything in, Cooper’s clearly making the most of his elder statesman position, finding new ways to freshen up vintage sounds and styles. He’s every bit as durable as the American city he celebrates.

Thematically and sonically, For Those That Wish to Exist feels limitless.

Although the sonic mood mellows after the first two tracks, listeners will be invited to share the transcendent joy in memories of a lost child; the awe of an uxorious lover whose prayer-like love for his wife is a continual saving grace; and the frustration of a caged man with an “open road” of a heart.

His 2017 debut Reaper was built around tender guitar motifs that would mesh with stuttery trap beats. There is some of this on Trauma Factory, but it’s been mostly sidelined in favour of vocal melodies that frequently sound like playground rhymes.

An ambitious reach for new heights.

Despite the album’s slick production and radio-ready melodies, one wishes Pale Waves could find a more sophisticated language to express youthful enlightenment.

The record is divided into two sets. The first half is a jagged-edged electro backed spleen-splurge with all seven tracks titled with the CAPS LOCK ON. The smoother, more soulful second half finds him in more reflective, lower-case mood.

There is something admirable about the fact they stay so firmly planted in their lane. Medicine at Midnight is unlikely to win over many new fans, but it will make the existing ones happy.

It just feels tedious and predictable. Portentous twangs of guitar? Tick. Shivery percussion? Tick. Screeches of feedback? Tick. A frontman who delivers lyrics (rambling prose) in a croaky, squawking gasp that recalls Mark E Smith? Tick.