Wuthering Heights consists of just 12 songs, clocking in under 35 minutes. But songs like Dying for You, Chains of Love and Always Everywhere pack such a punch that their conciseness never feels like a curse.

He’s released a peach of an album.

It’s a detail that in outlook and delivery brings to mind the offbeat confessionals of the late Dory Previn. Mitski’s a rare talent.

The Mountain is Gorillaz’s best album since 2010’s Plastic Beach. It’s ambitious, kaleidoscopic, thematically cohesive and packed with the kind of bruised melodies that cement the Blur frontman’s status as the bard of middle-aged melancholia.

These are great musicians and great songs, assembled for an even better cause.

Barnett’s fourth record Creature of Habit sees her replace rip-roaring rock with earnest self-reflection, all while leaning into a softer sonic palette.

Sexistential is a stunning search for self-acceptance after motherhood and a long-term relationship coming undone.

Problems arise with I know You’re Hurting and Life Boat, a combined 10 minutes the album could arguably do without. The same could be said for the five minutes of thank you credits in Fin. Where the hell is my editor? might have been a more apt battle cry. Still, given its emotional heft and likely cultural impact, it’s an album that could turn Raye into Britain’s Beyoncé. It’s a towering achievement.

Showing little signs of ring-rust, Arirang is a great comeback by an outfit that even hardcore fans may have felt had lost their way across a series of increasingly syrupy releases prior to their hiatus. They have returned to their hip-hop roots and are re-engaging with their Korean identity.

The most devoted of devotees will get a kick out of this album, but even they will struggle to ignore its flaws, or how genuinely fed up – rather than his usual showboating – Morrissey sounds at times.

The results are always interesting and fun, but often hard to get a hold of – a slippery confection of influences that never stay still for too long lest they reveal a lack of depth.

It is fantastic to hear these artists back on the barricades, performing with energy and passion.

The whole album is a lot of fun. .... Britpop may ultimately be too old-fashioned to put the 51-year-old Williams back on the pop throne, but if it had come out in 1995, it might be counted as a vintage Britpop classic by now.

A triumph of marketing, it’s hard to escape notions that this shiny “new” version of the Anthology series essentially comprises remasters of previously remastered rejects.

Probing the paradoxes of someone who feels powerful in her art but vulnerable in her life, Welch’s masterful album affirms that she really is one of the greats.

The power of West End Girl lies in the way it clearly presents itself as one side of the story: a woman trapped in her own head. Narrative tension builds because listeners can’t pull out for a wider perspective on the situation, allowing us to share in Allen’s claustrophobia and paranoia.

Built around pianos and acoustic guitars, with lots of strings and harmonious backing vocals, it feels sleek but self-contained, akin to a Carole King album glossed up for modern listeners.

The production feels sturdy and busy. But there are no instant hits other than Manchild, and though the songs are dense with hooks and melodies, none of them are particularly memorable.

It’s emblematic of the album itself, which sees Burna Boy unsure whether he wants to be a gangster or a lothario. Fortunately, there’s just enough highs here to justify the listen.

What Wet Leg have done instead is nudge their formula – and their image – enough to maintain people’s interest yet not enough to alienate those drawn to their innate weirdness in the first place. It was the right move

Less the return of a pop titan, Swag feels like a cry to be heard. At times it’s uncomfortable, messy and a little confused – but perhaps after all this time, music is the only thing Justin Bieber knows will make people listen. Whether he has anything worth saying is another matter though.

Less successful is spongy new song One Heart, One Voice, on which Streisand, Ariana Grande and Mariah Carey ladle up sickly sweet lyrics and vocal sprinkles about onto the bland whipped cream and jelly of a sub-Disney love trifle. .... Bob Dylan makes more effective conversational space for himself on the 1934 jazz standard The Very Thought of You – the five o’clock stubble of his devoted rasp leaning into her silky sass as a breezy harmonica blows a fresh dynamic through the old tune.

Overall, Idols fails to quell that second reservation: you’re left wondering whether Harrison has really accepted who he is as an artist.

Now, it has come full circle, Carner has matured and Hopefully! represents the poetry of a loving father.

Van the Man is back doing what he does best. Remembering Now, his 47th album, is 14 songs of beautiful and reflective music addressing aging, romance and a sense of yearning for the landscapes and landmarks that made us who we are.

There’s so much to enjoy here for long-standing fans – a mellow soundtrack perhaps for the four-wheel pilgrimage down to Glastonbury, with some fittingly thought-provoking messaging on automotive responsibility going forwards.

Lotus is an absorbing and powerfully honest album.

Something Beautiful has three decent tracks (fizzy dance song End Of the World, emotional ballad More to Lose and the elegiac Golden Burning Sun) and one absolute monster of a sad banger, Easy Lover, that stands out like a blazing beacon amidst a parade of trite ditties overstretched far beyond their natural life to encompass banal poetic codas.