Despite his desire to move more towards pop on this third album, Robert Ellis can’t prevent his country roots showing through.

It's tense, unsettling, and a brilliantly angry piece of art.

He just sounds like a grumpy geriatric for whom age has brought little of the reflective wisdom of Leonard Cohen.

Muhly’s sweeping orchestral vista mid-section dominates “Pluto”; and Stevens’ furtive, autotuned description of “Saturn” as a “melancholy creature, paranoid secret” is rudely interrupted halfway through by a brash, bustling beat barging its way in like Donald Trump at a photoshoot. The “oracle ghost” “Venus”, meanwhile, is treated in more recognisably Sufjan style, in its exhumation of a youthful indiscretion at a summer camp, characteristically stirred into a wider lyrical compass.

No Rain, No Flowers turns out to be a muted effort.

Free often feels like the messiest kind of improv, full of stream-of-consciousness expressions and storytelling that doesn’t follow any particular logic. But tracks like the tense “Glow in the Dark” or the sombre “The Dawn” are also oddly irresistible, loose, thoughtful and free-wheeling.

It’s a terrific, family-friendly smorgasbord of a record that delivers all the classic ABBA flavours.

With Urban Turbanm, Tjinder Singh reinforces his position as one of the UK's more engaging musical minds.

Paolo Nutini brings the apt timbre and weary dignity to "Hard Times (Come Again No More)", while The Decemberists' Colin Meloy has the sturdy asperity of a righteous ranter on a version of Dylan's "When The Ship Comes In".

At times the whole jazz-hands-emoted, Original Cast Recording! vibe can grate; the stageyness undercutting the intimacy of Taylor’s sharp, literate lyrics. At others, the evident effort of performance plays winkingly well into the choreography of her self-dramatising self-analysis.

It’s relentlessly interesting – a cleverly crafted new noise around every corner.

Save for the opening "The Once and Future Carpenter", about a woodworker who abandons his trade to wander, this second album is pretty dismal fare.

After a while the regretful, melancholy tone wearies one's sympathies.

Variously embracing fado, jazzy whiskey-bar blues and tensile, grandiose strings, ... Eastern Esplanade is easily The Libertines’ most expansive and ambitious record.

All told, it’s pretty crowded territory, with too many jams.

Producer Dave Fridmann has managed to effect the same kind of equilibrial magic he wielded with The Flaming Lips, bringing power and clarity to the Eggs’ churning psych-punk turmoil of guitars and synths, and balancing it with the plaintive anger of Holly Ross’s vocals.

With the toothless Volcano, they’ve abandoned that path [hinting at deep immersion in psych-rock] in favour of a wheedling, keyboard-heavy electropop sound with much less bite, pock-marked with dubious stylistic potholes.

While Fridmann (best known for his work with Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips) weaves his usual psychedelic magic, the accentuation of purely sonic elements--glitchy loops, textural effects, the miasmic tone--is at the expense of Finn’s core songwriting strengths.

Though most effective as a droll raconteur, Snider here relies on covers of songs by the likes of Gillian Welch and Lucinda Williams; fortunately, guitar wizard Neal Casal is on top form.

The deceptive geniality of his delivery, meanwhile, recalls Gilbert O’Sullivan, enabling him to bring darker undertones to apparently pleasant pieces like the lilting waltz “I’m Gonna Haunt This Place.”

Rather than phone anything in, Cooper’s clearly making the most of his elder statesman position, finding new ways to freshen up vintage sounds and styles. He’s every bit as durable as the American city he celebrates.

I wonder if Larsson boxed herself in with her theme (“I’m obsessed with love”, she told NME in a recent interview), then struggled to find new ways to explore it. Overall, though, Poster Girl has more than enough bops to keep fans happy.

2042 may be the work of an accomplished songwriter, tackling pressing issues, but it’s also a hodgepodge – the result of an artist struggling to find his musical voice.

Seven years on from Satan's Circus, Death in Vegas' prime mover Richard Fearless doesn't seem to have moved on at all.

Unlike previous Vetiver albums, for The Errant Charm, songwriter Andy Cabic entered the studio with vague ideas rather than finished songs, and it shows.

Originally planned as the second half of a double-album, Lupercalia is his most approachable effort.

This is a guitarists' mutual appreciation society affair that ought to be unbearable, but is actually gorgeous, thanks to the modest brilliance of those involved.

The best tracks are the more thoughtful reflections on youthful memories, such as "Illusion" and "Snap"; the worst is the turgid pomp-rock-rap crossover "Written in the Stars", ominously scheduled as his next single.

Throughout, there's a fresh impetus to Tricky's musical muse that enables his dark imaginings to connect again with beautiful simplicity.

West London synth duo Jungle claim to “bring the heat” on their debut album, but it’s more the languid haze of a holiday beach than the intensity of a dancefloor.

He celebrates a liberal culture of generosity (“I Made This For You”) and cultural diversity (“Thank You New York”), exemplified by a musical inclusiveness and sophisticated lyricism which, though occasionally a touch too serpentine and verbose, at its best brings to mind Sufjan Stevens.

As a soundtrack album to meditate to, Aporia is pleasant, but there’s no denying that the absence of Stevens’s typically ornate songcraft is keenly felt.

His flow only truly ignites through anger and reproach, and there are moments when his verbal dexterity amazes.

His own sepia baritone summons some of that warmth on versions of “Solitaire”, “Autumn Leaves” and “You Only Live Twice”.

The mood of alienated isolation evoked by songs like this and “Funny How Time Slips Away” is balanced by the genial warmth James brings to songs by crooner Al Bowlly, “Love Is The Sweetest Thing” and “Midnight, The Stars And You”.

Smith’s voice remains a thing of wonder throughout.

Though sharp and sly, too often here there’s a shortfall of melodic potency, and an over-reliance on structures that are methodical rather than marvellous, torpedoed by their own cleverness.

There’s much to be said for music as a private, sublime refuge, but Holy Wave rarely hit those heights. They evoke only the mild, gauzy dislocation of dawdling in the midday sun.

The format sustains on subsequent tracks; but despite its apparent concreteness, the music is surprisingly warm.

However bleak, there's no denying the delicate mood created by [Kozelek's] charm.

Despite never being freer as an artist, there is a safety to Positions that means it only occasionally takes off.

Policy is enjoyable enough, but one hopes that for its follow-up, Butler takes time to find the most accomplished realisations of his material.

For his debut as Mr Jukes, former Bombay Bicycle Club frontman Jack Steadman uses deftly-applied jazz samples, restoring his youthful interest in that genre after years in the indie salt-mines.

The pair dovetail beautifully on the mostly traditional ballads and work-songs.

Musically, you know what to expect when Cooper and producer Bob Ezrin join forces: metal turmoil, churning beats and slashing guitar flourishes, letting up only for Ezrin to indulge his Pink Floyd heritage with the ponderous “The Sound Of A”, with its apt message, “Meaningless noise is everybody’s toys”. Quite.

Not that the usual soul belters are entirely absent from Long Live The Angels. Tracks like “Every Single Little Piece” and “Highs & Lows” are big, radio-friendly chartbound anthems, ebullient and eager to please; but the more interesting aspects of the album are to be found in less formulaic arrangements, such as “Give Me Something”, which opens with an acoustic guitar flourish pointedly recalling “The Tracks Of My Tears”, before settling into a folk-soul setting clearly influenced by Tracy Chapman.

The results range from the soothing yacht-rock soul of “Don’t Believe” to the soft, weightless folk-soul momentum of “I Would”, which, with its acoustic guitar arpeggios tinted with strings, resembles an outtake from Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter.

Threads is a culmination of virtually every sound Crow has explored through her career, which began with her crafting ad jingles in the late Eighties.

There’s a frustrating disjunction between intention and execution on Green Day’s Revolution Radio.

If You Want Loyalty Buy A Dog is a textbook Little Axe album, stuffed with dub-blues grooves that manage to be simultaneously soothing yet unsettling.

Disregard the didacticism, and there’s much to enjoy in tracks like “Til I’m Done”, a pumping disco-funk assertion of independence with abundant orchestral bells and whistles; the louchely loping “Guilty”, with Paloma giving it the full Amy Winehouse; and the pop-soul charmer “Crybaby”, whose kalimba-style keyboard groove recalls Whitney’s “It’s Not Right But It’s Okay”. But the bombastic tone overall is exhausting.

His vulnerability is admirable – if only his songs were half as daring.

By the second listen, it's somehow found its place in one's affections, despite its lack of obvious hooks.

Blood is front-loaded: I can’t think of another album that follows such a relentlessly downward course, all but giving up the ghost completely on the insipid closer “Good Goodbye”. But the opening three songs are aces.

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.

"Every Song's the Same" offers a charming series of lessons in emotional empathy; while the conceit underlying the piano ballad "Into a Pearl" seems so clear you can't quite believe nobody else thought of it first.

Fans of Led Zep III should take a thoughtful interest.

Something Beautiful isn’t quite as crazy or groundbreaking as she seems to think, but its spirit of adventure encapsulates what we’ve come to know and love about one of our most frustrating yet endearing pop stars.

Ironically, given its disillusioned tone, After the Disco offers welcome confirmation of the vast and varied terrain available to pop and rock when it dares stray away from the mainstream or merely contemporary.

The sole constant is the skeletal, staccato patter of peppery percussion throbbing beneath each track, the everpresent heartbeat of a project in aid of Oxfam.

White's albums have tendrils that imperceptibly wrap themselves around one's attention; and such is the case here.

This UK quartet conjure a beguiling air of eternal youth in all its charming contradictions, a sunburst of yearning, tedium and expectation.

The splendid The Politics of Envy simply ratchets that process up a few notches.

Wreathed in mellotron, vibrato guitar and ghostly backing vocals, several songs evoke the windswept psych-pop of The Coral, whose singer James Skelly co-produces Blossoms.

Throughout, the band’s gorgeous harmonies temper the sombre mood.

The singer has matched Bernie Taupin's best crop of lyrics for years with his own most emotively apt melodies to produce a collection that both harks back to the intrigues and interests of his earliest recordings, yet manages to break new ground, quite an achievement for an artist in his sixth decade.

Burke's presence remains as commanding as ever even when the material sags.

The title track slips from minimalist cycling harpsichord to portentous organ and guitar arpeggios before fading mid-lyric, while the cod-oriental motif of “Entertainment” offers a fond memory of a time when such things didn't seem quite so patronising.

Eugene Hutz’s gypsy-punk combo--a sort of Balkan-American Pogues--functions best here on galloping grooves of fiddle and accordion like the opening “Did It All” and “Break Into Your Higher Self”. But the latter, in which discontent prompts the search for a more transcendent purpose, hints at the cod-philosophising which damages Seekers And Finders.

Under normal circumstances, another solipsistic Eels album celebrating the joy of simple pleasures and allowing for some gruff introspection would grate – and Earth to Dora really isn’t much better than the last six Eels records – but right now it feels pretty much perfect. Have a listen before the moment passes.

Certainly, the recurrent themes of conclusion, starting over and rebuilding do lend it a muscular sense of purpose.

There's often a mismatch of temperament between the most brutally juddering of Lidell's quacking synth grooves and the floaty, unanchored manner of his vocal lines.

The teaming of Mark Lanegan with multi-instrumentalist bluesman Duke Garwood is an alliance of congruent attitudes and approaches.

Tracks like the reggae-tinged “Right Moves”--which feels like it was supposed to be an ANTI cut--and “Pipe” come off as monotonous. But there is a lot of Aguilera’s sincere authenticity that is weaved throughout Liberation. It may not be a pop record, a hip hop record or a soul record, but it’s certainly an Xtina record.

There are glosses on former glories--“Jamaica Moon” is a patois adaptation of “Havana Moon”, while “Lady B. Goode” involves gender-realignment of Chuck’s signature song--but they’re vastly outweighed by tranches of sloppy filler.

Following the largely insipid twinklings of his Beady Eye, As You Were suggests that, given the right conditions and appropriate collaborators, Liam Gallagher could become a more potent force than expected--especially if he could broaden his musical outlook beyond such predictable parameters.

Thankfully, he's well advised: the material is carefully chosen to exploit his abilities.

It’s been 20 years since David Crosby’s last solo offering, but Croz finds his fire undimmed, and his freak flag still proudly flying, if slightly tattered.

Too often, the songs are shadowed by earlier interpreters.

Restless Spheres is the first release in nine years from Blue States, the nom-de-disque of chill-out stylist Andy Dragazis; and sadly, it sounds somewhat mired in the modes of an emptier era.

Few pop acts are making heartbreak so straightforwardly danceable at the moment. All hail to Years & Years for continuing to hit us with those laser beams.

If mutant garage-psychedelia is your thing, then Aussie quintet Pond's Hobo Rocket should have your head spinning.

Those more open to a ramble will find themselves easily led through the whole journey by Redcar’s commitment to the grooves and expressive vocals. It’s worth taking the whole trip with him, as the mood gradually lightens towards the dawn of final songs “Angelus” (on which he imagines angels descending from the “pissing sky”) and “Les âmes amentes” on which he hails golden sunshine visions of bees and birds and naked bliss. Easy for the cynics to mock, but it’s hard to fault the earnest artistry with which Redcar reaches back for lost innocence. Angelic.

There's an ease and comfort about the songs that suggests they fell into place naturally, rather than suffering endless alterations; and the band seem content to let them breathe and take on a life of their own, rather than freight them with unnecessary adornment.

Valhalla Dancehall found British Sea Power somewhat becalmed, but Machineries Of Joy gets them moving again, albeit in a variety of directions.

There’s still a nagging sense that the band are resting on their laurels. The record is still good – DFA are too talented for it to be otherwise – but it’s a little deflating for a band whose history is built on boundary-pushing.

Heard It in a Past Life is evidence of Rogers’ ambition and potential, but it is proof, too, that you can’t bottle lightning.

Her follow-up to the popular Mayhem finds Imelda May still indulging the boisterous rapscallion character suggested by titles like “Wild Woman”, “Hellfire Club” and “Gypsy In Me”.

You can feel the weight of the piano keys and sense the reverb on the mic, or its absence when Morissette lays her isolated vocals bare to stunning effect on “Her”. ... Superb album.

Ironically, though, it’s the more old-school tracks that furnish the highlights.

It’s safely on-brand. It’s just smoother, and slower, and sloppier than before.

A new punk classic.

Like Comedy features their ebullient charm in large dollops.

Hubcap Music finds Seasick Steve back on form, with an album steeped in gritty boogie and even grittier attitude.

They just sound like desperate grasps for something--anything--before the latter stages of the album slump into terminal dullness.

It feels like the throwing down of a gauntlet, Cabello determined to wear her heart on her sleeve in the studio as well as in paparazzi photos.

It’s their most accomplished clawing-back so far of the basic dark rock’n’roll street-smarts that were lost as they cast fruitlessly around for new directions with projects like the acoustic album Howl and the awful noise-scape effort The Effects Of 333 (their very own Metal Machine Music).

Save for a shaky cover of “Send in the Clowns”, Ferry remains as calm and collected as ever at the eye of these emotional storms.