The most potent and inventive electronica album I've heard in ages, a masterclass in punchy bleepscaping right from the low-register throb that opens "Lowly".

A concept album about early American rail disasters, The Ghost Of Hope sounds more naturalistic than many Residents albums, with plenty of chugging engine noises, and strings summoning conventional tragedy, as grisly crashes are recounted in typically sinister Residential tones. But it’s punctuated by startling musical moments.

The unambitious nature of Given to the Wild is all the more disappointing for the intriguing glimmers of inspiration furnished by their collaboration with Roots Manuva.

It’s pleasantly – if forgettably – soporific. The sort of family motorway album that tired parents can hum along to without waking the kids in the back.

Wu Block suffers from the absence of a few vital presences, in particular Wu Tang producer the RZA.

Always exquisitely unbothered, the indie-rock poster boy now sounds like he can’t be bothered.

Earth Division finds Mogwai in unusually calm and engaging mood, its four tracks for the most part eschewing their trademark surging post-rock in favour of a lighter, more reflective approach.

His vocals are by far the album’s most potent aspect, bringing grace and wonder even to the more routine material, and hoisting the better songs to classic status.

Ani DiFranco's first album in three years finds the self-proclaimed Righteous Babe in feisty, thoughtful form.

[More of their] unchanging plastic punk aesthetic.

It certainly goes beyond his retro-jazz comfort zone, with piercing electric organ and electric piano lending a vibrant, visceral edge to several songs.

There's no denying the power of a set stuffed with riffs like “Honky Tonk Women”, “Brown Sugar” and “Jumpin' Jack Flash”, played with that inimitable loose/tight dialectic that characterises the Stones at their best.

It’s a low-key, subtly composed rock record that sets slow-rolling country and anthemic southern rock as its parameters, and never so much as hints that it might break beyond them.

The densely-textured arrangements can get a bit stodgy in places, and the last few tracks slip into dreary bubblebath-boudoir mode, but Bootsy's blithe drawl, the vocal equivalent of a bubble, is usually around to lift one's spirits.

Forever Neverland is chock-full of safely idiosyncratic bangers, and never misses a beat. But maybe it could have done with missing a few.

It’s a lovely, silly, serious work that draws one in despite the bursts of utopian cosmo-babble.

Some of the riffs are winners, but it's just not enough to carry the album.

As with their debut, this album feels as though you’re being allowed a brief but intense insight into his self-contained world. Yet the vein of humour that ran through those earlier songs has been replaced by a deeper sincerity.

It sounds as if it’s designed to slip down as smoothly as possible, but accordingly, each song slips too readily from the memory.

Harrison has a knack for narrative and a snagging vocal that lifts potential mediocrity of this vibe into a warmer and more engaging experience. He’s at his best at his most British, when he channels the conversational intimacy of The Streets’ Mike Skinner.

A soundtrack that is always fun, if undeniably erratic – Ronson can’t decide on a consistent tone or approach, instead ping-ponging between satire and celebration, sincerity and spoof.

Solar Power finds Lorde swapping her trademark directness for tuneless detachment.

It’s an odd album, split between full-on dancefloor stompers like the euphoric summer romance anthem “Love You To The Sky” and less successful stabs at political commentary such as “Lousy Sum Of Nothing”, an overly simplistic bout of finger-wagging about how “the world has lost its loving” in respect of the refugee crisis.

It’s a solipsistic affair: and while his good intentions to smarten up his drug-sozzled, road-weary life may be commendable, they don’t necessarily make “Quit It” any more agreeable.

Oddball fun, and educational too.

Tea for the Tillerman has been updated with the aim of drawing attention and fans from a new generation. Whether these fuller versions will attract new listeners is debatable. However, there are certainly surprises here.

His 2017 debut Reaper was built around tender guitar motifs that would mesh with stuttery trap beats. There is some of this on Trauma Factory, but it’s been mostly sidelined in favour of vocal melodies that frequently sound like playground rhymes.