Georgia splices the beat and twists the synths into an eerie doomscape, yet it’s strangely comforting – her reminder that while this night may have ended, there’s always tomorrow.

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.

This is not always a comfortable bracket for a Kurt Vile song to fit into. When he goes off the deep end though, diving into a vast pool of astral matter as he does on spaced-out closer “Skinny Mini”, it’s a deeply immersive and transporting album.

It’s true that listening to The National often makes me feel I’m hearing ghosts of their previous songs. Old chords and thoughts stalk the halls of different songs. But it’s hard to resist their shimmering, shapeshifting companionship. And on Laugh Track the ghosts are floppier and friendlier than they’ve been in a while.

On [Cat Power] Marshall has changed direction yet again, abandoning her soul charm for something much less appealing.... But her natural grace shines through on "3, 6, 9"... and "Ruin."

This is deeply personal material that’s as impressive if not as game-changing as anything esteemed rap figures Kendrick Lamar and Childish Gambino have produced in recent years. Miller has turned his anguish into one of the year’s most disarmingly pleasant records.

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.

The self-titled record, a loose but beautifully crafted collection of folk-rock songs, explores the kinds of anxieties intrinsic to the modern age--the longing to be at once noticed and invisible; the paralysing effects of limitless information, and the desire to do good versus the desire to be seen doing good.

It’s an album that takes the sombre mood of today and translates it into downtempo music that’s both refreshing and thoughtful.

Gudmundur Kristinn Jónsson's production envelops Asgeir's fragile gifts in delicately wrought arrangements.

Paranoia, Angels, True Love is too long and rambling to bring Christine and the Queens any new fans, or much action on the singles chart. Its self-indulgence may even tire some existing fans. But if you give it time to grow its wings, it can really lift you up.

Go-Go Boots is the promised "R&B Murder Ballad Album" recorded concurrently with last year's The Big To-Do, and it's every bit as good as that description suggests.

Overall this is Metronomy at their most ambitious and pleasurably weird.

Balancing the political disquiet is a vein of romantic yearning, with Kirk’s plea in “Moment” for “desire deserving of something more” offers a fitting summary of the album as a whole.

A late-career lapse into gimmicky covers of “Silent Night” and “Can Can” aside, this compilation is a marvellous confirmation of pop’s fringe possibilities.

Ironically, despite the phalanxes of American producers involved in the album, it actually sounds less desperately transatlantic than The Fifth, possibly due to Dizzee’s enjoyment in using parochial British expletives like “bloody” and “knackers.”

Anthony Hamilton provides another [highlight], bringing a gospelly spirit to “Gently” Elsewhere, Raphael Saadiq and Gary Clark Jr lend their talents to the great party groove “Fun”.

Imagine Killing Eve in audio form. They’re still that kick-ass. That sexy. That much fun. Put this album on your to-listen list, pronto.

The result may be the band’s best album yet, one on which they come closer than ever.

An extremely promising start.

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

There’s a lot to unpack, but Welfare Jazz is a smart and rousing listen.

This record doesn’t find the often-brilliant Musgraves on her sharpest, Dolly Parton-est form. She delivers more platitudes than usual; her melodic shifts often lack their tangier twists. But the sadness and everydayness of her breakup does breathe slowly and honestly through the songs.

The widescreen south-western ambience is stippled with intriguing touches, like the shruti box and bowed guitar droning through “Gallop On The Run”, and the rhythmic rattling chains of the death ballad “Lay My Lily Down”; though the most moving performance is Weir’s plaintive solo piece “Ki-Yi Bossie”, oozing empathy for a reluctant penitent alcoholic.

As usual, the factor that will divide black metal fans are the vocals, which remain somewhere between screamed and croaked. Either way, this comeback will restore them to prominence within that community.

Although comprised of re-worked leftovers from last year’s excellent Wire album, Nocturnal Koreans finds the band still managing to find new routes to take away from that tightly-focused project.

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.

The pair have weaved Anderson's songs together with various ambient elements--traffic noise, birdsong, the tinkle of teacups on saucers--to create a song-cycle that illuminates the exceptional in the everyday.