Though by no means as complete and satisfying as Demon Days or Plastic Beach, there are enough intriguing moments to make Humanz a worthy addition to Gorillaz’s cartoon universe.

The result is a series of huge-sounding, stadium-ready pop anthems of undeniable charm.

More Light is Primal Scream's best effort in some time.

A lovely long bask in Cyrus’s maturing talent.

With strong, clear-eyed subtext, overlaid by compositions that touch on every influence from TV on the Radio to Prince, Childish Gambino and Radiohead, Smiling With No Teeth is not so much an album as it is a memoir – a story both unique to Owusu and universal to anyone who has ever felt “othered”.

The New Abnormal – a spookily prophetic title – is stacked with rolling, streetwise grooves, boldly graffitied onto the chipped paintwork of NYC past.

Chromatic is an extravagant, sometimes even overblown album – but I suspect it will keep revealing itself over time. And by that point, she’ll be on to the next era.

The Purple Bird is reassuringly well-crafted and woodsy.

The band may have achieved Ivor Novello and Mercury Prize nominations, as well as their highest chart position, with 2016’s Curve of the Earth, but A Billion Heartbeats aims higher, and doesn’t miss.

The palette is tender, and the changes subtle: it’s like climbing a mountain, the same view altering by slight increments over the course of the ascent.

Blending Cline originals and recent covers with reimagined standards by the likes of Jerome Kern and Rodgers & Hart, all realised in beautifully enigmatic arrangements which wrap woodwind, horns, strings and tuned percussion around Cline’s guitar. Throughout, atmosphere is paramount.

This apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree: like her dad John, Lilly Hiatt has a gift for unpicking knotty lyrical themes in a personalised blend of countrified rock music.

Quite, quite lovely.

Ron Sexsmith writes with a similar emotional honesty to Mark Everett, but in a more classic style, akin to the moving simplicity of Tim Hardin.

Working with avant-rock guitarist James Sedwards, My Bloody Valentine bassist Debbie Googe and his old Sonic Youth colleague Steve Shelley, Thurston Moore has created one of the cornerstone works of his entire career with Rock N Roll Consciousness.

The result is a record as expansive as it is overwhelming.

She’s uniquely gifted--one’s only reservation concerns her inclination to pack everything into each track.

This collection of early 1960s Stones sessions vibrates with youthful revolutionary fervour--though sadly, there’s none of the witty, whimsical mini-interviews with which the Fabs’ performances were punctuated.

Though not as powerful as Lamar’s own albums, it’s similarly diverse, with elements of boudoir R&B, sinister street creep and ebullient electro dancehall stippled with a variety of sonic detail, such as whistle and kalimba, reflecting the film’s African setting.

Pray For The Wicked is as sinfully good as anything Panic! have done before.

It's ultimately hard not to like an album that features not one but two epiphanies, one experienced lying on the "Roof of Your Car" staring at the stars, while in album closer "Lock the Locks" a dream prompts Skinner's sudden change of career--an event engagingly depicted as an office farewell party.

It’s not quite godlike, but Yeezus certainly feels like it was created by a higher power.

It's a lovely, warm-hearted gem.

Archer took half a decade to make this record – no surprise, then, it makes for such a wonderfully unhurried listen.

This debut album has a slick sonic design and retro flavour akin to Random Access Memories, but ratrher than the 70s, he’s gazing fondly back at the early rave era.

While the overall Detroit/Memphis tone is tempered somewhat on the second CD, where Steve Wickham’s fiddle is featured more prominently. Scott’s amorous enthusiasm can be a tad gauche at times, but the languidity of his riposte, in “Kinky’s History Lesson”, to an ill-judged slur on British courage during World War Two, is belied by its razoring impact.

There’s a pleasing congruence between the way that the surreal invades the ordinary in Rennie Sparks’s lyrics, and the way that Brett Sparks’ voice and music illuminates that invasion.

For the most part, it’s a masterclass in jazz phrasing.

This 111-track set does a commendable enough job, reflecting the extraordinary creative tumult happening behind the headline crap about gobbing and safety-pins.

Wonderful Crazy Night is not an album of hit singles, but John knows his game is to sit on the sub’s bench these days. But still to be delivering such carefully and enthusiastically forged handiwork says much about his respect for his legacy and his audience.

It sounds like The Cranberries found some kind of closure in this last record. Hopefully fans will, too.

Doherty remains a charismatic scene evoker – even though you can’t follow the thread of all his tales, he still makes you feel you were there.

It’s a relief then, to find that – despite Fontaines DC’s own misgivings – they still have plenty more of note to say.

This is as close to the live iteration of Chromeo that one of their records has ever come.

The album plays to her strengths, as befits a woman who has sustained a career as producer of, among others, Joss Stone's breakthrough sessions.

It’s a wonderful collection, with even Richard Thompson’s cold-comfort message in “End Of The Rainbow” imbued with a warm glow.

It's more of a return to her roots in the feisty Eighties punk-jazz outfit Rip, Rig + Panic.

On their fourth record (as raucous as ever), the Bristol punks put out some of their most interesting and introspective music yet.

The artwork for Charli XCX’s third studio album finds her clad only in a steely squiggle of computer-generated ribbon. It’s a great visual metaphor for a collection of 15 pop songs that – at their most thrilling – wear their raw, metallic beats and synths on the outside, like scaffolding.

Overall, it’s an unexpected triumph: bright, sexy, smart and full of life, HITnRUN Phase Two is like the blind date from heaven.

Sigrid has a raw energy and emotional briskness that can make you feel like you’re doing aerobics in neon leg warmers atop a pristine mountain. Pure friluftsliv.

The pace drifts towards the second half, where the five-minute-long “Missed Calls” drags. But there’s no doubt this stop on Soak’s journey is one worth spending time at.

What comes across perhaps more strongly in this audio version of Before The Dawn is the subtly contrasting nature of the two suites, their disparate characters--entrapment versus liberation, petrifying terror versus exultant joy--reflected in the music.

I Love the New Sky, might just be his best. Compared to earlier collaborative projects, this new record was composed solo in the Norfolk countryside, perhaps explaining why it has such a wonderfully expansive feel. It’s big and brash.

Vastly talented, he brings rare articulacy to the thorny subject of black self-image, particularly the problem of breaking down the barrier of ghetto authenticity.

It Was Good Until It Wasn’t is the latest work demonstrating the 25-year-old’s profound emotional intelligence. Its 15 tracks waft in as though carried by a summer breeze; Kehlani’s crystalline vocals shine through arrangements of sedate beats, jazz piano motifs, and luxurious twangs of Spanish guitar.

The band's mix of intelligence and drive, and their blend of guitar, accordion, organ and violin, echoes Arcade Fire. Certainly, Colin Meloy's songs have a comparable ambition.

No Shame is a return to form in every sense: a confident, well-produced and deeply personal work.

UGLY is a powerful and direct transmission from a brilliant, beleaguered brain.

Not only is it a drastic step up from an impressive debut, but it shows an artist keen to test himself emotionally, as well as artistically.

The Coup [has a] breadth of musical settings, which range from indie guitar riffs to itchy techno pulses to a string quartet and French horns.

She can do all sorts with those pipes and Hit Parade finds Murphy celebrating her many textures.

It’s an engrossing set throughout, leading one through the subdued swirls of “Dawn Chorus” to the climax of “The Uncertainty Principle”, another work whose throbbing organ and cavernous twang owe a distinct debt to Can.

It's his band's most musically diverse effort.

Ezra’s third album delivers precisely the kind of easygoing, family-friendly happiness we’ve come to expect.

Fay Hield’s singing throughout is open and honest, delivering the stories unencumbered by needless ornament or moralising.

This is clearly a band determined to take no prisoners, their attention condensed to a tight focus on each song’s momentum.

No matter how sepia, settled or bowed the tone, On Sunset remains sonically voracious, Weller still challenging himself to make the greatest, most adventurous music of his life. The Changingman strikes again.

An album that soothes, shakes and surprises at every turn.

Norah Jones and Jack White sing on three tracks apiece, respectively languid and predatory, the end result being a short but perfectly-formed portal to a different state of musical mind.

In expressing all of these [themes] without tumbling into absurdity, it helps to have a klaxon whine like Ozzy's delivering them, while Tony Iommi cranks out those trademark slow, molten-lead riffs that trundle through 13 like tank tracks.

Expect reassurance rather than revelation and you’ll find the lesser-worn pages of the American songbook elegantly traced.

It’s a mature mix of reflection and assertion--albeit corralled this time into just ten tracks--in which Weller’s musings on life, love and society are channelled through a diverse series of musical modes, most of them constantly seeking to seep into other styles.

It’s playful and elaborate.

Proving that it is possible to have too much of a good thing, the five discs of this outtakes-and-all edition take the (let's be honest) rather meager delights of Brian Wilson's unfinished "masterwork" and wring the life out of them.

This fourth LP polishes that dancier sound into his slickest dancefloor-ready music yet.

Ani DiFranco's first album in three years finds the self-proclaimed Righteous Babe in feisty, thoughtful form.

The words themselves are glorious, as frequently absurd and brilliantly imaginative as some of the best sci-fi writers--Arthur C Clarke, Philip K Dick, HG Wells--while the instrumentation recalls their cinematic adaptations, or classic superhero cartoons.

It’s not a perfect album--like so many, at 17 tracks it’s way too long, and there’s too little variation in tempo and mood--but it’s yet another confirmation of what can be achieved when subtlety and sensitivity are the driving forces.

This is one of Wainwright’s finest albums.

The songs on Tigers Blood feel natural and unstudied.

While there are plenty further examples on the bitterly disillusioned Dark Matter, the most effective songs here are those which pack a more personal emotional punch, echoing the solitary desolation he’s mined throughout his career.

Stone delivers what may be his masterpiece in Broken Brights, an album that seamlessly inhabits the resurgent Laurel Canyon sound.

Outrage! Is Now is a deeply satisfying record to listen to, and one that the band seem to have had fun making. It’s sarcastic, witty, and the best thing they’ve produced so far.

Jelly Roll is still finding his place in the world – you can hear that in his songwriting – but the polish and potency of this album suggest he’s almost there.

There's a world-weariness to some of his songs that's as attractive now as ever.

For fans who first became acquainted with Jordan’s music around her debut EP Habit, Lush is a continuation of Jordan’s coming of age tale--nostalgia for lost love, the overwhelming sensation of being a rising, young musician and the chaos of getting older. Jordan’s 10-track record parallels the beautiful plain-spoken lyrics and catharsis echoed by artists like Soccer Mommy and Julien Baker.

A slow-burning triumph.

The band have retained their brusque character but it’s less ponderous than before, with several tracks taken at an unfeasibly rapid tempo; while Ronson has brought production clarity and a punchy funk sensibility that transforms QOTSA’s trademark robot-rock rhythms into something much more dynamic and danceable.

You’ve Always Been Here is a carefree celebration, a win-win; the band have fun unloading on such un-precious tracks and the songs prove themselves sturdy enough to withstand the punishment. In rock or classic soul circles, it's guaranteed to raise a smile.

JD McPherson’s Let The Good Times Roll was one of the most joyously unvarnished rock’n’roll delights of recent times, and this follow-up continues that album’s ingenious blending of heritage and modernity, sometimes recalling The Black Keys’ reliable way with chunky groove and quirky hook.

The first of two albums planned for 2017, From A Room: Vol. 1 builds on the success of Chris Stapleton’s Grammy-winning debut Traveller, through a similar blend of country songwriting smarts and soulful engagement.

Despite being further from their comfort zone, this second foray into theatrical composition, a ballet based around a Hans Christian Anderson parable, is vastly more adept, involving the deft interweaving of electropop and orchestral elements within a series of impressionistic tableaux sketching out the theme of conflict between creativity and destruction.

Signs that Cracker Island is designed to be a summer album sizzle though the heat-haze synths of “Silent Running” (featuring soulful contributions from Adeleye Omotayo) and the hip-sloshing dancefloor pulse of “New Gold” (feat Tame Impala and Bootie Brown).

Food for Worms sees Shame confidently embrace their flaws and resign themselves to the messy, beautiful chaos of their live shows. It’s all captured within this bedhead of a record.

The delicate guitar and piano figures and the sombre languor of strings behind Alison Goldfrapp’s breathy vocals create something akin to a cross between the dreamlike mythopoeism of old folk tales and the lush cinematic arrangements of Michel Legrand.

While not as immediately career-defining as Wake Up the Nation, there's no denying that with Sonik Kicks, Paul Weller is continuing the courageous, exploratory course established on 2008's 22 Dreams.

Common’s lyrical imagery is as evocative as ever on both. ... This is Common’s most hopeful album in years.

Musically, it’s an almost seamless blend of the two groups’ styles, variations on a sort of operatic indie-electropop, which recalls variously Freedom of Choice-era Devo, chattering Kraftwerk techno and, in the more melancholy environs inhabited by “Little Guy from the Suburbs”, a whiff of Leonard Cohen.

There's no denying the power of a set stuffed with riffs like “Honky Tonk Women”, “Brown Sugar” and “Jumpin' Jack Flash”, played with that inimitable loose/tight dialectic that characterises the Stones at their best.

Shorty here offers an explosive blend of funk, blues and jazz.

Throughout there’s a determination to find the appeal in paradox, notably the beguiling blend of cool and cumbersome that carries the love song “Prince Johnny” to another place.

The result is a work with greater resonance and presence, which might secure her mainstream success.

The backdrops feature dark sheets of strings and organ, the occasional lonely trumpet, and lumpy, superstitious drums driving the menacing Western mythos to its doom: not a forgiving place, but an engrossing one.

By the end of Post Traumatic, you realise Shinoda is right: this record is as much about Bennington as it is about him, but that’s what makes it so vulnerable and such a triumphant debut.

These 15 pieces sketch an entire world of music, coloured by the locale, and shifting between the smoothly lyrical and the propulsive rhythmic.

Delta Kream is a soundtrack for those hot and heady nights of late summer. It’s brilliant.

It's the sense of space that grips one's attention, sometimes just flecks of sound, like snowflakes in darkness, create a sense of brooding unease.