The Wasted Years collects these first four releases; a fabulous chance to get reacquainted with the magic of the Butcher, and what sweetly daft indie sounded like in the mid-80s.

Huge swathes of the album are like an elaborate game of spot the steal. ... Overall, the songs are better crafted than on his previous HFB albums, more persuasive and memorable.

Eight songs from an artist with 20 years of amazing in his back pocket is way too frugal, but as a proper introduction to Karl Blau, it’ll do for now. More please.

Golden Teacher aren’t quite there yet, just missing a tune or two that really defines what they do. They haven’t produced something that is manages to simultaneously play to their strengths; as catchy as opener Sauchiehall Withdrawal, as rhythmically engaging as the West African-inspired Diop, as pumping as Spiritron.

Bob Stinson wouldn’t see out the rest of the year as a Replacement as his damaging behaviour got the better of him, but he’s on fire here, showboating around with utter joie de vivre – Color Me Impressed is a riot of total abandon, check his solo on a raucous Favorite Thing. The irritating sorts who witnessed The Replacements in their wild pomp will never tire of reminding you of the fact. This explains why.

Way more folk-ridden than Orc’s hysterical prog racket, this one’s soaked in acoustic guitars, lush strings, early-Bowie eccentricity and singing saws.

Soul Of A Woman finds Jones bowing out in the finest form, somehow filling the space between Gladys Knight and Etta James.

Staples is in strong voice throughout, yet on All Over Again, the closing folk blues look back on a lfe lived without regrets, she sings even lower than usual, sounding her age--impossibly wise and dignified. A fitting end to a great record.

Sketches Of Brunswick East is the band’s mellowest outing since 2015’s Paper Mâché Dream Balloon.

Easy listening it isn’t, but Three Futures cuts into the tangled complexities of human connection with an uncannily unwavering precision.

The Peter Asher-produced album is glossily listenable even if you have no knowledge of the star name fronting the band. Whether it deserves the level of coverage it will receive is another conversation.

Some of the bombastic stadium moments are so silly they’re fun but the more rustic pieces are where this Starr shines brightest. Speed Of Sound and Shake It Up have good-time rockabilly swagger, while the record’s highlight is So Wrong For So Long: a pedal-steel breakup tune which reaffirms Starr’s scouse-cowboy croon as one of the great lost voices of country music.

A impressively remastered album (including a new mix in the audiophile-friendly Dolby Atmos format), a decent live set. .... Remember REM any way you want, but Automatic For The People is a good if ultimately maudlin one.

Low occasionally summons enough leavening fervour to make a Morrissey album seem worth the time: no small achievement after his dreaded political blather.

Melancholy without being depressing and intensely dramatic, De Biasio proves here on this superlative nine-song collection that No Deal was no fluke.

Russell’s widow says her husband thought the album was his best-ever work; that will forever be open to debate, but what’s certain is that a truly great musician left this world on an undeniable high.

A surprisingly wide-ranging six-track EP of instrumentals providing a loving partner-piece.

A Sentimental Education’s grab-bag of exquisite curios upholds a flair for the art of the cover that previously saw songs from Bonnie And Clyde to Neon Lights Lunafied, to echo the title of the band’s own 2006 covers release.

A beautiful, haunted, haunting album; hear it.

All four members are gifted musicians, but they sacrifice virtuosity over a rough-hewn spiritedness which makes Between The Earth a thrilling listen.

The unpromising combinations separate rather than coalesce. The talented, pugilistic youngster’s best feels yet to come.

It won’t be to everyone’s tastes, but if you like your music to sound as if it could soundtrack a coming of age montage in a particularly gloomy John Hughes film, you found your gal.

Recorded in Sheffield with crack producer Andy Bell, Afterglow is an ambitious addition to the sounds of a city that is fast becoming the central hub for the UK’s best folk talent.

The result is a fourth album that conveys Maus’ confounding persona with total confidence: sometimes silly, sometimes stentorian, it gives the impression of a man in full command of his off-piste forays, rendering it fascinating even as it befuddles.

In the absence of a live album, these re-recordings with a band including son-of- John Cody offer loving snapshots of Carpenter’s reckoning with his track record, here covering the years between 1974’s goofy Dark Star and 1998’s macho Vampires.

It’s an ambitious collision of worlds that Holden and The Animal Spirits pull off with style.

Given Low Country Blues was Grammy-nominated, stand by for the superior Southern Blood to appear in many year-end lists.

Conceived in antithesis to the tediously technically proficient metal that’s abundant these days, EW’s ninth album takes joy-doom to another level. Their riffs match the fuzziness of their weed-fogged minds.