Comparisons with Nilsson and early solo McCartney are high praise, but at his softer side it all threatens to go a bit Gilbert O’Sullivan. Yet this is a lovely debut and its innocence is a big part of its charm.

Freighted deep with lugubrious rolls of oily bass, sandy inhalations of desert strings, holy intonations and salty lust, Push the Sky Away is the audio equivalent of bathing in the Dead Sea.

The production by Jack Antonoff is stunning, with a huge amount happening beneath the surface of what first manifests as a scratchily intimate acoustic-flavoured unplugged band. There is not a weak song or throwaway performance here, amidst many that only reveal their secrets on repeated listening.

Her uncompromising, June Taboresque alto and imaginative, original material--from ye olde narrative ballads to modern love songs--are enduringly seductive.

An enjoyable and soulful album, the highlight of which is the title track Indian Ocean.

There is plenty of passion in songs about Tennessee striking miners in the Thirties, or about the English Civil War.

No doubts about this: Short Movie is a masterpiece.

Rod Picott achieves his aim of making an authentic studio version of his live shows in his new album Fortune. The material is sometimes contemporary.

Covering Black Tie, White Noise, The Buddha of Suburbia, 1.Outside, Earthling and ‘hours…’, this box set is a welcome opportunity to re-evaluate that period with a more forgiving spirit and historic context. Because (as they say in sport) form is temporary, class is permanent. And Toy is further proof that Bowie was always a class act.

While some of the songs slip into genericity, such as the forgettable There’s a First Time For Everything, others are 80s-inspired, synth-led earworms. Smells Like Me stands out as one of the album’s highlights, a masterclass in pop writing with an ultra-memorable hook.

The kids might not understand, but rock fans should be delighted that Kerr and Thatcher are still in the ring, giving it everything they’ve got.

A side project should be challenging and unusual; it should stretch the boundaries of the artists involved. Since that is what this characterful, strong, self-contained album does, you really have to like it or lump it.

I have no hesitation in saying that McCartney III is every bit the equal of its predecessors. It is unadulterated Macca, with a little bit of cheese on the side – the sound of one of the greatest songwriters of our time, having the time of his life.

It is not very hip, and it doesn't really hop, but Sleaford Mods have arguably come closer than anyone else to creating a uniquely British form of rap: rant music.

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.

There’s real genius at work here – but it’s so effortlessly delivered, you might almost take it for granted.

In weaker moments he veers into mawkish troubadour territory, but Blake's musical alchemy can be capable of matching the urban, nocturnal beauty of vintage Massive Attack.

Saturns Pattern is an album to wallow joyously in, even if the songs are as whimsical as Weller’s approach to punctuation.

Made up of 11 taut tracks, the highlights come thick and fast.

At times the music feels more like a classical arrangement than a bluegrass record--but it works.

Some of it is boring and the two songs from his George Harrison session chug along forgettably. But I’d swap my unloved copy of Self Portrait for this box set any day.

There's a nourishing warmth in their bittersweet laments.

As always, his technical control is astounding.

His long gestating third album is every bit as fantastic as earlier offerings, stuffed with narratives of contemporary bohemian life; wordy, free-flowing verses giving way to singalong choruses, spiced up with perky, lateral hooks.

Oh My God is a spiritual album for a secular age, one that tries to distil a sense of the divine from the very act of making music.

If you enjoy the dark imaginings of PJ Harvey and Nick Cave, this is worth immersing yourself in.

This is an album of rare truth and grace.

Nothing on this, her fourth album, rivals that hit [1234] for toe-tapping immediacy, but it is rich in atmospheric beauty.

Strangers is his most measured and thoughtful album to date.

Some gripping songs of internal angst with rock touches set off by luscious strings and Harvieu’s timeless voice.

A genuine treat, probably the best thing he has made since his debut.

You can get lost in the whole EP, which possesses all the quality and thought of a full-formed album, but flickers by like the yellow windows of a train in the dark, travelling on to somewhere new.

Through his distinctive voice and sound, Mustafa has carved out his own section within folk. Finding beauty in the ugly, this assured artist bared all.

Safe hands, then, when it comes to glossy, catchy hooks and tight structure: almost every track on It’s Nothing feels like it could be a single, as much 1980s synth pop as 1970s soft rock, with an undeniable glimmer of Haim on songs like Rotten Peaches.

It’s Heaton through and through, as are cultural reference points including Bovril, bus drivers, 50p bets, Deirdre and Ken Barlow, and pubs. Lots of pubs. It’s a bit of a musical picnic.

The Magic Whip turns out to be a triumphant comeback that retains the band's core identity while allowing ideas they'd fermented separately over the past decade to infuse their sound with mature and peculiar new flavour combinations.

Distance Inbetween is by some distance the Coral's most muscular offering.

Its 10 tracks offer a timely reminder of just why Oasis resonated so widely, empowered by a melodious and snappy songwriter with plenty of heart and soul.

Fender is young enough to be immersed in the life he documents, not writing at a nostalgic remove. When he rises to longing high notes on weekend anthem Saturday, you can really feel him straining at the leash. I think Springsteen would approve.

It's a fully-acoustic affair (guitar, piano, upright bass, drums, etc), with a luxurious, live-combo presence and some gruff musings on time, humanity and music.

As you’d expect from one of Britain’s most cerebral and celebrated sonic adventurers, this isn’t the kind of music you can hum in the bath. It’s challenging, other-worldly and thought-provoking.

This is bold, weird, beautiful stuff, but the listener has their work cut out getting to it. Ironically, the core of I Am Easy to Find is not particularly easy to find. At all.

Mercy is not an easy listen, but it is nevertheless inspiring to hear an octogenarian artist declining the comforts of nostalgia, still forging his own wayward path, opening byways for others to explore at their leisure.

Grande can really sing, which is a treat in this Auto-Tuned era. Her four-octave range has been compared favourably to Mariah Carey’s, but her style is far more delicate and understated. She rarely unleashes full power blasts but her delight in singing is transparent and her producers take full advantage, layering her all over the tracks.

The collective’s strength lies in their snakelike energy: all coiled muscle, hypnotic sway and dangerous unpredictability. The flaw is that it can all get a bit lairy.

We are in the presence of mad, brilliant, soulful genius and there is no choice but to surrender.

It may be just another Ron Sexsmith album about the romance of the everyday but that could be just the balm your spirits need in troubled times.

Nelson’s bravura title track had a defiant vigour when Sinatra delivered it as a mid-life crisis anthem in 1966, but it takes on a different pathos when gently sung in the weathered tones of an octogenarian. ... Nelson’s jazzy combo and luscious string arrangements are more faithful to the old swing style. These versions are not intended to replace, reinvent or even rival the originals, simply to bring them back into the light.

The weirder moments--the molten strings and xylophones--redefine the band as a powerful and original force.

Dornik’s voice wafts past like a poolside waiter, in service of the scenery, not standing out from it. Ultimately, the album has the same effect: but it’s still the season’s coolest British background music.

On Gemini Rights, his second solo album proper, Lacy returns to a familiar well of sexy debauchery and smooth licks, while unpicking the emotional aftermath of a recent break-up.

The album feels longer than its 12 tracks, and frequently verges on overblown. But perhaps that’s the point. Surrender leans so hungrily into its sonic vision of maximal catharsis that the album soon embodies its title – and propels you into doing the same.

Bloodsports is bleeding good.

There was a time when Morrison created elaborate, adventurous arrangements, but for decades now he has fallen back on standard tropes of rhythm and blues, accompanied by virtuoso musicians trading tasteful licks. Yet Morrison can still clamber inside a song and punch through, as if battling for emotional release, until that gorgeously modulated voice soars somewhere unexpected.

You Are Not Alone, her 2010 collaboration with Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, won Staples her first Grammy. The follow up is even better.

Ugly makes for difficult listening in places, but that’s not to say it isn’t often brilliant. Experimental, disarmingly honest and conceptually tight, blending rap, alt-rock and electronica, there’s no denying that Frampton is putting in the work.

Overall, it's a good album.

This is glorious summer music, possibly the summer of 1974, but sunshine all round none the less.

It's real music for grown-ups.

PinkPantheress’s pop gift is to make something airily attractive out of elements that could be brain melting, as if singing with the internal voice of a generation numbed by the everything goes-ness of the internet.

This fifth album trades their signature Fender Stratocaster rock sound for hard-plucked acoustic guitars and lutes, conveying a majestic sense of space, the feeling that the music will unfold at its own pace, however long it takes.

Failing to commandeer some stormy rockers, Faithfull proves most evocative on a couple of tender, stripped back ballads, Love More Or Less (written with Tom McRae) and Nick Cave collaboration Deep Water.

His pensive, personal songs often evoke nocturnal drives on dusty highways with hypnotic allure.

Let's hope the slightly odd CD cover image does not put anyone off discovering the music held within because Jarosz has produced a fine album.

The Australian singer-songwriter's fourth album evolves into a sweeping, original aural landscape through which she embarks on an involving journey of self-discovery.

There is a maturity and conviction to this album that makes it a step up.

The band add welcome bite to proceedings with the result that this album is immensely more satisfying than Garvey’s fussy 2015 solo debut, Courting the Squall.

An atmospheric ode to the anxieties and rewards of new fatherhood on his debut solo album.

Their love for their art is evident. When their voices come together, it is pure magic.

The Nearer the Fountain may be Albarn’s most intimate, understated and impenetrable work yet. But if you are prepared to get lost in his self-involved hall of mirrors, you might just find yourself beautifully bedazzled.

More of this crooned gothic gospel, like a Nick Cave/PJ Harvey murder ballad, would be welcome in an album that can dip too often into cheesy, handclapping sentimentality. First Aid Kit have the dynamic songwriting and performance mettle to deliver more nuanced, exploratory terrain than Palomino offers.

King of a Land is unlikely to bring in legions of new fans – Yusuf’s Pyramid appearance will hopefully do that. But it’s a lushly beautiful album from one of pop’s master songwriters. Indeed, the medium is perfect – it’s just the message that is a little monothematic.

Occasional lines jerk out of the mix as Dylan struggles for control of his vocal chords. But his unique phrasing and delivery is usually right on the nose of the song’s meaning.

Utopian Ashes, then, is a marriage made in musical heaven, conjuring marital hell.

It’s a brief cloud over a lovely record that is the aural equivalent of lying down in a sunny meadow, located somewhere between Stockholm and Nashville.

Deeply infused with rich, subtle hooks, Modern Nature is a patient album that warms the bones with a steady fusion of mid-tempo Curtis Mayfield soul (muzzy organ, bongos and funk guitar), with memories of Madchester club nights (baggy beats, chunky chords, shoegazer vocals) and tasteful string arrangements.

It is exhaustingly, daringly, bafflingly brilliant, but you might want to lie down in a dark room after listening.

There is a joyful exuberance to Revival, which has U2 and Coldplay arranger Rupert Christie at the helm.

The lads have given this album everything, everything and then some.

There is, as Bush intended, much more air around the songs, which can reduce their original, raw intensity but also gives them a more mature, lingering potency.

Hideous Creature doesn’t possess the same pop immediacy of Sim’s day job, but it does feel like a record that needed to be made: vital and beautiful.

It is either the sound of someone who has begun to believe her own publicity, or who has stopped caring what anyone else thinks and is determined to follow her muse wherever it wanders. There’s a fine album lurking amidst the indulgence but listeners have their work cut out trying to locate it.

Beyoncé impressively matches her superstar rapper husband in terms of lyrical swagger, rhythmic flow and verbal bounce. That she does it to a backdrop of samples constructed around her own extraordinary singing lends the record's mantric grooves the luxurious sheen of high-end pop.

[James Blake's] most fully-realised album to date. ... Dizzyingly romantic.

A Dream Is All We Know is that rare thing: a perfectly crafted, concise collection of 12 songs that brim over with good-will and optimism.

The 60-year-old producer has clearly been keeping an aficionado’s ear on developments in digital electronica, and there is nothing particularly retro or dated about this comeback. Thorn’s voice has a timelessness that will always sound contemporary. She never strains or overemotes but lets her instinct for elegant melody and the understated intelligence of her lyrics carry the dramatic weight.

There is a tangible sense of joy in performance, although with no greater clarity of lyrical expression. ... His own work remains wilfully obscurantist, emotionally open and lyrically closed, as deep and meaningless as listeners are prepared to let it become.

The two make a fine vocal duo, but even more astonishing is their instrumental virtuosity.

The result is furiously syncopated, no-holds-barred rock made marvellously strange by Camara's squawking fiddle and invocatory singing.

She elegantly smudges the borders of a brass and banjo-driven sound with sophisticated little experiments in rhythm, production and arrangement.

It teases and satisfies at once, which is why, unless you’re allergic to Snarky Puppy’s special charm, you’ll want to play this album over and over.

The Secret of Us marks her move into a more anthemic sound – one that sounds remarkably Swiftian, ready to be blasted out in larger venues. .... The album also features Close to You, a track Abrams teased seven whole years ago but never released – and it’s the clear highlight, all deliciously retro-synths and introspective lyrics that refrain from taking themselves too seriously.

Thirty years on, Albarn sounds just as dissatisfied with the state of the modern world, yet he still appears to have at least a cartoon finger on its pulse.

The results are fantastic: an album of world-beating standard yet still intimate and friendly, an epic of the everyday, a romance of the real.

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.

The sexy android cover and star-studded collaborations (including alternative icons Lizzo, Haim and Christine and the Queens) on her third album, Charli, suggest an all-guns-blazing pitch for blockbuster status. But the contents are far weirder than that implies. ... Come the century's end, you can almost imagine future critics scratching their AI-augmented brains and still touting Charli XCX as the next big thing.

The effect is classic Suede, with mature moments of recollection in tranquillity.

Don’t go into this record expecting grand revelations or the sort of ferocious rock swagger that characterises the work of other artists who have worked with Rubin in the past; its softness is wholly responsible for its charm.