From Prologue, with its deep drone, wash of waves and circling, priestessly choral voices to the closing Adan no Shima no Tanjyosai and its sparsely plucked guitar and elegiac strings and flute, the album casts a still, soothing spell.

There’s enough across both albums to keep fans happy, and that soulful voice is still a thing of wonder, but Keys has a strange hotchpotch feel to it.

Telling of new beginnings and lost love, the breeze in her voice and her easy-going melodies act as a smokescreen: these are often direct takes on pain.

In among all this pervasive beauty (which tends towards expansive prettiness and resonant succour rather than the sterner, more austere end of the ambience spectrum), it feels like only the eight-minute apex track Deep in the Glowing Heart rearranges the listener’s molecules in a transformational way.

While her pure, clear voice is as expressive and engaging as ever, Valentine is more accessible and less interesting.

There are songs here with a cinematographic grasp of gesture allied to countermelodies of aching prettiness, almost casually thrown away. In the very same breath, though, Voyage packs in a surfeit of hokey oompah and two Christmas tunes too many.

Equals tilts heavily into contentment and maturity, including an obligatory lullaby – Sandman – for his little one. Nice Ed gains the upper hand, with a commensurate loss in musical interest.

It’s all fun, though a little disjointed – and the less said about Elton’s trap song, Always Love You, with Nicki Minaj and Young Thug, the better.

Blue Banisters could do with a sharper focus – some of these 15 songs are outtakes dating back years – and a hip-hopped-Morricone instrumental interlude feels like an incongruous eruption from her “gangster Nancy Sinatra” era. But it offers glimpses of vistas to be explored beyond Lana’s customary LA backdrops and a legacy already secure.

It’s an impressive display of ambition and reinvention, all the more dramatic because singer-songwriters in Lala Lala’s previous, Liz Phair-ish incarnation are 10-a-penny.

We get a campy take on I Get a Kick Out of You, a sashaying Night and Day, and yet another outing for swing album mainstay I’ve Got You Under My Skin. It’s on the less ubiquitous songs, however, that the pair seem to have the most fun. ... This ebullient album feels like a fond farewell rather than a solemn goodbye.

The music is pleasantly accessible, rather than daring.

It’s definitely an album served best by headphones and solitude, and one that won’t draw you back as much as it draws you in.

Bright Magic feels like a logical next step, with fewer samples, and the likes of Blixa Bargeld, Nina Hoss and Eera much more foregrounded. The downside is that, for all the invention on display here, J Willgoose Esq and Wrigglesworth have lost some of their USP with this shift in focus.

For every guitar-driven bop such as That’s What I Want, there are times when Hill resorts to mainstream genre cliches rather than razing convention as he did on Old Town Road.

Although the dominant mood is bedroom-dreamy, the effect of her staccato choruses and slapping beats is hammeringly percussive, allying her with the hyper-pop of Charli XCX. Depending on the listener’s ear, Hye Jin’s work can also come across as repetitive and facile.

Things start promisingly with the undulating Champagne Poetry dextrously reflecting on loneliness (“career is going great, but now the rest of me is fading slowly”), while Papi’s Home recalls early Kanye, of all people, with its sped-up samples and laid-back flow. Later, however, that playfulness calcifies into headline-grabbing stunts. ... This is an album destined to be filleted for various #mood playlists, anchored only by its creator’s untouchable fame.

Easier Than Lying is shouty and electronic, while You Asked for This finds Halsey fronting a Smashing Pumpkins pastiche. Amid all the Sturm und Drang and sludgy oompah (The Lighthouse) there is some high-quality writing, chiefly in the pizzicato niggles and Jesus analogies of Bells in Santa Fe (“it’s not a happy ending”) and Whispers.

As elegantly crafted as it all is, it does become a little homogeneous, and well before Other You’s 50 minutes are up, you do find yourself craving a gear change somewhere.

While Loving in Stereo palpably lacks Sault’s moral fire, their soundscapes do align very pleasurably indeed.

Embarrassed and Shame double down on how these emotions hold women hostage. Most personal of all is the Auto-Tuned and digitally spacious Midland’s Guilt, about how Somerville couldn’t wait to leave Tamworth but now feels aghast at losing her accent.

Most likely, the Minneapolitan knew this work was pleasant but unexceptional. ... This album sounds like it could’ve been made by anyone in the 1980s, back when only Prince made albums that sounded like the 2080s.

The title track promises much but only plays lip service to emotional soul-baring, while Ed Sheeran’s lyrical motifs dominate Beautiful’s cloying attempts at self-empowerment. A missed opportunity to let a star shine.

Stand for Myself remains attuned to these country-soul stylings, but the full ingredients list is long: old-timey doo-wop on Great Divide, Brandi Carlile backing vocals, plus subtle British inflections.

His follow-up project, All Over the Place, is aptly titled. It fidgets from genre to genre, UK garage to drill, pop to Afro swing, but never quite finds its resting place.

The marginally more upbeat and engaging Feel Good aside, it’s all very tasteful but ultimately a little unexciting. As returns go, it’s an underwhelming one.

Sometimes the angst seems to overpower the song structure, as on The Apartment, where Plunkett describes the newly acquired habit of smoking as “performing my need”. ... Best of all is Swimmer, reminiscent of Glasser or Austra with its chilly, rippling arpeggios and pulsing, depth-charge beats.

Boy from Michigan doesn’t quite stick the landing as Grant forgoes his customary high-wire balance of wit and wry emotion for a more direct style. But it’s rich in bittersweet beauty and surreal levity.