Despite his desire to move more towards pop on this third album, Robert Ellis can’t prevent his country roots showing through.

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

He just sounds like a grumpy geriatric for whom age has brought little of the reflective wisdom of Leonard Cohen.

Muhly’s sweeping orchestral vista mid-section dominates “Pluto”; and Stevens’ furtive, autotuned description of “Saturn” as a “melancholy creature, paranoid secret” is rudely interrupted halfway through by a brash, bustling beat barging its way in like Donald Trump at a photoshoot. The “oracle ghost” “Venus”, meanwhile, is treated in more recognisably Sufjan style, in its exhumation of a youthful indiscretion at a summer camp, characteristically stirred into a wider lyrical compass.

No Rain, No Flowers turns out to be a muted effort.

Free often feels like the messiest kind of improv, full of stream-of-consciousness expressions and storytelling that doesn’t follow any particular logic. But tracks like the tense “Glow in the Dark” or the sombre “The Dawn” are also oddly irresistible, loose, thoughtful and free-wheeling.

It’s a terrific, family-friendly smorgasbord of a record that delivers all the classic ABBA flavours.

With Urban Turbanm, Tjinder Singh reinforces his position as one of the UK's more engaging musical minds.

Paolo Nutini brings the apt timbre and weary dignity to "Hard Times (Come Again No More)", while The Decemberists' Colin Meloy has the sturdy asperity of a righteous ranter on a version of Dylan's "When The Ship Comes In".

At times the whole jazz-hands-emoted, Original Cast Recording! vibe can grate; the stageyness undercutting the intimacy of Taylor’s sharp, literate lyrics. At others, the evident effort of performance plays winkingly well into the choreography of her self-dramatising self-analysis.

It’s relentlessly interesting – a cleverly crafted new noise around every corner.

Save for the opening "The Once and Future Carpenter", about a woodworker who abandons his trade to wander, this second album is pretty dismal fare.

After a while the regretful, melancholy tone wearies one's sympathies.

Variously embracing fado, jazzy whiskey-bar blues and tensile, grandiose strings, ... Eastern Esplanade is easily The Libertines’ most expansive and ambitious record.

All told, it’s pretty crowded territory, with too many jams.

Producer Dave Fridmann has managed to effect the same kind of equilibrial magic he wielded with The Flaming Lips, bringing power and clarity to the Eggs’ churning psych-punk turmoil of guitars and synths, and balancing it with the plaintive anger of Holly Ross’s vocals.

With the toothless Volcano, they’ve abandoned that path [hinting at deep immersion in psych-rock] in favour of a wheedling, keyboard-heavy electropop sound with much less bite, pock-marked with dubious stylistic potholes.

While Fridmann (best known for his work with Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips) weaves his usual psychedelic magic, the accentuation of purely sonic elements--glitchy loops, textural effects, the miasmic tone--is at the expense of Finn’s core songwriting strengths.

Though most effective as a droll raconteur, Snider here relies on covers of songs by the likes of Gillian Welch and Lucinda Williams; fortunately, guitar wizard Neal Casal is on top form.

The deceptive geniality of his delivery, meanwhile, recalls Gilbert O’Sullivan, enabling him to bring darker undertones to apparently pleasant pieces like the lilting waltz “I’m Gonna Haunt This Place.”

Rather than phone anything in, Cooper’s clearly making the most of his elder statesman position, finding new ways to freshen up vintage sounds and styles. He’s every bit as durable as the American city he celebrates.

I wonder if Larsson boxed herself in with her theme (“I’m obsessed with love”, she told NME in a recent interview), then struggled to find new ways to explore it. Overall, though, Poster Girl has more than enough bops to keep fans happy.

2042 may be the work of an accomplished songwriter, tackling pressing issues, but it’s also a hodgepodge – the result of an artist struggling to find his musical voice.

Seven years on from Satan's Circus, Death in Vegas' prime mover Richard Fearless doesn't seem to have moved on at all.

Unlike previous Vetiver albums, for The Errant Charm, songwriter Andy Cabic entered the studio with vague ideas rather than finished songs, and it shows.

Originally planned as the second half of a double-album, Lupercalia is his most approachable effort.

This is a guitarists' mutual appreciation society affair that ought to be unbearable, but is actually gorgeous, thanks to the modest brilliance of those involved.

The best tracks are the more thoughtful reflections on youthful memories, such as "Illusion" and "Snap"; the worst is the turgid pomp-rock-rap crossover "Written in the Stars", ominously scheduled as his next single.