The title track of Van the Man's 40th (!) studio album, the slow jam is a brilliant blues number based on rolling Rhodes keyboards, fat horns, thin cymbal splashes and a vocal with such clarity, concision and quality that it will stop you in your tracks. Yep, that good. The rest? Well, you've seen this movie before: blues, jazz and soul standards delivered with minimum fuss and maximum quality.

While the project makes more sense if you’ve seen the movie, there’s plenty of warmth and intelligence alongside the tits and willies.

It’s true that psychedelia of this type is often frameless by its very nature. Yet, despite the album’s delights, one wonders how tight Neilson’s eccentric work would be if reined in a little.

An enjoyable if low-key listen that consolidates rather than shakes Stables’ current status.

While there is still plenty to love here, Everything Now feels like Arcade Fire's first non-essential album which is a serious matter given their illustrious back-catalogue.

Big Sigh's strength is in not holding back from confronting darker feelings, and revelling in the raw honesty of experiencing them.

There’s not enough adventure to make this truly feel like Pixies; it lacks the sense that the wheels might come off any minute. Lenchantin, for her part, holds her own, especially on All I Think About Now, but her new colleagues need to rediscover the urgency and ambition that defined their best work if they’re ever going to match it.

ASIWYFA haven’t reinvented the wheel with this album, but it’s a worthy addition to an increasingly accomplished body of work.

The palette can feel restrictive, and the lyrical matter predictable. It’s a stepping stone, a moment of reconciliation and recollection from a talent who is just about to surge ahead.

While still evoking a sense of auditory adventure on tracks such as The Deku Tree or instrumental interlude Off World Colony, this more sedate middle section can feel slightly too mid-tempo. Despite this, the duo's sonic voyages make it worthwhile to sink into Bamboo’s realm.

Act One: Music For Inanimate Objects is certainly a good album, but sometimes it feels like the only thing linking all the songs together is their slower tempo.

The result is less a stylistic refresh than a confident reaffirmation of their combined output up until now.

At 20 tracks long, however, it takes some serious listening to get through the whole thing, and a sense of sag in the latter third threatens to overpower on the first few spins. Essentially, this flower could've used a little more judicious pruning.

While Deliverance does have instances of real bracing power, it equally finds itself faltering in its most exposed moments where it really needs to connect.

Between Two Shores is another Glen Hansard album filled with good songs, gorgeous music and gregarious singing. Is that enough? You decide.

The eight-track album features themes on the new age norms of class, gender, race and power that shape the world today. Beyond the sweet melodies and striking instrumentals, New Age Norms 1 is a project with a message.

Too often the feeling remains that the joke isn't funny enough to sustain a whole record, especially one that follows a masterpiece.

Fake Sugar is a real reinvention for Beth Ditto, but it’s not so much of a reinvention that her signature traits are unrecognisable.

In all, after 18 very long years, Damage and Joy is a near-faultless return to form, even if some of these 'new' songs are actually over a decade old.

There are moments where things becomes a little sluggish, though perhaps a stumble here and there can be expected when an album tries to fit so much into a short space. For the most part though, The New Monday is a valiant attempt at distilling Detroit’s musical culture into a single, cohesive record.

Repeat visits are sure to unearth more of the band’s thought process, but there's a lingering sense that less could've been so much more.

Generally, though, this is an album of unobtrusive indie strum-alongs: Doris and The Daggers never quite explodes from the speakers, nor does it set your soul soaring with melodies to be bawled across fields and arenas.

If anything, it’s a shame the album takes this long to really flourish. Indie super-producer John Congleton is welcome on the boards, but he arguably provides a little too much polish, compared to his recent worthy efforts for Priests.

Geowulf have all the potential to be able to put together a decent pop album, with Kendrick’s blissful vocals and Banjanin’s chilled-out melodies, but unfortunately on Great Big Blue, they just fall a bit short.

There’s a pervading darkness over All This I Do for Glory that makes it a tricky listen at points.

Opener Human and later, less successfully, Faith For Doubt, divvy up the greatest hits of a Laurel Canyon-indebted film soundtrack with the driving rhythms of Fleetwood Mac. The latter is The War on Drugs without the transcendence. These, unfortunately, muddle an album filled mostly with quiet, vocal-led tracks that veer from haunting, sparse ballads to something more hopeful.

This Is How Tomorrow Moves is a sentimental and self-aware album that, at times, is emotive and infectiously catchy. At others, it is a little too safe, a little too generic and reserved.

While it is endearing to hear Karen O working with a more patient form of songwriting, the raw energy and emotion of her best work isn’t here.

Songs that are perfectly pitched to suit fans of Pixies, Daniel Johnson and Drive By Truckers; Lisa Walker on the other, working like Margo Timmins to make his harder (She’s Killed Hundreds) and funnier (Hello, I’m a Ghost) material more plaintive (Donny’s Death Scene, Hand of God).

There’s real heart buried underneath SUMAC’s furious, deafening bleakness; it can just feel like a serious excavation job to locate it.

The rhythm section never tries too hard, Philip Frobos’ vocals recline across the ten tracks with languid urgency, but it’s former Deerstalker guitarist Frankie Boyles who steals the show.

Ultimately while graves is a perfectly fine EP, it's also a mostly safe one.

Real Power is a lot of fun, though at points it seems to sacrifice bite in favour of a certain kind of generic polish.

Blanco has always fallen slightly short in lyrical content and, although there are hints of depth and melancholy, on tracks like High School Never Ends and You Don’t Know Me, Mykki never quite goes deep enough.

Their combined creative nous is such that if the two took the time to craft something more elegant and thought out, they could deliver a classic.

The result is more tacky than glam. If you’re in it for the jokes, Hippopotamus is worth the effort.

This is probably one for Veirs purists, but such is the standard of her songwriting that even among these sketches, there’s some real gems to be found.

The result is a more energetic pop sound and a bright 13-track album designed for live performance. There are shades of noughties indie twee in Ozard’s conversational storytelling style.

It’s not all headbanging and blistering hooks. Penultimate track Hangovers plays with the classic album construct of a stripped-back number, yet it’s really in the nostalgic nod to emo heartache where Muncie Girls dazzle.

The Modern Age is craftily frontloaded, rattling impatiently through the most immediate tracks and building up a steam of goodwill before slowing the tempo with the gentle experimentation of the title track.

Their obvious love of the Ramones’ weirder cuts is still alive and thrashing, and, admittedly, a lot of Adventure walks extremely familiar soil.

It's perhaps not the finest Hiss Golden Messenger album, but it's certainly one of the most joyful, and in the current climate, maybe that's just what we need.

Pax Americana is something of a mixed bag of a return for Bratten. Its short runtime and nature as a mix of already released and new material making it feel more like an elongated EP than a cohesive album. It’s a record that takes its time shaking off a clawing desire to replicate its influences, but ultimately finds the form that led to Bratten’s best work again.

While IRL is satiny and consistent, sonically and lyrically you’re eager for some bigger swings. At times operating in truisms, you await unspooling of edgier insight. IRL is like a path reflecting dappled sunlight: we can see patches of brightness but its full light is obscured.

It takes repeated plays to reveal the subtle depths, the pump organ, accordion, electric bass, melodica, mellotron.

When Bright Green Field follows in the footsteps of their best track The Cleaner – supercharging the banal and mundane with vigour and purpose – it rips, mixing genres like straight-ahead indie-rock with funk and jazz, and exploring ambient and textural backdrops which make their now-home Warp apt.

More Rain finds Ward playing genre bingo with generally enjoyable results, including a tasteful homage to T. Rex and a well-handled country number about his Christian faith.

VI is undoubtedly You Me At Six's poppiest effort yet complete with funky, melodic beats and synths along with relatable themes of relationships, feelings and late night adventures that perfectly straddles the line between pop and rock.

Ultimately, although it’s more immediate than their 2016 record, what you gain from We Are Sent Here By History will be dictated by how much you connect with its musical vision. Sink into its groove though and it’s an album that presents a fascinating societal commentary.

God Games provides glimpses of what makes The Kills so compelling, but is unlikely to convert many new listeners to the cause.

Plenty of highlights for fans of minimalism can be found here--choose, for instance, from the frosty, shimmering synth and compelling tempo of Scido, or the deliciously dark, skittish Sleep Chamber. There's a slight hiccup with Balance, which has a throwaway feel, and Some Cats is an unremarkable album midpoint, but Kowton's maturity rears its reliable head again amongst Loops 1's spare arrangement, and Shots Fired is a trancey album closer.

New Me, Same Us finds its vigour in the sweet spot between pure pop and the band’s more adventurous tendencies. When an emotionally-charged, jazz-inspired piano climax cuts through the otherwise smooth veneer of New Fiction or when Where You Belong leans fully into a part-funk, part-R'n'B groove, the band really hit their stride. It’s just a shame there are some stumbles on the way.

Overall, Space Gun gives hope for the continuing future of a band that’s already died twice. While there’s a few bumps here and there, this is the sound of a group drunk off its own energy and excited to be alive.

This is a band on a journey. Modern English Decoration nods to its predecessor, certainly, but you can hear the way in which the original duo has consolidated their appeal as a five-piece. These guys have got promise written all over them.

At its most delicate points, slow climbing chord progressions carry as much emotion as her lyrics, and at its lowest, though sparse, carry them where they feel overly simple.

Williams’ songwriting approach, while accomplished and still urgent, occasionally loses some of its ferocity and connection to the theme by playing to his game a bit too much; relying on that trademark electro-rock production instead of mutating contemporary trap and noise feels like a slight misstep.

Jonny arrives after a decade as the same well-paced and tender exercise in running in place, exactly where they always leave off.

This early run of songs is perfectly enjoyable and the lyrics play superbly with country clichés, but rarely does it reach towards the quality we know the band to be capable. That is until lead single Gentleman turns up and gives the album the kick it needs.

Thankfully, on third full-length Something’s Changed Rose seems to have dispensed with an ardent desire to please. She’s embraced her inner Beth Orton, and she’s ploughing her own furrow.

This time around, it's the longer tracks that hit the hardest.

There’s pressure to satisfy. Largely, it does – especially when there’s a spark with his songwriting partners. Rochelle Jordan brings heat to her pair of dancefloor-ready offerings. Still, with Charlotte Day Wilson, balances polish and raw performance. KAYTRANADA gets fantastic performances out of Anderson .Paak and Childish Gambino, who are given extravagant tracks to work with. Other moments are stilted.

Ideas disintegrate before developing, awkwardly blending into the next, leading to occasionally aimless moments. At its best, though, it’s a riveting and subtle addition to an already impressive discography.

Generally speaking, while it's a solid return for the group, it's likely to leave some wanting more, aching for some real catharsis or a change of gear here and there.

On Want You to Know she assures us that 'beneath the layers there is simplicity'. Despite this, there's always an emotional distance created by screens and technology, with tongue-in-cheek lyrics.

The true standout of the EP is Fickle Season. ... The other three tracks are inoffensive but somewhat forgettable

Dead Channel Sky’s brilliance is front-loaded. .... This vitality soon becomes mired in conceptual slog – testament that clipping. are capable of greatness but struggle to stay consistently great.

Hannigan's oeuvre requires patience and focus, and while much of this new collection is dependent on tone and texture to connect, eventually deeper qualties shine through.

It’s not teeming with future classics, but it’s their most solid and replayable record since Brain Thrust Mastery.

Young’s jump into pastures new feels significant throughout, coupled with lyrical themes of escapism and adventurous spirit. As such, the record feels purposely detached from much of their discography up until this point. That said, the band’s long championed easy-breezy, summer indie-rock still exists in bursts.

While RITUAL possesses Hopkins' trademark blend of dark vs light, it feels slight compared to his prior work, and so fails to reach his former glories.

It’s an album of shattered dreams and primary colours--“Where’s your sense of humour?” decries Blunderland--and more than once it isn’t obvious if the band are laughing with us or (in the nicest possible way) at us.

Moments help prevent Dizzy Spells from becoming one-note by putting a different spin on the happy-sad formula, keeping it a bright yet bittersweet full-length exploration of Clifford’s new sonic world.

Ultimately, at a drone-heavy run-time of over an hour, Dear isn't much of a fun prospect for a summer album.

What Marauder provides is a top-up of Interpol for the band’s most dedicated fans, but nothing that approaches their former glory.

In a confusing attempt at experimentation, the album shifts through different genres featuring elements of big band sound with the use of brass, synths and acoustic guitar-jazz which at times borders on ‘easy listening’. Despite playing it a bit safe, it is clear that KT Tunstall is very much in charge.

It’s a smooth ride for the most part but sometimes you just wish whoever's driving this thing would find a decent station and stick with it.

Compared to some of their previous works, it’s an album that also feels somewhat gloomy with Isaiah Barr’s thoughts on issues such as gentrification and eviction distilled into dark and often murky compositions. ... Despite this, Lower East Suite Part Three still manages to capture contemporary urban discord.

It’s in the curation of the record where Ayewa excels, presenting a platform for black and queer collaborators throughout.

Sallee’s songs tend to expand outwards, the feeling established at the outset spreading itself thinner as the loops cover more area.

Is Inner World Peace going to change the history of music? Probably not. But it will absolutely become a comfort album for many.

Sleater-Kinney’s decade-spanning songwriting style feels the same. Give us the electrifying assault and brutal guitar tones to fill those tiny cracks now present in our hearts. Give us a little more rope.

When it works, it’s thrilling, especially on the moody Moi and the mercurial, atmospheric Sons and Daughters. Elsewhere, Palms of Hands and Dusty are perhaps a little grindcore-by-numbers. Still, Neil and Vennart have presented their vision in uncompromising fashion, and those who yearn for Blackened Sky-era Biffy will unquestionably find something to love.

Perhaps it isn't quite a fully realised picture, but Life of Pause still paints a very pretty sonic landscape.

The most successful of these joint efforts is Outgrown which was co-written by Bonobo; elsewhere, partnerships with the likes of Lil Silva and Tracey Thorn cast a pop overtone--a characteristic of FitzGerald's past productions, but here it feels overly saccharine. Ultimately, All That Must Be’s best moments are also its least contrived.

Things start promisingly on opener Special, with the equally rip-roaring Fantasy shortly after. The problems emerge in the album's latter half, starting from the latest single Tonight, which feels sadly very safe and leads to songs that wouldn't feel out of place on an early 2000s generic pop-punk album.

Too often for a 30-minute record do you find ponderous filler (Notes in a Bottle, Now or Never, Properties of Perception), in which even the ever-earnest Murray doesn’t seem to believe the lyrics he’s opining.

The songs are solid enough, particularly Candlelight (a dead ringer for The Sonics) and Follow Me Home, which has the swagger and punch of Van Morrison's Them. If that whole milieu is to your taste, definitely worth seeking out.

he album could be considered experimental in its dizzy melodies and introspective topics. The entirety of Black Rainbow Sound delves into an unknown use of electronica; combined with indie-rock drum beats and guitar riffs, Menace Beach maintain that depth and power of a solid electro-indie album.

Wavves are no stranger to this smooth-to-rugged combination, and on Hideaway, the mix feels like a familiar cocktail recipe that mostly hits all the right notes.

Warzone is as much about her individual experiences as it is about the world we all inhabit. The album is not without flaws, the sentimentality of certain songs occasionally threatening to spill into the maudlin, but the overriding sense is one of deep and critical reflection, offering a sensitivity that is needed in our world now as much as ever.

Thrashing Thru the Passion is a good album of fine songs, great lyrics and passionate playing – but ending with the playing-at-being-The-Clash Confusion In the Marketplace, after various nods to Dexys, E Street Band, Van Morrison, The Replacements, Boomtown Rats and more, its staccato block chords might be one homage too many.

Menace Beach gain a lot from the distinctive nasal vocal style of former Komakino frontman Ryan Needham, and when he becomes largely absent the record suffers as a result. ... But when they strike gold, they hit it hard.

It wouldn't be a recommended entry point for Beach Slang, but the chances are you'd find one or two songs here palatable enough to seek out more. If you're a Replacements fan you'll either think this fills the Westerberg-shaped hole in your life or you'll tear your hair out and curse at just how audaciously similar some of these songs are. Still, whatever side of the fence you might sit on, it's probably worth a listen to find out.

While displaying every tongue-in-cheek, New Age sleight of hand Lopatin is famous for, it all feels less immaculate this time around, more polished for the big screen.

It's often said that love is better the second time around; whilst this remains to be seen, Cry is a grower and we look forward to love’s next incarnation.

Sometimes though the more minimal vibe that runs across Broken Politics feels a bit too languid and relaxed. Tracks can float by too easily, while the clattering air horns and steel drums of Natural Skin Deep feel out of place on an otherwise low-key album.

As some similar-sounding songs morph into the other, we can sometimes feel the narrow scope of 9 Sad Symphonies, but Nash charms with the winning, irreverent bluntness first employed in her vaunted debut, showing received pronunciation the proverbial finger.

By deliriously atmospheric closer Lisboa, it's clear that the Chicagoan trio have little new to offer the genre, but they sure know how to make a dead concept feel alive.