Despite the shadow of tragedy hanging over the project, there’s an irrepressible euphoria to the music throughout.

Midway through Steam Days, Harnser does dark pizzicato things befitting a 90s warehouse rave, while elsewhere, the analogue-melting-into-digital influence of Four Tet is palpable.

The Norwegian duo’s once naive sound has evolved to a smarter, more lyrically resonant electronica, and if it weren’t for a couple of whimsical ballads, this would be a powerful, cohesive goodbye.

While Ti Amo is slow to reveal its charms, there are moments when the cheesy concept--a romanticised version of Italy--is made to seem like a brilliant idea.

Ultimately, you conclude, Jones's golden voice was built for hooting, hollering and hubba-hubba-ing at the ladies, not mulling things over.

A decent debut, then, but with Mai’s rich voice you can’t help feeling that it could have been stratospheric. Instead, it fails to innovate, and all feels a little beige.

The album’s second half glides hazily by, never actually disappointing, but maintaining a mid-tempo pensiveness that is a little too comforting for comfort.

It's distressing, elementary and samey yet utterly unignorable.

Stage Whisper is more of a stop-gap than a fourth album proper... But there are gems among the eight unreleased songs.

It’s a perfectly serviceable album, as one might expect, given the pedigree of those involved. But it’s hard to imagine it being met with anything but bemusement at the Grand Ole Opry.

You would fully expect to find strings and piano on an Elbow track, but these can be any scoundrel's knee-jerk shortcut to gravitas. Much better are Guy Garvey's sloshed 40-nothing aperçus, playing off beautifully against a slinky organ melody.

As befits its messy gestation, it’s a patchy affair.

Ultimately, the harder, almost techno-inclined instrumental tracks, such as Little Red Hen or Death in the Gulf Stream, are infinitely better than those burdened with vocals, some lairy and crass, some merely unengaging.

If the sense of overfamiliarity is a bit disappointing for a band once lauded as experimentalists, producer Ethan Kath has also retained his knack for writing terrific hooks and warped melodies. Ornament and Kept are nuggets of brilliantly disjointed electropop.

While this album’s rotating mic-spot keeps things moving like a playlist, the memorability of these tracks bobs up and down like the waves off the coast of Free Nationals’ native California.

Even Elton-sceptics can take solace in how producer T-Bone Burnett continues to improve the veteran piano man by filling the interstices of his work with detail, rendering songs such as the rather good Claw Hammer at least 43% more nuanced.

Curiously, it gets better as it goes on.

Wilder Mind will only make Mumford & Sons more enormous. Mercifully, it has also significantly improved them as a band.

These 16 tracks (17 on the deluxe version) play out quite pleasurably in their entirety, the joins between Swift, Dessner and Antonoff ultimately only of niche interest. But Swift’s powerful songs reach their climaxes with bittersweet orchestrations, rather than blows to the solar plexus or a ringing in the ears. Everything hovers; little truly lands.

A fine outing that's less "preservation" than extension.

The Way Is Read gets better the further in you get, the thrilling closing title track highlighting the talents of both parties.

Mustafa’s delivery hits a bruised place somewhere between 21st-century folk and bereft R&B.

Assembled from rehearsals rather than the actual concert, it’s something of a field recording but one with arresting power. A noble oddity.

With the exception of Krishna Punk and Devils, the album lacks drive, and at 19 tracks it’s easy to lose focus while listening.

No question his lyrics are smart but they can sound studied, valuing intricacy over flow.

Mø’s new-era singles thus far have been earworms – the euphoric Live to Survive, the Ed Sheeran-like Kindness, the more recent electronic ballad Goosebumps. The remainder of Motordrome mostly maintains this hit rate.

They should step outside of their comfort zone more often.

These may not be new songs, but their glazed melancholy does not disappoint.