Great fun, from first to last.

For the most part, it’s a masterclass in jazz phrasing.

This collection of early 1960s Stones sessions vibrates with youthful revolutionary fervour--though sadly, there’s none of the witty, whimsical mini-interviews with which the Fabs’ performances were punctuated.

As the album proceeds, it frays apart as Neil’s gaze shifts to bombs and babies in the plodding anthem “Children Of Destiny”, and to Mexican fairground fantasy in the ludicrous cod-Santana-style “Carnival”. Despite similarly sluggish, slouchy manner, young backing band Promise Of The Real fall some way short of the full Crazy Horse, trudging rather than imposing a sense of implacable destiny.

Routine would-be anthems like “Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way” and the assonant pairing of “You’re The Best Thing About Me” and “Get Out Of Your Own Way” simply piggyback on tired old modes, reflecting their former glories in the way that modern glass-box buildings simply serve as mirrors for the more dynamic and beautiful architecture of previous eras.

Karine Polwart’s latest album draws together several narrative and observational threads--avian behaviour, the boggy moorland landscape near her home, problematic procreation, and a tragic early 20th century romance – into a taut allegorical message about community and progress, all set to vividly evocative arrangements by soundscaper Pippa Murphy, employing harp, celesta, balofon and percussion as required.

While the widescreen production of “The Man Who Built The Moon” strives to deliver the drama promised by “Fort Knox”, it doesn’t quite succeed. But it’s still by far his best post-Oasis work, an album which doesn’t try to challenge that heritage, but strikes out to explore new territory.

Achingly dull, and self-regardingly solipsistic.

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.

There are echoes of Pops Staples’s gentle, miasmic guitar in the folksy gospel stylings of “Peaceful Dream” and the cyclical twang carrying the Black Lives Matter anthem “Little Bit”, warning youngsters to be careful around cops; but elsewhere the influence of Sly & The Family Stone’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On is paramount.

For while there’s no denying that Low In High School is more musically exploratory than usual, drawing from glam rock, electropop, tango and Tropicalismo, the singer himself has rarely exhibited such a grating combination of spite and self-pity. ... The album’s lengthy centrepiece “I Bury The Living”, an odious slab of trundling guitar bombast, lambasts as “just honour-mad cannon-fodder” the work of soldiers whom he presumes are too stupid to understand the wars they’re involved in.

Throughout, Jones’s characteristic optimism holds true, in songs such as Binky Griptite’s latter-day civil rights anthem “Matter Of Time” (“It’s a matter of time before justice will come”) and especially Crispiano’s “Come And Be A Winner”, whose light country-soul stylings and rhythm guitar seem to channel Curtis Mayfield.

Swift doesn’t need her lover to save her, as she notes on album standout “Call It What You Want”, which is, arguably, the best song Swift has ever made. Its lyrics are more open and willingly vulnerable than anything she’s done before.

[Jupiter Calling] still relies too heavily on routine romantic fluff like “Hit My Ground Running” and the glutinous “Butter Flutter.” T-Bone Burnett has been drafted in as producer, and brings his usual taste and expertise

These 10 songs are like soundings from between the cracks, faint echoes from an inveterate wanderer whose revulsion at our anthropocentric ruination of the world leads him to ever-darker places.

The opening “Rebel” sets the tone with a country-style tale of how a good-hearted man’s attempt to live up to his father’s ideals backfires to leave him a criminal, losing his beloved’s respect and affection in the process. From there, the journey swings between ebullient celebrations of life and sombre tales of misfortune, with the shadow of Springsteen looming large over songwriter Eric Earley’s material.

REM’s brooding masterwork. ... It’s an album of shadows and contrasts: “Drive”, for instance, opens proceedings on the cusp of adulthood, imparting youthful rebel spirit with a warning sense of duty for the future, before “Try Not To Breathe” offers an extraordinary image of an old person eager to leave the world to the young.

Moments after hearing “Best 4 You”, with its slimline groove and sleek falsetto chorus, I can’t remember a trace of its melody or theme: it was just there, and then not there. It’s an experience repeated throughout Red Pill Blues.

While the U2-style arena-rock impressions that dogged Keep The Village Alive persist in places here, elsewhere Scream Above The Sounds finds Kelly Jones in more reflective mood, resulting in a more appealing balance of head and heart overall.

Smith’s voice remains a thing of wonder throughout.

His facility with the form is evident on songs like “Easy To Love”, which aptly has the smooth, easy manner of a standard, and more dramatically with “On The Waterfront”, which renders solitude in epic fashion. ... Elsewhere, he reverts to form with the rolling blues arrangement of “Love This Way”, with his signature piano to the fore, and terse blues guitar punctuating his account of being “lost inside the darkness and the howling wind”.

Though obviously sincere and heartfelt, Gregory Porter’s tribute to his greatest influence falls a touch short in some cases. His voice, while smooth and warm, lacks the silky, creamy timbre of Cole’s on “Mona Lisa”, and on some songs he sounds more like Kurt Elling or Sammy Davis Jr.

Irish folk quartet Lankum’s second album offers an object lesson in how to perform old songs in new ways, without losing the essential sense of continuity that gives traditional music its timeless appeal.

When the funk gets this good, with a relaxed, propulsive charm that belies the P-Funk density of the arrangements, why bother modernising?

Musically it’s pleasant enough, with string and wind flourishes either emboldening or offering solace from the folk-rock arrangements; but it’s all a bit samey, and after a while, rather dull.

The limp, autotuned love song “Happy” and drearily positivist “Good Morning” are lazy nods to the mainstream, but elsewhere Wretch is better served by the dark sparkle of arrangements featuring grimy sub-bass synths and itchy electro beats tinted with eerie vocal samples, thumb-piano and synthetic pan-pipes.

Lyrically, Horan pushes no envelopes, sticking to earnest love plaints and poignant reminiscences for the most part, and even offering to listen to his girl’s problems in “Fire Away”.

It’s a revelatory affair, bringing a fresh, raw focus to brilliant songs steeped in lust, death and loss with a blend of sly rockabilly and blues-tinged country-rock.