A fond indulgence, perhaps, but there’s nothing on Déjà Vu that will take your breath away like “I Feel Love.”

Muse’s seventh album is--happily--anything but diminished.

Musically, it’s an almost seamless blend of the two groups’ styles, variations on a sort of operatic indie-electropop, which recalls variously Freedom of Choice-era Devo, chattering Kraftwerk techno and, in the more melancholy environs inhabited by “Little Guy from the Suburbs”, a whiff of Leonard Cohen.

The emotional turmoil is better served by the more introspective balladry of “Various Storms and Saints” and “Long and Lost.”

Whenever thoughts here turn to love, the results are not pretty.... But when antipathy rules, things go with a fizzy enthusiasm that’s quite infectious.

The result is a series of huge-sounding, stadium-ready pop anthems of undeniable charm.

Weller’s magpie tendencies pay dividends.

Always prey to their psychedelic tendencies, here MMJ swallow the full tab and dive headfirst into a whirlpool of supposition, analogy and swirling guitars.

The new instrumentation affords a more nuanced approach, from the thrumming bass, piano, tom-toms and subtly tingling guitar evoking the resolute support of “Broad-Shouldered Beasts”, and the keening, spacious synth textures of “Tompkins Square Park”, to the unison guitar thrash that opens “The Wolf.”

Sound & Color brims with the confident ambition of a band discovering and exploring exactly what they’re capable of.

For the most part, this is an album that restores faith in the sheer joy of music.

It’s an elegant, thoughtful album, rendered in deft, subtle brushstrokes.

On the gorgeous Jardine/Wilson weeper “Tell Me Why”, the doleful nostalgia is surprisingly clear-eyed.... Sadly, “that thing” goes missing on Kacey Musgraves’ kite-weight offering and electro throwaway “Runaway Dancer”, fronted by Capital Cities’ Sebu Simonian, with synths via McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime”.

Heart, ultimately, is the key to a project which links personal, small-scale disturbances of loneliness and homesickness with broader concerns of population density and ecological sustainability.

Rarely have his revelations been as direct, or as personal, as on Carrie & Lowell, a cathartic exercise exploring the effect of his estranged mother Carrie’s death on him two years ago.

It belongs in that hour when the sunlight dims, everyone leaves the park, the disposable barbecues are smoking abortively, the makeshift Lilt bottle bong's started to taste like shit and you don't know whether to go back to bed or fritter away your last tenner in town.

This conflicting need for independence within affection, thrown into stark relief during her self-imposed exile, is one thematic mainspring driving this Short Movie.

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

The inventive Diplo is a frequent collaborator, with support from Avicii, Michael Diamond and Kanye, but what’s most impressive is Madonna’s singing.

Save for the big live band arrangement of Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody” that closes the album, it’s a thoughtful, intimate set.

Much else here settles into comfort-zone turf.

Wu-Tang's most reliable rhymer here hooks up with Toronto hip-hop jazz trio Badbadnotgood, whose vibes, piano and grooves, augmented occasionally with strings, drape a 1970s symphonic-soul sound around his street missives. [21 Feb 2015, p.18]

Race is richly entertaining, immersive and evocative, orchestrated with fastidious care and feeling.

The Pop Group’s signature mode of deviant funk, with dub effects and tangled guitar distortion wielded with razoring disregard for polite taste, is still disconcerting and the focus of their anger is still sharp, albeit refracted through allegory and apocalyptism.

Musically, the lay-off, and the acquisition of new bass and keyboard players, has worked wonders for Idlewild’s sonic palette.

As before, echoes of classic Primal Scream/Stone Roses psych-rock underpin the grooves, which lope and stride infectiously.

The results have a lingering, languid charm, which does, as he suggests, help to liberate the material from the rusting manacles of big-band and cabaret mannerisms.

Prass confirms her unique, tremulous contralto mining depths of despairing devotion on songs clearly triggered by romantic crisis.