Ditching everything he’d been working on, Carr launched himself into New Shapes Of Life, his finest work since The Boo Radleys.

The tone is consistently one of hope, if James intended it to act as a balm to soothe any of the problems of the world, he’s certainly succeeded.

With no hint of hype (but a lot of alliteration), The Usual Suspects is perhaps chef Wobble’s most appealing musical smorgasbord to date. It’s rare for one album to evince comparisons to both Lee Perry and Lalo Schifrin in style, or to Lonnie Liston Smith, Eddie Van Halen and Keith Moon with its musicianship.

With hints of minimalism, psych rock, and even Gregorian chant to be found, Reaching For Indigo is rich, dark and incisive; a work of immense beauty.

With its cinematic strings and glacial synth arrangements, Rise is certainly rife with theatricality--but rather than play-acting at the role of singer, Gainsbourg’s patchwork embeds the answers to those questions, and many more, deep within.

It’s difficult to determine why one session of abstract noise is more thrilling and less tedious than when your mate’s “avant-garde project” bash their instruments discordantly for 50 minutes. It’s not just down to the names on display. There’s a difference. Moore and Hayward play the good kind.

It’s a dense, lengthy work (at 71 minutes the longest studio album of her career). Only one song, the ecstatic, pulsating techno of Sue Me, is likely to work on the dancefloor. Yet the errant, raucous confluence of sounds and styles has a homogeneity that works to create a beguiling, and ultimately hugely rewarding whole.

Bajas Fresh is an unapologetically chilled-out album for the horizontal of body and the expanded of mind. See you down the ashram.

From The Trees is simple and unadorned, with generous ladling of his legendarily wayward backing vocals. Skeletal, appealing melodies support tales of inertia (“Torpor rolls upon me in a fog, settles like a sweat upon the skin”), lost love (Girl To The North Country’s “just like that, she’s gone”) and the wane into old age (“only yesterday you were pegging out your tent”).

Fusing those 60s influences with rich electronica creates a tableau that’s familiar in parts, but offers a distinctive twist to the predictable.

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.