He celebrates a liberal culture of generosity (“I Made This For You”) and cultural diversity (“Thank You New York”), exemplified by a musical inclusiveness and sophisticated lyricism which, though occasionally a touch too serpentine and verbose, at its best brings to mind Sufjan Stevens.

As a soundtrack album to meditate to, Aporia is pleasant, but there’s no denying that the absence of Stevens’s typically ornate songcraft is keenly felt.

His flow only truly ignites through anger and reproach, and there are moments when his verbal dexterity amazes.

His own sepia baritone summons some of that warmth on versions of “Solitaire”, “Autumn Leaves” and “You Only Live Twice”.

The mood of alienated isolation evoked by songs like this and “Funny How Time Slips Away” is balanced by the genial warmth James brings to songs by crooner Al Bowlly, “Love Is The Sweetest Thing” and “Midnight, The Stars And You”.

Smith’s voice remains a thing of wonder throughout.

Though sharp and sly, too often here there’s a shortfall of melodic potency, and an over-reliance on structures that are methodical rather than marvellous, torpedoed by their own cleverness.

There’s much to be said for music as a private, sublime refuge, but Holy Wave rarely hit those heights. They evoke only the mild, gauzy dislocation of dawdling in the midday sun.

The format sustains on subsequent tracks; but despite its apparent concreteness, the music is surprisingly warm.

However bleak, there's no denying the delicate mood created by [Kozelek's] charm.

Despite never being freer as an artist, there is a safety to Positions that means it only occasionally takes off.

Policy is enjoyable enough, but one hopes that for its follow-up, Butler takes time to find the most accomplished realisations of his material.

For his debut as Mr Jukes, former Bombay Bicycle Club frontman Jack Steadman uses deftly-applied jazz samples, restoring his youthful interest in that genre after years in the indie salt-mines.

The pair dovetail beautifully on the mostly traditional ballads and work-songs.

Musically, you know what to expect when Cooper and producer Bob Ezrin join forces: metal turmoil, churning beats and slashing guitar flourishes, letting up only for Ezrin to indulge his Pink Floyd heritage with the ponderous “The Sound Of A”, with its apt message, “Meaningless noise is everybody’s toys”. Quite.

Not that the usual soul belters are entirely absent from Long Live The Angels. Tracks like “Every Single Little Piece” and “Highs & Lows” are big, radio-friendly chartbound anthems, ebullient and eager to please; but the more interesting aspects of the album are to be found in less formulaic arrangements, such as “Give Me Something”, which opens with an acoustic guitar flourish pointedly recalling “The Tracks Of My Tears”, before settling into a folk-soul setting clearly influenced by Tracy Chapman.

The results range from the soothing yacht-rock soul of “Don’t Believe” to the soft, weightless folk-soul momentum of “I Would”, which, with its acoustic guitar arpeggios tinted with strings, resembles an outtake from Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter.

Threads is a culmination of virtually every sound Crow has explored through her career, which began with her crafting ad jingles in the late Eighties.

There’s a frustrating disjunction between intention and execution on Green Day’s Revolution Radio.

If You Want Loyalty Buy A Dog is a textbook Little Axe album, stuffed with dub-blues grooves that manage to be simultaneously soothing yet unsettling.

Disregard the didacticism, and there’s much to enjoy in tracks like “Til I’m Done”, a pumping disco-funk assertion of independence with abundant orchestral bells and whistles; the louchely loping “Guilty”, with Paloma giving it the full Amy Winehouse; and the pop-soul charmer “Crybaby”, whose kalimba-style keyboard groove recalls Whitney’s “It’s Not Right But It’s Okay”. But the bombastic tone overall is exhausting.

His vulnerability is admirable – if only his songs were half as daring.

By the second listen, it's somehow found its place in one's affections, despite its lack of obvious hooks.

Blood is front-loaded: I can’t think of another album that follows such a relentlessly downward course, all but giving up the ghost completely on the insipid closer “Good Goodbye”. But the opening three songs are aces.

In expressing all of these [themes] without tumbling into absurdity, it helps to have a klaxon whine like Ozzy's delivering them, while Tony Iommi cranks out those trademark slow, molten-lead riffs that trundle through 13 like tank tracks.

"Every Song's the Same" offers a charming series of lessons in emotional empathy; while the conceit underlying the piano ballad "Into a Pearl" seems so clear you can't quite believe nobody else thought of it first.

Fans of Led Zep III should take a thoughtful interest.

Something Beautiful isn’t quite as crazy or groundbreaking as she seems to think, but its spirit of adventure encapsulates what we’ve come to know and love about one of our most frustrating yet endearing pop stars.