There’s some of The Upsetter’s fever dreams in African Starship, and Kill Them Dreams Money Worshippers has a fiery strut, but sometimes Rainford sounds like a posthumous tribute, with Perry a wraithlike absence haunting the spaces of his exhumed past.

They are far more interesting when they let in some light, most notably on The Hum’s standout, the simmering Retreat.

Subtlety is, of course, the first casualty in the stampede for the folk mosh pit, and singer Jon Boden sometimes strains too hard for drama, lapsing into hamminess on murder ballad Greenwood Side.

As this bold magpie of an album flies past, its swagger falters occasionally as genre pastiches gain the upper hand.

This adds welcome colour to the xx cinematic universe, but it’s no blockbuster.

If there are no huge surprises here, Further offers a punchy synthesis of country croon, psych-rock riffs and snappy songwriting that proves South Yorkshire’s stoic son has plenty of miles left to run.

A certain wooziness has always been the point of the Baltimore duo’s music but at times its gauzy aimlessness drifts dangerously close to torpor. More often, though, it is subtly tethered to some elegant, insidious hooks.

All these highs and lows pass in an unvarying, mid-paced indie-rock fug, with little to hold the attention outside her gossamer delivery of candour and insight.

This is Wagner's second album, and that was the backstory of her 2012 self-titled debut. This follow-up is no less enigmatic.

This is a well-crafted collection that could maybe do with a couple more heaters, but will keep the wider audience he picked up with Conflict of Interest happy.

There's enough crunch to their hooky electropop to dispel accusations of unwarranted hype.

This album is, without a doubt, a big, glitchy, swooning, hyper-modern declaration of love.

There are few genres White Denim won’t disrupt, and this wide-ranging record touches upon many of them.

Borderline silly at times, it is nonetheless a carefully crafted piece of work with a distinctive sound.

Standouts such as Run a Red Light and No One Knows We’re Dancing provide clubland demimonde vignettes, while a number of expansive, impressionistic sound-beds allow for more matter-of-fact lyrics about loss (Lost) and cutting oneself some slack (When You Mess Up). Less memorable are the songs – like Caution to the Wind - where the two coast pellucidly along.

Every rhythmic lurch and stylistic shift, though, remains in the service of the band's greater groove, giving these 10 tracks an ease that belies their ferocious complexity.

As an album, it never comes close to Guided By Voices at their mid-90s peak; it isn’t even the best one by this incarnation of the band (that’s possibly 2019’s Warp and Woof). But this is yet another solid addition to one of the most impressive canons in US indie rock.

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.

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.

Though life has its shadows still (the motorik psych-country epic Round the Horn, the vocoder lament Christmas Down Under), the core of C’est La Vie is radiant happiness, Houck’s familiar sounds buffed to a transcendent shine.

The strangest thing about the album, however, is the nagging sense of try-hard: Sleater-Kinney have always felt effortless.

While not quite a return to form, the album’s sleek yet plaintive production is a welcome reminder of what Blake does best.

As the album warms up and moves from the personal to the politicalit grows teeth, building to MC Mystro's rap about the 2011 riots on More Money, More Fire.

Best listened to as discrete tracks rather than as a whole, and never quite scaling the heights of Paradise or 2014’s Deep Fantasy, this album is a pleasing but flawed swansong.

Though Burna has always subtly weaved elements of pop into his music, it feels too omnipresent in the second half of the album.

A beguiling decoction of pretty much everything going on in hipster musical circles, sweet and savvy and scary at the same time.

Sundfør wishes to pour oil on the choppy waters of a weary world, and the warm clarity of her voice offers beautiful moments of respite.

This is an album for frenziedly colouring outside the lines. But there is calm, too.