Live albums, never quite being able to replicate the atmosphere of a show or the cleanness of a record, can be hard work--but Springsteen on Broadway is an enthralling listen.

It's an absorbing, sometimes harrowing ride.

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.

It’s a fascinating oddity streaked with sex, violence and sorrow, a sort of seedcorn of the Robert Rodriguez aesthetic, presented complete with the lithographs that accompanied the original, albeit in cramped CD size.

Mutual Friends, a loose song-cycle, is entirely winning.

It's a brave and sometimes baffling album, broaching difficult themes; though faced with a series of such unforgiving electro-sonic maelstroms, one may hanker for the touches of folksy pastoralism that lightened earlier AF albums.

MDNA represents a determined, no-nonsense restatement of the Madonna brand.

These are songs that you can immediately tell will come alive on stage, where CMAT’s effervescent energy is really let loose. On record, they’re still a good listen – but it’s the words, honest and precise, that will keep fans coming back.

Well-made mid-American roots-rock by a young Oklahoman, who may harbour legitimate Springsteen/Fogerty fantasies.

Slightly laconic, slightly ironic, ["No Problem"] makes for a brilliant contrast with the production duo's galloping stutter-riff groove, heralding a run of crunching fuzz-guitar riffs that brings to mind the UK big-beat heyday of The Prodigy.

It’s a fitting record for the global unease of the past few months, but one that’s characteristically intimate.

The hodgepodge of ideas can make for challenging listening towards the end, but Lamp Lit Prose feels like Longstreth’s back having fun, playing with ideas, every listen offering up something new to discover.

It’s Robinson’s soul-scorched vocals that hold everything together, his relaxed charm shining through whether he’s engaged in perplexing, mystic narratives or offhand, recreational encouragements to “relax your mind”.

Fame may be fickle, but Vollebekk’s dedication to improving his craft is anything but.

In a Galaxy is a record that takes you far beyond the borders of the world you’re familiar with, and into something altogether more colourful.

This River is surely the most accomplished album yet from Florida-based songwriter JJ Grey.

There’s a strange, comforting beauty to Romano’s sombre baritone.

What’s impressive on 7 is how they show a fascination with genres that should have no business being on the same album, but without the “smash and grab” attitude of so many Western artists. When it comes to music, 7 is is cast-iron proof we all speak the same language.

The most potent and inventive electronica album I've heard in ages, a masterclass in punchy bleepscaping right from the low-register throb that opens "Lowly".

Council Skies is guaranteed to make the old fans feel right at home.

It's all as ludicrous, graceless and unlovely as the "sport" it hymns, yet there's an anachronistic boot-boy charm to Haines's depiction of the milieu that's genuinely affecting, as well as amusing.

All in all, a difficult task accomplished with no shortfall of style and invention.

The result is a dark, steamy sound that comes crawling from the Louisiana swamp like a mean-tempered 'gator.

As a tribute, and a farewell, it could hardly be better.

Their latest effort is a much-welcomed return to form.

The King of Limbs sounds like the bastard offspring of dubstep and Nico Muhly, the brilliant composer whose string and choral arrangements inhabit the open spaces between contemporary classical and art-rock.

Zeros is the sound of an artist pushing his creative development, and enjoying himself as he does so. Exciting stuff.

Traveling Alone sounds like her best album yet.

Harrison has a knack for narrative and a snagging vocal that lifts potential mediocrity of this vibe into a warmer and more engaging experience. He’s at his best at his most British, when he channels the conversational intimacy of The Streets’ Mike Skinner.

Caer shows that Twin Shadow’s limitless approach to pop suits him just fine.

To the delicate folk of their earlier work has been added a robustness that takes the Brighton-based six-piece in the direction of Blur.

With Stone Rollin', he broadens his outlook to take in various other R&B styles, without shifting more than a few years either way.

Tricky plumbs the deepest fathoms of despair. But from that he’s created something beautiful. This is one of his best, and truest, albums.

The only constants are Albarn’s drowsy presence, shuffling through songs as if shot in the neck with a tranquiliser dart, and the stout melodicism that makes …Strange Timez the finest Gorillaz album in a decade.

[Title track "Mars" is] a rare misstep on an album that looks to both East and West, and reaches simultaneously into the past and the future.

The Pop Group’s signature mode of deviant funk, with dub effects and tangled guitar distortion wielded with razoring disregard for polite taste, is still disconcerting and the focus of their anger is still sharp, albeit refracted through allegory and apocalyptism.

On False Alarm, though, they offer something that proves they’re still worth paying attention to.

Imaginative and innovative in equal measure.

A late-career Exile on Main Street? Their best since the Seventies? Arguably, but such hyperbole undeniably rests on the broad shoulders of the seven-minute “Sweet Sounds of Heaven”, the album’s spectacular spiritual crescendo.

By reflecting on the personal issues that first inspired him, Murdoch has reminded his band what they’re made of and sparked a loving surprise: their most expansive, exquisite mission statement since 1998.

Rina’s mini album may have marked her out as one to watch, but SAWAYAMA stakes her claim as one of the boldest voices in pop today.

Blake clearly revels in the invention and freedom of the exploit. “Fall Back” comes across as a very organic, found-sound kind of ambient concoction, as if someone has worked out how to recycle DJ software out of firewood and hemp.

He sounds cleansed of old complications.

More accomplishes in just three songs the transition between fan-settling familiarity and creative advancement.

To these ears, album closer “Serpentine Prison” bears an uncanny – if stripped-back – similarity to “Friend of Mine”. But for the most part, this is a Berninger record, and it’s very good.

Backed by a band who vigorously play to his timeless strengths, he sounds as sprightly as ever.

Hip young American male/female duo Cults look to classic 1960s pop history for the 11 bite-sized pop nuggets of this impressive debut.

Musically progressive, it’s Shires most ambitious work to date; nasty, stomping Southern rock sits next to poppier fare and several moments of quiet introspection.

Throughout, Jones’s characteristic optimism holds true, in songs such as Binky Griptite’s latter-day civil rights anthem “Matter Of Time” (“It’s a matter of time before justice will come”) and especially Crispiano’s “Come And Be A Winner”, whose light country-soul stylings and rhythm guitar seem to channel Curtis Mayfield.

Yes, it’s all cheesy as a vat of fondue. But it’s also a lot of fun.

Sometimes, her influences are obvious but her exploratory enthusiasm is ultimately winning, and her vocals layered in a way that pivots on the cusp of the sensual and the spiritual.

Complex, involved and engaging, her music’s exploratory inclinations are tempered with a distinctive melodic charm.

Feist here cements her position as the poster-girl for intimate US indie rock, with songs that peel back the skin of the human condition.

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

There's a pervasive haunted sense of loss and melancholy that links these 16 tracks together, giving Dedication a depth and elegance not often found in more dance-focused dubstep.

It’s a far cry from the usual meat’n’spuds rock that has characterised most Morrissey albums; and a welcome change, suggesting perhaps that this most British of pop bards is renegotiating his own boundaries.

At times Locket’s sheen can flow rather frictionlessly over your ears, pretty but perhaps a little mass-produced. Yet it’s an album that reveals deeper, more enduring layers and real emotional skin beneath all the shiny fabric and pouty poses.

Gillespie has never quite had the voice to match his colossal ‘tude. But he can still channel the back-alley menace of a truant teen.

Petals for Armor doesn’t offer up an easy redemptive arc towards happiness; it is a Herculean effort to pull yourself out of depression. But in letting us in on that effort, Williams has created something special.

New record is a self-knowing contradiction to The Weeknd’s past celebrations of impermanence via one-night stands and sleazy affairs. Now he understands, even regrets, his flighty behaviour.

It’s a lovely, silly, serious work that draws one in despite the bursts of utopian cosmo-babble.

The appetite for Washington’s old-school jazz utopia is a miracle in itself, renewed here.

An intriguing addition to the band’s canon.

The skirling electric guitars have been replaced by acoustic instruments which, allied to the ageless, weary but unbowed character of Ibrahim Ag Alhabib's voice, enhances further the bluesy nature of their music.

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.

This collection of re-recorded themes confirms his keen attention to mood and tonal colour, though the alterations are sometimes irritating--notably the itchily urgent percussion track rattling along beneath the familiar keyboard motif of Halloween.

Pleasingly, two of the best [guests] are British, Sampha capping “4422” with an emotive outburst, and Skepta getting an entire “Skepta Interlude” to himself to muse about how he “died and came back as Fela Kuti”. Elsewhere, the likes of Giggs, Young Thug and 2 Chainz add furtive but menacing sketches of thug life to tracks like “No Long Talk” and “Sacrifices”, the latter offering Drake’s most elegant mea culpa for past transgressions.

It is an album as multi-faceted as it is innovative. And that’s Sparks to a tee.

An impressive debut, albeit one light on lyrical depth.

Endlessly entertaining.

While not quite as impressive as 2012’s Traveling Alone, there’s much to enjoy about Tift Merritt’s Stitch Of The World--not least the inspired contributions of her top-notch accompanists.

When the album shifts into its second part, and turns inwards with a slower pace to match its vulnerable introspection, there’s no jolt: Sumney’s voice ensures that his soundscapes melt together. It’s here that the emotional heft is to be found.

Their 14th studio album finds the Indigo Girls operating as powerfully as at any time in their career, on a set of uncommonly strong songs performed with the kind of typically understated Nashville polish that affords their signature harmonies the full spotlight.

An album which focuses their stadium-alt-punk sound to its sharpest edge yet.

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

Technically unimpeachable, the layered harmonies of songs such as "Angels From The Realms Of Glory" and "The Holly And The Ivy" are rendered with razor-sharp precision, though there's a stridency to her delivery on some pieces.

Recorded in one take, with drums, bass, guitar and backing vocalists huddled around two microphones, the results have a rustic charm akin to a more grizzled Leon Redbone, with rolling rumba-rock and reggae grooves.

Over a visceral torrent of motorik punk-pop pummels recalling prime Pixies or McLusky, Joe hails his “beautiful immigrant” blood brother “Danny Nedelko” and celebrates his “mongrel” upbringing on “I’m Scum”--in a world run by bullish right-wing sex pests, his aggressive compassion is a potent antidote.

Celeste sings like a woman striding in confident slow motion away from a massive explosion. Shaken, but determined to be heard.

These 10 songs are like soundings from between the cracks, faint echoes from an inveterate wanderer whose revulsion at our anthropocentric ruination of the world leads him to ever-darker places.

On his most rewarding release since The Beta Band, Steve Mason grapples with politics both public and personal, but in a warm, engaging manner that draws the listener in.

Sound & Color brims with the confident ambition of a band discovering and exploring exactly what they’re capable of.

You Signed Up For This is an effortless pop debut. As an already established singer, Peters had little to prove, but after a shimmering first album, she has laid any residual doubt to rest.

It’s an attractive, still beguiling attitude that courses through the album like ambrosia, offering a welcome, if unworldly, alternative to pop’s prevailing discourse of acquisitive antagonism and automated emotions.

Bouger Le Monde offers a celebration of life.

As with all of The 1975’s escapades, it ought to be a disaster. Instead, the showpiece triumphs as an unlikely paragon of social media-era pop. In a glass bottle, tamed and ridiculed, the inferno is strangely beautiful.

Right from the lolloping big-beat Goth motorik of “Vessels”, there’s a confident, low-life muscularity to the album, partly recorded with Sean Lennon at his upstate New York studio.

This follow-up to the original 2006 Rogue's Gallery sea-shanty compilation is slightly less salty but just as broad-ranging musically.

["Mr Tembo" is] a rare moment of extrovert cheer on an intimate, introspective album that takes tentative steps to reveal the soul behind the star.

The riffs are better, arrangements more textured, harmonies more interesting (there’s a great contribution from some female backing singers on “Oblivion”). Then there’s the surprising closer “All We Have is Now”, a poignant moment of calm after the storm. Royal Blood have finally found their own voice.

This album is unlikely to win him any new fans. But, for the many millions whose lives intersected with the original music, Reprise offers a graceful and nuanced opportunity to take stock.

This follow-up builds on the feisty freshness of Caitlin Rose's Own Side Now, her debut from 2010.

Understated, beautifully crafted and always emotionally involving, Wanderer shows an artist who has found strength in her convictions, and a new pace of life.

Swift has said she has no idea where she’s going from here. She doesn’t need to. But it’s a Christmas treat to hear her enjoy creating a whole magical, mystical world away from the spotlight. No reinvention required.

It may not reach the pinnacle of sex or sadness, but Fine Line is a fine album nonetheless.

The first Union Station album since 2004 is, as usual, something to treasure.

It has everything the Adele album lacks: real emotional insight, couched in genuinely soulful arrangements bristling with imagination.

Overall, this is a powerful statement from a laudably liberated artist. A record red in tooth and claw.