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.