Throughout there’s a determination to find the appeal in paradox, notably the beguiling blend of cool and cumbersome that carries the love song “Prince Johnny” to another place.

Penguin Cafe’s music continuing to explore the more earthly pleasures to be found at the confluence of world, folk, minimalism and chamber music.

Her Scots brogue addresses the issue of “who you’ll be one day” with husky urgency, yoked to jaunty jangle-rock and prancing piano-pop which doesn’t anchor her in too parochial a terrain, giving Peroxide a broad appeal potentially akin to Ellie Goulding.

Though most effective as a droll raconteur, Snider here relies on covers of songs by the likes of Gillian Welch and Lucinda Williams; fortunately, guitar wizard Neal Casal is on top form.

While Fridmann (best known for his work with Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips) weaves his usual psychedelic magic, the accentuation of purely sonic elements--glitchy loops, textural effects, the miasmic tone--is at the expense of Finn’s core songwriting strengths.

It’s a much better album than Sea Change, just as immersive, but wiser and less indulgently wallowing.

Emmaar is a typically impressive blend of the emotional and the political from Tinariwen.

It remains to be seen whether the band can transcend their influences and develop a sound that’s solely theirs.

A trio of absorbing driftworks.

One of the truest, wisest albums you’ll ever hear.

The only new aspect of this follow-up to 2011’s On a Mission is her transatlantic phrasing; otherwise, it’s pretty much the same old thing, with pulsing dubstep synths relentlessly driving things to the lowest common denominator.

Seth Lakeman new album is dominated by the past, through celebrations or commemorations of old ways, occupations and disasters.

With Build Me Up from Bones, Sarah Jarosz restores an earthy inventiveness to folk music--despite the violin and cello of her touring bandmates Alex Hargreaves and Nathaniel Smith tweaking the bluegrass settings with classical flavours that reflect the singer’s conservatory training

The music struggles to match the lyrical focus, sounding piecemeal and haphazard.

Ironically, given its disillusioned tone, After the Disco offers welcome confirmation of the vast and varied terrain available to pop and rock when it dares stray away from the mainstream or merely contemporary.

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

It’s been 20 years since David Crosby’s last solo offering, but Croz finds his fire undimmed, and his freak flag still proudly flying, if slightly tattered.

Pleasant enough, but too twee.

Musically it’s standard rockin’ country fare, save for the poignant tints of accordion applied to “Homecoming Queen”.

Their brusque punk-pop style and his louche intonation suggest a tidier version of the Libertines.

At its best, on “Ride My Dub”, “Expanding Dub” and “Call It Dub”, the results offer snatched glimpses of the eternal in the fleeting moment. Even better than its parent album.

While Doyle struggles to balance his various musical elements--the opening 10 minutes is sheer drudgery--he has a nice way with layered vocal harmonies, which deserve more regular exposure.

Gudmundur Kristinn Jónsson's production envelops Asgeir's fragile gifts in delicately wrought arrangements.

It’s both mesmerically appealing and cacophonously repellent, a paradoxical blend repeated in the shrill, thrumming monotony of “Austerity Blues”.

The tremulous piano ballad “Young Blood” is far from the dance fodder singles of Ellis-Bextor’s past, while the sombre tone of tracks like “Until the Stars Collide” suggests that she’s re-positioning herself in the prim Nordic-diva territory of Agnes Obel and Ane Brun. A good move.

It’s pleasant enough, but let down by Jurado’s unengaging vocals.

Best of all, though, is the opener “Heard About You Last Night”. Though typically methodical, it glows with a kind of staid, epiphanic inner-beauty, the most elegant, graceful thing they’ve ever recorded.

It’s impressively wrought, but save for the more propulsive, swingy shuffle of “Feeling Alright”, there’s a Novocaine numbness about it that makes it hard to love.