He's made the kind of record that every kid rummaging through boxes of Seventies vinyl at the car boot sale hopes to find. One that lovingly reassembles a 21st-century impression of that era's warm autumnal hues and tactile textures.

This would all be simply infuriating were it not for the melodiousness that binds these strange sounds and images together, the feeling stirred up by Vernon’s voice, and his gift for chord progressions that sweep you along almost against your will.

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.

Sharper production focuses the singer's woozier tendencies, revealing a succession of hooks to adorn his take on Neil Young's grooving folk-rock and Blur's twisted indie.

Deep-pocketed obsessives who’ve managed to keep pace with Young’s reissues may be disappointed to hear that most of the raw versions of these songs have appeared before. But for more regular fans, the music on this album is wonderful. It’s supremely chilled yet deeply soulful, a dream soundtrack for early-summer evenings

It’s infested with the collective naughtiness and layered irony of a B-movie all-nighter.

This is an album of mature, accessible pop-rock. The singing is beautiful, the playing immaculate, the sound warm and rounded, with nothing to scare the horses.

These are songs rich in detail, soul deep, often burdened with worry and a lifetime’s baggage, yet it’s the hazy sense of a drifter’s freedom in New Magic II which wins through, lifting your spirits time and again.

Her command over that mass of bodies remains.

Lisa Hannigan is on confident form in her second solo release since the split from Damien Rice.

She really does sweep the listener away, spinning wild webs of sound and carrying us off to her own aural dreamland.

It is as if one of the saddest albums you will ever hear is masquerading as a set of party hits. Nevertheless, No Shame should be compulsory listening for every young wannabe who still thinks pop stardom will be a panacea for all their problems.

Wild Beasts have shed a lot of excess, offering a stripped-back amalgamation of analogue Eighties synths, snappy machine rhythms and industrial rock guitar buzz, coloured with great swathes of harmonic panache, that is lean and mean enough to pass for modern pop. This newfound purpose is the real revelation of Wild Beasts’ strongest album to date.

Dark Times undoubtedly makes for more challenging listening than Ramona…, but for listeners willing to put in the time and effort, prepare to be rewarded.

The Civil Wars offers up 12 perfectly elegant, subtly arranged Americana songs of bad love, misplaced emotion, cheating hearts, fighting and fleeing.

Dealing frankly with love, rejection, frustration, self-doubt and self-acceptance, almost every one of the 10 tracks is catchy and distinctive enough to become a hit.

A defiantly bravura set of melodic metal on which the 73-year-old genuinely sounds as though he’s having the time of his life.

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.

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

Given the circumstances surrounding its creation, there is unsurprisingly a sadness at the heart of Two Ribbons, but even in quieter moments such as the acoustic Strange Conversations, or the atmospheric interlude In The Cemetery, the air is of light breaking through. And, equally often, there is a redemptive clarity and a wonderful sense of healing.

With the right collaborators she can conjure golden moments.

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.

Thoughts on suicide, homelessness, injustice, heartbreak and mortality are framed with supple grooves, melodious chords, gorgeous harmonies and lushly detailed arrangements.

It’s the same mix that made their Mercury-winning album so irresistible, but the range of musical references from jazz and West African Highlife and the London street is even bolder, the solos from keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones and trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi freer and more generous.

Sour is a melodramatic pop opera of broken teen dreams: right now, it puts Rodrigo in the driver’s seat, and woe betide anyone who gets in her way.

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.

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

Muse are a blockbuster band, and this is another box-office-demolishing spectacular – it would feel like self-denial not to surrender. Honestly, the end of the world has rarely sounded like so much fun.