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The skirling electric guitars have been replaced by acoustic instruments which, allied to the ageless, weary but unbowed character of Ibrahim Ag Alhabib's voice, enhances further the bluesy nature of their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