Athough the two old giants of country music can't hit all the notes of youth their phrasing is neat and nuanced on their fourth album together.

This, for better or worse, is clearly the music Rihanna likes: leftfield, stoned and strange. It is Rihanna without hits. This strange album, released without warning over the internet for free, may well be a reflection of the fact that not even her own backers really expects this to be a commercial blockbuster. It is more an exercise in rebranding, transforming the hit girl into a serious artist.

It could have been mawkish but it's a simple, affecting and lovely tribute.

Parping away beneath her synthesised fantasies and hypnotic dance floor dramas, you can also hear the unlikely stirrings of an Eighties sax-solo revival.

It remains a fairly relentless listen and at least a couple of tracks too long. Yet the album’s tale of survival against the odds has powerful personal relevance beyond its often clumsy social commentary.

The songs are slickly constructed but you can't help feeling it is familiar territory and not a patch on past triumphs.

WE is their sixth album, and every bit as good as their best. ... With a work as ambitious and boldly realised as WE, Arcade Fire know they have nothing to fear by inviting comparison to rock’s all-time greats.

It is a witty, catchy delight that demonstrates Skinner still has his ear to The Streets sound.

Uptown Special veers wildly from high to low brow, stupid to sophisticated. Occasionally the mix jars but mostly it’s a compelling collision, falling somewhere between a chin-stroking jazz poetry recital and a riotous teenage disco.

The Now Now ultimately sounds exactly what it is: music made on the road as an escape from homesickness.

Lipa’s cooly commanding voice holds the attention on expansive melodies that make the most of her range, flowing between rich low tones, a husky middle and sweet highs. It is precise, luxurious, energetic without ever really breaking a sweat.

Lungu Boy should go down as another triumph for Asake. The Nigerian’s third album is at once cohesive and versatile and will surely see deserved play in the bedroom, at the gym, on the dancefloor and beyond.

Everything is quite extraordinary; an orchestral poem of spiritual surrender that offers up a gorgeously bleak depiction of “the whole magnificent emptiness”.

The album is the second in the four-volume Nomad series and the Cowboy Junkies said they felt they owed Chesnutt something. They have paid their debt in handsome fashion.

Arrangements are marked by clarity, one thing easing into another in a beautifully measured fashion.

There are interesting multi-part song structures and deft modern production quirks, with touches of autotune and sampling that don’t overwhelm the more classic guitar and keyboard arrangements. Melodies are big and bright and everything is encased in walls of harmonies.

You don’t have to be greater than the sum of your parts when the parts are already as great as this.

With Ross’s voice shifting from deadpan sweetness to striking shout over bare-essentials grooves adorned with just a twist of something startling on each track, I Am Moron is much cleverer than it would have you believe.

Producers Dave Kaplan and Dave Darling have sanded the new arrangements of smooth oldies such as Gentle on My Mind down to the rough grain. The result is a deeply moving record--a warm, valedictory squeeze of the listener’s hand from the cowboy hunk.

While there is room for improvement, I Hear You is an impressive debut album, tackling a multitude of genres with remarkable confidence. It’s yet another step in the right direction for Peggy Gou.

For an album drawing on despair and recovery, Dancing with the Devil… The Art of Starting Over is a life-affirming pleasure from top to bottom.

Anyone expecting a stroboscopic hoedown may be disappointed, but if it’s great performances of great songs you’re after, then fill your boots.

It is, as ever, heart-on-sleeve stuff, with all of Coldplay’s musical diversions bound together by Martin’s golden gift for melody, almost simplistically direct lyrics and emotive crooning. But, oh my goodness, you’d have to be made of sterner stuff than I to resist.

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.

Her gorgeous 1960’s Dusty Springfield style version of World of a String could be a pop hit in any era.

Even at its most ambitious, everything is swept up in a blizzard of overcharged guitars and stylised snarling that would have sounded old-fashioned in 1981, let alone 2024.

It's more Glee Club than cutting edge pop queen, and, as is so often the case with big pop albums, too many production teams spoil the froth.

Everlasting is an eclectic mix.