Marvel soundtracks have a new gold standard, and it’s this.

After singing about so much Americana for the past decade, it seems that he’s now had to cross the Atlantic in search of fresh geography to mine.

MGMT’s return to pop is a much more welcome surprise.

Always Ascending is, everywhere you look, a record driven by vim, vigour and ideas, and plenty of Kapranos’ idiosyncratic way with a lyric.

The result is an intriguing, if disorientating, sprawl of sound.

What The Time Is Now lacks in coherency, it makes up for in sheer enthusiasm.

Every single song breaks new ground for Morris – even the simple title track, which admittedly could have been found down the back of Chris Martin’s sofa.

Despite the album’s title, Microshift represents not a minor step up but a gigantic stride. On an immediate level the songs sound much bigger, cleaner and more confident. Every component is crisper, from the sharpened hi-hat to MJ’s scrubbed-up vocals.

By recording the album with his live band, he frames his unmistakably husky countertenor with a set of warm, natural sounds that form a bedrock for the raw emotions on Blood rather than distracting from them.

The weird edges of Freedom’s Goblin are where your attention should be drawn to. Like the freeform jazz interlude ‘Talkin 3’ and ‘Prison’, which sounds like the frantic last squeals of a dying bee. It’s captivating stuff, honestly.

There’s definitely a nod to new Nashville here--however, we’re talking more Mumford & Sons if they started songwriting for Justin Bieber than the grit and guts of Waylon Jennings or the current king of classic country, Sturgill Simpson.

Migos are firing on all cylinders here, their new record a lush, chaotic patchwork that pops with primary colours. The fab three have done it again.

The overall lack of lyrics--the most repeated line on the 10-track record is a simple, wistful “oooh”--is only a positive, letting the listener get fully, deeply lost in the band’s fertile psychedelic world.

The future sound of 2012 is mating here with the current sound of Yates’ wine lodge, and quite possibly creating the sound of 2018.

They’re still genre-twisting, but their focus has shifted slightly from complexity to short, punchy riffs that recall some of the bands that producer Gil Norton has worked with previously: Pixies, Foo Fighters, The Distillers.

The trio are made up of Rakel Mjöll on lead vocals, Alice Go on guitar and Bella Podpadec on bass, and their glimmering punk-pop is the most exciting thing you’re going to hear this dreary January, and quite likely all 2018.

A collection of tangible emotional snapshots, brief but telling entries in a musical journal.

The musical landscape has changed since Fall Out Boy’s Warped Tour days in the mid-’00s, and so have they. As Mania shows, it’s probably for the best.

Tune-Yards might have taken a deep breath and a step back, allowing their infectious melodies some space, but their breathless skew-whiff eclecticism remains anything but safe.

Ruins might see the band playing it safe, but rarely are safety manuals this stunning.

Shopping’s sound is minimal, and almost every song kicks off with a Spaghetti Western guitar riff before being met by a steady beat and chanting vocals by various members.

Underworld might not reach every peak it aims for, but it tugs on the heartstrings in all the right ways.

A strong and surprisingly confident first impression.

The whole album is driven by that Nick Cave sense of foreboding menace, an outlaw spirit that would sit well on the Peaky Blinders soundtrack. But while there’s plenty of that classic BRMC ‘tude, and a vintage touch, they’re still full of ideas.

Debut album Songs Of Praise courses with venom and a lithe vigour that is all their own.

Charli’s second mixtape of the year isn’t just about proving she’s more than your average pop star, but about her settling into her role as innovator, celebrator, and curator supreme.

Not all of it works, but his renewed creative vigour is obvious and his sense of duty commendable.

Everything pushed to the limit, it becomes abundantly clear they’ve made an album that sounds as at home on the dust-stained subway as it does at the peak of the Empire State Building.