If III suffers a little from the patchiness endemic to the mission statement, musical freedom – a sense of unfettered “let it be”-ness – is the chief draw here.

He is no torch singer; most often, Ward recalls John Fahey or Robert Johnson, but the spectral, night-time atmosphere captures the hurt and weariness of Holiday’s delivery.

Ultimately, Harrison has very definitely found an audience, but many of these Gen Z themes are being explored more creatively elsewhere.

The result is an invigorating if disorientating listen, as Nasty hurtles from a seductive trap tête-à-tête with Aminé (Back and Fourth) into songs resembling Korn (Girl Scouts, Let It Out). To some this will sound like a gimmick; to others it’s the future.

There are occasional missteps – the closing two minutes of Dvergmál veer worryingly close to windswept arena rock, and elsewhere there’s a ponderousness in places – but this is a good document of a bold artistic move.

At its least appealing, the music follows suit, dealing in boilerplate pop of varying hues: ponderous-verse-into-epic-chorus balladry; sugary indie guitars on 305 and Teach Me How to Love, dance pop so unmemorable it’s a wonder Mendes didn’t forget he was singing it and wander off midway through. But, just occasionally, something from outside the standard palette of current pop grabs your attention.

Of the 20 phoned-in songs here, 19 are at best inessential, at worst actively irritating.

Half the time, Cyrus is touting some ersatz idea of “rawk” proselytised by MTV circa 1984. ... Things perk up considerably on the songs that feel more authentic to Cyrus.

This album doesn’t feel much like Uchis’s artistic step-up, her Norman Fucking Rockwell or El Mal Querer, but more like a suck-it-and-see step on – a hastily released album that suggests her best is yet to come.

Fortunately, there is nothing noticeably sub-par about the tunes – or Johnson’s voice or Young’s brio on the guitar.

It’s nice to hear them taking a few small risks. Next, it’d be great to see Smith get really wild.

Periodically brilliant, if scattershot.

Just as judging the past from the present can be a fraught undertaking, weighing up the throwback 90s indie du jour by the standards of the decade itself is probably unfair too, but you wish Beabadoobee could muster a little more period-perfect surliness.

A workable entente between past and future is struck on Edna. Headie One gets to flex, collaborate and try new things, while Irving Adjei feels safe enough to show vulnerability.

Perhaps an editor might have come in handy: Dupuis can lose sight of the wood here, for the production flourishes. But Haunted Painting recalls the singular visions of fellow travellers such as Tune-Yards (who guests) or St Vincent, although direct comparisons are unhelpful.

You have a largely enjoyable set that finds the silken-voiced singer deftly blending genres, both classic and contemporary.

Toots may sing in a more confined register, but the exuberance and moaning soulfulness from his youth in the Baptist church remain splendidly intact on this vigorous final outing.

Coyne’s quivering voice still captures the frailty of the human spirit, and his band have made songs that will draw tears from frazzled audiences until the Earth slides into the sea. Yet too many of his death-obsessed drug lyrics are lamely predictable and uninvolving, and swaddling his vocals in effects until he sounds like Rob Brydon’s “man in a box” doesn’t help.

Ultimately, it’s a jarring mix, though Tricky has hit upon something interesting with the Unloved-style desert blues of Like a Stone and Vietnam.

These 11 songs balance mainstream appeal (Someone I Don’t Know) alongside an intimate sense of being cocooned with someone who has plenty of worth to impart.

The band are less assured on the quieter numbers, however. The likes of Milk at McDonald’s and the dreamlike Sue’s are pleasant enough (and the former includes the arresting line “I don’t regret a single drop of alcohol”), but unlike their best work there is precious little in the way of nagging hooks to lodge in one’s head.

Del Rey’s poetry collection is punctuated by skilfully rendered moments such as these, pregnant freeze-frames in language that justify the singer calling herself a poet. But just as often, Del Rey can lapse into verbose descriptiveness, her wordplay flowery or overcooked.

At first it seems she’s bounced back undaunted: galvanising opener Never Really Over thrums with fizzing electro synths; Daisies pushes back against detractors with brio. Yet there’s a creeping lethargy, a sense that, at 35 and about to become a mother, Perry’s kitschy shtick of old doesn’t quite fit any more, but that she hasn’t found a way forward she can connect with.

What the Killers have yet to learn from the later Springsteen is subtlety. If bombast is not your thing, this is not your band. Imploding the Mirage says some nuanced things, but very loudly. The best things about Flowers’s writing are twofold: the upfront carpe diem spirit here, best captured in lines such as: “We’re all gonna die!” And then there are the more elegant turns of storytelling.

Never quite settling where you think it might. Biffy Clyro can seem like two bands: a trio whose ringing Gaelic positivity and guitar bluster can shake a festival headline slot, and a gnarlier, more messed-up proposition.

Treat Crave like an EP, and think of the playful, toxic, masculinity-skewering When Boys Cry as the closing number. That way, the party always ends on a high.

Several songs see Greene stranded near crisis, not quite broken up nor ready to make a romantic move, and the music is similarly timorous. You’re left willing him to change gears, to abandon these elegant sighs for something more full-throated.

An overarching concern on Petals… is how Williams constructs a workable new femininity free from her old tomboy identity in Paramore. The blooming metaphor is, as a result, slightly overplayed throughout. ... Although there are a couple of low-key co-writes, Williams and York remain the organising creatives, and Williams sounds both free and in control.