Clipping's nightmare is riveting, particularly during its sweat-inducing peak 'Get Up', which uses an alarm clock as a beat underneath breakneck verses.

‘Doggerel’, in its hospitably decanted way, is every bit as transportive and absorbing as the early records, and further proof that Pixies’ music remains the alt-rock gold standard. Swill it around and savour.

It may have taken six years, but ‘Dopamine’ sounds like the (damn) album Normani was meant to make all long.

Mainman Rick Froberg might be midway through his fifth decade, but he and his cohorts can still make one hell of a racket.

‘Free Love’ sounds like a tug of war exertion without the fun, satisfying results of albums past.

Francis Trouble is a bright blast of radiant, prismatic indie rock. More surprisingly still, it’s Albert’s most fun record yet, hurtling along on his trademark zipping guitar lines.

See, in All Or Nothing, The Subways haven’t just made a great record – they’ve vindicated everyone who still believes in the power and the glory of three chords and distortion pedals.

Henson spends 20-odd minutes working his tremulous voice--somewhere between Paul Simon and Wayne Coyne--around echoing guitar.... Then suddenly he finds the socket and ‘Don’t Swim’ rages into life, his guitar bashed and throttled.

Where the first four records (and particularly the Matador releases) sounded like a band fighting for their lives – or at least pretty keen to make you listen – this is the sound of a band struggling to muster the energy to go on.

For five songs, it's the best album ever, rattling along on post-punk guitar flourishes and Cale's auto-tuned vocal. After that it descends into an enjoyable weirdathon.

Meatier, beatier, bigger and bouncier. And all the better for it.

The rootsier material is often fantastic, which shows up the goofier stuff even more. Kesha has balanced tender country songs with blinging pop throughout her career, but you may wish for ‘High Road’ to stick to one lane.

So 'A Bigger Bang' is no masterpiece. As a loss leader to allow them to continue touring, it's not even as good as 'Don't Believe The Truth'. But it's the best record they were going to make, and a world with the Stones is better than one without them.

Obviously this isn’t a ‘Definitely Maybe’ or ‘The Stone Roses’ – no-one could touch those hook-laden masterpieces. As a triumph of style and mood, though, ‘Liam Gallagher John Squire’ is well worthy of their enduring legacies.

As long as he keeps on being this magnificent, Mr Ripley can be as avaricious as he damn well pleases.

Ultimately, the record doesn’t feel wholly complete. By the final rotation of this imperfect kaleidoscope, there are inconsistencies that only highlight the fractures that underlie Ephyra. But Woman’s Hour have a knack for communicating this feeling so gracefully.

The blues kings show no signs of turning off their well-beaten path here, but they’re still capable of conjuring enough magic on the journey.

A pop album that comes giddy with detailed digital patterns,

Gently acoustic, peacefully steeped in nostalgia and remembrance, it generates a warm glow of grace...

It's ace, like you imagine Madonna would've sounded if the records had matched the raunch of her videos/concerts/multimedia-experiments.

As a bite-size CV of the last five years of his career, it’s pretty good.

Ultimately, however, it’s hard not to notice that the production outshines the delivery.

Efterklang’s first release on the legendary 4AD label is packed full of immediate melodies and soul.

It’s a bit TEED on a beach, or SBTRKT with mask exchanged for a tasteful side-parting.

‘Honestly, Nevermind’ is an unexpected elevation from the bland trap, R&B remakes and Drake’s melancholic attitude to love we heard last time around. He doesn’t quite shift the latter as much as one would hope – the album is as tiresomely woe-is-me as anything he’s ever done – but the house sound has at least given him the creative boost that his recording career has been crying out for recently.

It's a grandiose (Rick Rubin produces), earnest affair that sheds the trio's earthy realness for a glossy veneer which is sometimes thrilling (the majestic 'And It Spread') but often, well, nothing more than an unconvincing stab at that most scary of concepts: mainstream country.

This album, like their previous two, has one moment of utterly triumphant rock Valhalla amidst a bunch of pretty good retro-soaked poses.