Immunity is expertly paced, and as good for coming down as it is for coming up.

This album is the stylish and streetwise mash-up of genres that you’d hear on an UNKLE or Gorillaz record. It never really blasts off, but this time it’s more about the journey than how fast you get there.

Music as taut, spare and ominous as The Bad Seeds at their most malevolent. [21 Aug 2004, p.49]

The album is split into 10 blasts of discordant brilliance.

[Joanne is] a leavetaking song of great, simple beauty, more tenderly affecting than anything Gaga’s done before, showcasing the emotive power rather than the force of that great voice. The rest of the album too, rings with urges for us to take care of each other in a cruel world.

It’s the brightest, most listenable collection of songs he’s pieced together in some time.

McBean... decided to have a go at everything. Luckily, he appears to be a natural. [4 Mar 2006, p.31]

Unadulterated genius--we're practically drooling.

This is a brilliant album that will no doubt top some ‘best of 2008’ lists, but it’s hard to work out if it’s a one-off or not.

Tearing through its 10 songs in a shade under 28 minutes, World Of Joy sounds like a band straining themselves to top a personal best. Happily, they’ve managed it.

If you think Jack White's given 73-year-old Wanda Jackson a new lease of life, then think again; she's been kicking up a hot fuss since she ditched that Elvis fella in the mid-'50s.

The powerhouse metal sound that’s earned them a religious following in every far-flung corner of the globe remains firm. But here, they take things further; ultimately letting imaginations run wild in an album that’s more confident and idea-packed than ever before.

So alongside the creeping softness of ‘Dreamliner’--which is full of Alt-J-worthy waves of sensual electronica--we get the biggest noises the band have made to date.

The brightest and most subversive moments on the album come when Dreijer enlist blunt lyrics and wobbling instrumentals to articulate hard-to-explain emotions flawlessly.

DaBaby has emotionally matured over the last six months, a fact that is reflected in his lyrics. Even if he has the superfluous style of the old DaBaby, there’s greater depth here than there was before.

Tinged with Grandaddy and full of hooks that twinkle like the diodes on a robot from 1984, this is an obscenely enjoyable return.

As they prove across ‘Isles’’ 10 intricately-crafted tracks (which were whittled down from more than 150 demos), few other artists can conjure up these much-missed moments of patiently rapturous rave ecstasy quite so artfully.

Poaching multifarious links from dance music's evolutionary chain, MSTRKRFT grind the good-time sounds of Marshall Jefferson-era Chicago house with harder Detroit techno, and use much of the rest of the album to stretch their ideas out.

On the evidence of this stunning piece of music, we'd all do well to give a bit more of ourselves over to the machine.

Brimming with the prickling anxiety and stress that’s become commonplace during the pandemic, as well as the comfort Charli XCX has found in a strengthened relationship, it’s a glorious, experimental collection.

Hs 16th (16th!) studio album, sees him eschew such stylings and instead go for broke on telling tales and flashing his soul

‘None of Us Are Getting Out Of This Life Alive’ isn’t just a testament to Mike Skinner’s intriguing evolution but also proof of his keen eye for curation. It’s good to have him back – and all of his mates, too.

Even shorn of their comedic context, the best of these tracks still have the power to rupture internal organs at 20 paces.

Albarn pulls you close and whispers the codes of his life into your ear. Switch settings to ‘decipher’.

Two years ago, such a mis-match of styles usually resulted in dizzying chaos for the duo, here it’s inventive and enjoyable as they capture teenage life with devastating precision.

This fuzzy, muddy record splits the difference between the bubblegum pop-punk of Furman’s earlier albums, such as 2015’s ‘Perpetual Motion People’, and the more unknowable ‘Transangelic Exodus’.

It may not bother the charts in quite the same way as ‘Slide’ did, but it’s more than enough to remind us that we should dismiss Takeoff, the solo artist, at our peril.

This effort is a bold step that shows no compromise on the horizon.