The Ones Ahead is billed as his first collection of new music in nearly 20 years, but it feels no less vital or inventive than his most celebrated work.

The past might be an albatross around Lydon’s neck, but he demonstrates superhuman strength at times, achieving lift-off in a way that nobody was really expecting. If the end of the world is nigh then PiL are going out with a bang.

The second half is a striking electronic makeover: the Baxter Dury-ish title track and the Prince-like S&M cosplay electro-strut of the sultry Goddess Rules are joltingly un-Dexys. If the premise is laid on a bit thick – Rowland never does things by halves – at least torch song My Submission is the most beautiful thing Dexys have ever done.

The passion in ANOHNI’s voice lifts meandering mid-album cuts Can’t and Scapegoat. But the Marvin Gaye-indebted Why Am I Alive Now is the standout.

With expressive restraint, key collaborators John Parish and Flood utilise instruments and field recordings to tactile effect, while leaving room for Harvey’s voice to resonate. The results hold their folk-horror secrets close and harbour dark suggestions on investigation.

While this is a deeply personal work whose soul-searching recalls the defences-down honesty of Blur’s art-rock masterpiece 13, it’s emphatically not a solo album… Though it could be a duo album. One of the most touching elements of The Ballad Of Darren is hearing Albarn and guitarist Graham Coxon singing together.

Lyrically, Chatten’s world is still tumultuous, yet he’s learned to coat it around a romantic, less uptight sound. Hopefully Fontaines D.C. can carry some of these moods forward but, whatever happens, this is a superb interlude.

This collection is called Smash for a very good reason.

In the Shadow Kingdom, the smooth seduction of I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight comes out downright lusty, while the jinking melody of It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue ebbs and flows here, seemingly dragged by swollen waves of sound. Some lyrics are subtly changed, others are turned on their head – the devotional To Be Alone With You transformed into something dangerous and desperate (“What happened to me darling, what was it you saw, did I kill somebody, did I escape the law?”).

This is not an overly confessional collection: if you’re looking for self-revelation, you may have to wait for a forthcoming autobiography, but nevertheless there’s much to enjoy.

This is exactly the album Gallagher should be making to remind people how good he can be.

The voice charms at every turn, brimming with personality on what might just be the party album of the year.

Those who fondly remember Goldfrapp’s early noughties primal glitterball electro-pop peak will thrill at Alison Goldfrapp’s debut solo effort.

Here he’s just one of the gang, trading songs and in-jokes with singer-songwriter Jeff Blackburn, Moby Grape bassist Bob Mosley and drummer Johnny Craviotto, his wiry lead guitar slicing through the good-ole-boys’ country-rock.

A 12-minute version of the album’s title track is more séance than song. ... Elsewhere, the audience’s enthusiastic response to the first few bars of Helpless is rewarded with a despairing deconstruction of the CSNY favourite, Nils Lofgren’s funereal accordion aiding the communal catharsis taking place onstage.

It’s typical of Merchant’s trademark lyrical articulacy, her passion and poetic vocabulary illustrating how she remains powerfully evocative writer over a 40-year career peppered with high watermarks.

The result is an album of scope and dynamism, sometimes hushed but tooled for outreach on the urgent Dandelion and baleful Neptune, where a choir lifts Tonra’s sunken vocal.

There’s a new sense of confidence in the vocals, the clarity of the melodies, and production flourishes. Lyrically, too, there’s a shift – the troubled soul-searching has (mostly) given way to a sense of joy and acceptance at his place in the world. There are songs here that do not so much start as saunter into earshot, in no rush to reveal themselves and all the more seductive for it.

At 70 minutes, False Lankum is definitely a demanding listen, but an extraordinary one.

Not everything works. The aforementioned Always You leaves little impression and the clunky Caroline’s Monkey, which shoehorns in every hackneyed junkie reference you can think of (“holes in her skin”, “ice in her veins”, monkeys on backs, etc, etc), is just about rescued from oblivion thanks, again, to its auditory nod to Kraftwerk’s locomotive-fixated sixth studio album. But otherwise, Memento Mori is brimming and sometimes soaring with immediate pop songs.

Van Morrison’s voice is in fine a form as ever. The important thing is that while he – and the rest of the crew – head down a well-travelled road, they certainly don’t sit in the middle of it.

Brothers & Sisters may also be the last recorded work of Mason’s friend and recurrent collaborator Martin Duffy – a fine way for him to finish, on an album full of intelligence and love.

Inhaler avoid difficult second album problems by sounding more like they’re on a confident fourth record.

If it is a mess, it’s a glorious one.

It’s an album of unlikely collaborations. Day One features the operatic talents of Dina Ipavic, while Are You Alive, sung by Lily Wolter of Penelope Isles, floats into moodier, more analog territory. Best of all are The New Abnormal (Golden Girls’ Kinetic turned inside out) and the anti-gammon state of the nation rant of Dirty Rats.

End-times prophecies have always been a part of Gorillaz’s world view, but here Damon Albarn’s lyrics allude to personal burnout. There’s something poignant about hearing Stevie Nicks’ weathered voice twin itself to Albarn’s while singing about reaching a place “when you can’t help yourself anymore and the madness come”.

Fragments: Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997) serves the showman well, making this era sing, one of The Bootleg Series’ most intriguing investigations so far into Bob Dylan’s working practices and mindset.

Their unpredictability and magnetic power remain undimmed by the years.