The backdrops feature dark sheets of strings and organ, the occasional lonely trumpet, and lumpy, superstitious drums driving the menacing Western mythos to its doom: not a forgiving place, but an engrossing one.

Richard Hawley has upped his game considerably on his first album for Parlophone, leaving behind his urbane, rockabilly-tinged retro-nuevo style for a full-blooded immersion in ringing psychedelic rock. It's totally unexpected, and completely winning.

Bohemian legend and walking R&B encyclopaedia Chuck Weiss is on great form on this latest album.

The album only develops a steely ragga rasp in the last few tracks, when the hometown likes of Bounty Killer, Capleton and Sizzla make their presence felt.

[A] sparkling, multi-faceted comeback album.

With Bon Voyage, it genuinely feels as if Prochet got lost in her sounds and let it lead her. In her own musical liberation, Prochet makes something bizarre and stunning.

Quaintness is what their fans look for; you just sense that there might have been an even more searing political bent lurking beneath on Angry Cyclist that never quite pierced the surface.

Where 2016’s Take Control--with the exception of the aforementioned Dury collaboration--felt like one big raging scream, Acts of Fear And Love sees the band showing their sensitive side as well.

Drake is often best when he’s at his most brooding. ... This isn’t an artistic project as much as it is a business ploy ­– repackaging leftovers apparently without taking the effort to remix or remaster some of them.

It’s probably the pandemic’s impact on the live music scene that makes an album like this feel more welcome than it might have last year. It’s still not comparable to the real thing, but it does remind us of what we’re missing.

FIBS highlights Meredith as a much-needed creative force. Her shape-shifting genre-defiance constantly surprises and intrigues, but it’s good to get back down to Earth afterwards.

Furfour finds the duo at their poppiest: even though they create songs from improvised sounds, there’s an engaging, hypnotic charm to tracks like “Milky Light” and “Heavy Days” that’s strongly reminiscent of Eno’s pop side.

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.

It's ironic that soul music dominates, given Collins' lack of its most crucial element: a commanding vocal presence.

Musically, the lay-off, and the acquisition of new bass and keyboard players, has worked wonders for Idlewild’s sonic palette.

Trying Times falters slightly in its final third – “Obsession” registers more as a sketch than a song – but these are minor frictions in a record whose emotional logic is otherwise unerring.

The production/remix duo of Richard Norris and Erol Alkan here offer a retro-psychedelic throwback to a more imaginative time, one where the Krautrock grooves of Neu! and Can collide with spacey Ibizan house synth washes and the whimsical acid fairytales of classic ‘60s Brit psychedelia.

Her first album of new material in seven years finds Tracey Thorn in feisty form, bashing out “nine feminist bangers” with a relish reflected in the confident, striding electropop settings of tracks like “Queen” and “Air”.

They now dart in yet another direction, devising a shuffling indie-dance style that recalls variously the infectious syncopations of Talking Heads, the baggy grooves of Happy Mondays and the campfire psychedelia of Animal Collective, but somehow manages to sound homogenously all of a piece.

Cosmic Wink’s echoing sound allows a sort of resonant, gigantic intimacy over rhythms of mostly languid steadiness.

On the excellent Wheelhouse, Brad Paisley tiptoes a fine line between satisfying his core country audience and encouraging them to more adventurous attitudes.

Wherever you look, there’s a fierce artistic sensibility at work.

It sounds like The Cranberries found some kind of closure in this last record. Hopefully fans will, too.

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.

The narratives are dependably punchy through this record, and they’re carried by solidly danceable Eighties and Nineties club beats. Not an original sound, then. But one that allows her more challenging or subversive thoughts to slide slyly into a night out on the town.

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.

A brave, and welcome, transformation.

Though their themes remain in the gutter, Suede aspire to monuments, and The Blue Hour will stand as another sordid masterwork.