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.