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.

This album is the two-and-a-half-hour soundtrack. And it is an absolute performance masterclass.

For all its despair at the cost of war, this is not a protest record, rather a consideration of our place in the greater scheme of things.

The album is full of such deft perspective shifts and twists, on sharply written songs composed mostly with her eldest son Teddy (a fine singer-songwriter in his own right).

Lotus is an absorbing and powerfully honest album.

This is the Stones’ 12th live album. Do we need another one? Not really. Live at the El Mocambo is one for dedicated fans and completists, but it’s a fascinating snapshot of a band in transition – and great fun.

Van Etten evokes Eighties electro pop. You can almost see the dry ice and excessive mascara. The atmosphere is doomy and gothic, creating an underlying tension that casts her lyrics of devotion and self-forgiveness in a shadowy light. It’s as if she can’t quite commit to her own happiness.

An album that ultimately serves as both an emancipation and a proclamation, Grande fully bending her collaborators to her will instead of merely playing in their sandboxes, and creating a blissful fusion of pop and R&B that is entirely her own.

Sturgill Simpson has recorded an interesting album about the lure of home. Musically, it's a bold step away from the excellent Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (there's more soul and brass in A Sailor's Guide to Earth) but the songwriting remains strong and beguiling.

Tension is Minogue’s 16th album, and certainly ranks among her best.

11 songs of such staggering clarity that I found myself breathing a sigh of relief halfway through that bands like this still exist in Britain.

This is an album that sounds like a world of music in itself.

There's a real grace about The Longest River, the debut album from self-taught multi-instrumentalist Olivia Chaney.

Coombes, a quite masterful musical auteur after three decades in the game, skillfully navigates the record away from one long mid-life nightmare. ... it’s another hugely satisfying listen.

You have to be in the mood for Young Man In America but, when you are, you'll be rewarded by an absorbing album.

Scrub away reputations and this album is so much stronger than the latter-day works of many of Fay's contemporaries.

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.

Process seems unlikely to make Sampha a household name in his own right. Yet it has a drama and intensity that should increase his influence on those who already are.

He continues the good work with sixth album The Night Chancers, a set of seductive, atmospheric late-night grooves on which Dury conjures sinister vignettes of insomniac dwellers of the wee small hours.

What Volume 16 really demonstrates is that Dylan has a certain rock and folk comfort zone, and it was a mistake to ever push himself out of it. The most surprising treat is the sound of Dylan in fine voice warming up with cover versions of old favourites, including a soulful take of The Temptations’ I Wish It Would Rain, a steamy run through Elvis Presley’s Mystery Train with Ringo Starr on drums, and a slowed-down and heartfelt version of Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline.

Once I Was An Eagle is a masterpiece, and, at 23, she’s still only getting started.

Unsurprisingly, loss and grief lie at the core of the Foo Fighters’ most succinct and intense album.

Songs maintain a facade of well-mannered, old-fashioned structures (waltz times and Fats Domino-style “swamp pop” piano bass) that gradually reveal murkier interiors restlessly inhabited by Jones’s unique, meandering ghost-child of a voice.

Months from her 40th birthday, Ethiopian-American artist Kelela Mizanekristos has blessed us with a sexy, sultry masterclass in RnB.

In moments, it becomes too saccharine, particularly with the tooth-achingly twee track Darling. But .... When he then takes aim at rappers who fake their street credibility despite enjoying middle-class childhoods (probably a diss towards Drake), you’re reminded that there are few major label emcees still capable of such honesty.

A resounding comeback. ... The best thing Cocker has done since Pulp, and that is very good indeed.

It’s not all perfect: every so often, the tracks swing from sounding like impossibly cool, experimental rock to, er, Coldplay. Overall, however, this is guitar music at its most thrilling.

This is a set of funny, twisted, sharp-edged vignettes about the choices women face in the gritty, down-to-earth setting of daily working life – feminist pop as kitchen sink drama.