The band may have achieved Ivor Novello and Mercury Prize nominations, as well as their highest chart position, with 2016’s Curve of the Earth, but A Billion Heartbeats aims higher, and doesn’t miss.

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.

Southeastern finds him working in a more stripped-down manner which focuses attention firmly on his songs. Fortunately, they're brilliant: vivid, multi-faceted tales of souls adrift.

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.

The determination to include generous dollops of each member’s solo output means that the acoustic set sags badly. But the obscure material is welcome.

Despite a few obvious omissions (Sun Ra, Marvin, Curtis and others), it’s an endless source of sonically challenging, mind-freeing ambition.

An intriguing addition to the band’s canon.

The proof is in the pudding; that pudding being a deliciously prickly collection of songs as lyrically bawdy as ever.

Like their Discovery LP which laid fresh pathways for pop and dance in 2001, Random Access Memories breathes life into the safe music that dominates today’s charts, with its sheer ambition.

The album is sultry and soporific, sitting somewhere between the minimalist trip-hop of Del Rey’s early days, and the scuzzy desert rock she has toyed with over the years.

It all adds up to a fascinating, multifaceted work which strives to find its own unique space in a crowded musical world, forever mindful of its limitations, but soldiering on with good humour.

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.

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

Bouger Le Monde offers a celebration of life.

It’s playful and elaborate.

Isolation represents the different facets of Uchis: the survivor, romantic and the rebel. But she still manages to keep herself a mystery through moody metaphors and Uchis--who grew up in between Colombia and Virginia--has been largely underrated the past few years, but Isolation might just finally give her the attention she deserves.

Everything about the album is fragmented, and dizzying in the vein of Samuel Beckett’s Not I or T.S. Elliot’s The Waste Land. Even the lyric sheet is a glorious mess.

Not only did they change the course of rock music; they also sustained an inspired creativity for almost two decades, something that the career arc of this retrospective brings into focus, right down to the Bacharach-esque touches of the final unreleased tracks, which pleasingly bring things full-circle in certain ways.

Live albums, never quite being able to replicate the atmosphere of a show or the cleanness of a record, can be hard work--but Springsteen on Broadway is an enthralling listen.

On what may be her best album, Polly Harvey offers a portrait of her homeland as a country built on bloodshed and battle, not so much a police state as a nation in thrall to military endeavour, however impotent and wasteful that has become.

“Seventeen” winks at the inevitable, then celebrates it. Remind Me Tomorrow is best in thrall to this untouchable energy, when Van Etten and her band sound ecstatic despite their worldly wisdom.

So thank you, “Ari”, for a lovely listen. I have to confess, I’d like a bit more vocal grit. Maybe that’s up next.

Prass confirms her unique, tremulous contralto mining depths of despairing devotion on songs clearly triggered by romantic crisis.

A skilled interpreter, Simpson’s bruised baritone murmur morphs to fit the contours of each song.

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

Save for three traditional songs, Strange Country comprises brilliantly-wrought original material haunted by themes of uncertainty, lassitude, jealousy and spite.

It’s a revelatory affair, bringing a fresh, raw focus to brilliant songs steeped in lust, death and loss with a blend of sly rockabilly and blues-tinged country-rock.

Roth fits Hunter like a glove, bringing out the warmth of his brass section and framing his raw voice in perfectly judged R&B arrangements that spark and bounce.