The standard dips slightly in the later stages, but the grooves throughout are sleek and snappy, and CeeLo himself has rarely sounded better.

At its best, it’s tremendous stuff, with droll, sardonic portraits of lovers and losers punched along by grooves that sound variously like the Spencer Davis Group produced by Holland-Dozier-Holland (“Shake It Little Tina”), Stonesy raunch pitched midway between rock, funk, soul and country (“Me N Annie”), and sundry suggestions of Elton John, The Replacements and Calexico.

This is your echt ELO in all its familiar state of sub-Beatlesy woe.... Whether his form of “properly” meets with your approval will, of course, depend on your capacity to perceive virtue in the familiar and the sentimentally melancholic (and in brevity: Alone in the Universe clocks in at roughly 35 minutes’ duration).

Arriving several months after the tragic documentary, this soundtrack has a waif-like quality that’s touchingly appropriate, with Amy Winehouse’s demos and live tracks interspersed with brief snippets of Antonio Pinto’s incidental music.

There are lots of little things to like about Little Mix’s third album.... But there are too many instances here of registers painfully over-reached, and uneasy compromises between emotion and arrangement.

As you’d expect from Elbow’s frontman, the songs on this debut solo album rarely stray too far from the sleeve on which Guy Garvey wears his heart.

There’s the same penchant for itchy, unusual beats from the likes of 4Tet and Fred; the same provocative, philosophical flow; and the same undertow of paranoid wariness.

While the combination curdles occasionally here, there are moments of majesty which justify the gambit.

There’s a Gabrielle-style vibrato tremble to Sey’s voice on the warm “Poetic” and hypnotically anthemic “Hard Time”, while producer Magnus Lidehäll finds myriad means, from trip-hop beats to gospel choir, to realise Pretend’s character of the raw and the cooked.

As usual with Newsom, the deeper resonances resound louder with subsequent exposure.

Track after track follows the same formula, with Newman’s subdued introductory verse swallowed by a huge, anthemic refrain that never lets up, his voice drowned in a tide of orchestra and chorus, all dialled up to 11. It’s quite frustrating.

Rudimental’s follow-up to Home is not quite as impressive, though in fairness, most of the contributing vocalists lack the charismatic tone that John Newman brought to that debut album.

What’s most impressive about Adams’ 1989 is the experienced troubadour’s eye and ear with which he brings out the material’s underlying strengths, finding melancholy currents lurking beneath supposedly upbeat, celebratory songs.

Whatever style he uses on this first solo album in more than two decades, from country-blues to croon, rock’n’roll to reggae, he sustains that character as a unifying thread.

Mostly, the album comprises a series of scuttling bleepscapes lent individual character by unorthodox instrumental detail.

It’s alienation couched in the most genial manner; and along the way, he gets to muse over such matters as speech and silence, mysticism and medicine, relationships and reality, in a beautifully meandering song-cycle.

There’s prodigious ambition here, and moments of great pleasure.

In “God Knows I Tried”, a reference to ““Hotel California” conjures up the mood of sun-baked dissipation, while she grudgingly confirms the dead-end revelation of celebrity, “I’ve got nothing much to live for, ever since I found my fame”. It’s a disillusioned rejoinder to the burning urge for fame that stains youth culture in the 21st century, and as such, fits in perfectly with the album’s overall sense of exquisite decay.

Kelly Jones seems particularly bereft of inspiration on Keep the Village Alive, with insipid lyric clichés harnessed to settings that resemble a swift rummage through an arena-rock record collection.

A rich, rewarding indulgence.

Ultimately, there’s something genuinely courageous and admirable about Cyrus’s ambitions with Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz. Sure, it’s way too long, and flamboyantly self-indulgent; but it’s free, and it’s fun.

If the solutions offered are sometimes better than expected, they’re also, frequently, tentative and tired.

Unsurprisingly, his vocals are the most appealing aspect of the album, with the emotional strength of his lead lines supported by subtle harmonies.

There’s an openness about Hawley’s writing here that cuts straight to the quick--as if he’s digging through the ruins of his own Hollow Meadows, to try and shine a light on his soul.

While pleasant in places, there’s a lack of drive about Zach Condon’s latest outing as Beirut.

Beauty Behind the Madness leaves one feeling just as estranged from Abel Tesfaye’s depraved character as previous releases boasting less adhesive tunes.

There’s plenty of talent there, but more homework is needed before they graduate to the bigger leagues.

It’s a record of heartbreak cauterised by hope, so alongside the routine tears and recrimination is a recurrent element of recovery and optimism that sets it apart from most other soul-diva offerings.