Whether Pot Of Gold’s lullaby or any of Felt Better Alive is exactly hit material by 2025 standards is hard to say, but it’s wonderful to hear this wayward hero sound so happy to be alive.

Like the best rap albums, Home? is infused with musicality, drawing on reggae, afrobeat, garage and R’n’B, punctuated by horns, guitars and a swimmy dubby sensuality. Wretch is a sharp wordsmith who also sings with a raw sweetness reminiscent of Bob Marley.

Pink Elephant doesn’t have quite the same swagger as earlier albums. It is almost too personal, like listening to a preacher begging for forgiveness from his flock. Yet the sheer power of Arcade Fire in full flight should be enough to restore any sinner’s faith in rock and roll.

Taylor aimed for “sing-along stadium tropes” on this new album, mainly achieved via a sizeable chorus who lend their lungs to many of its tracks, often to rousing effect. .... Despite the choral boost, Taylor’s music only really unleashes its full power on stage — it deserves to be experienced live.

Despite the album’s occasionally jolting stylistic shift from darkness to light, there’s something reassuringly well-crafted about Sable, Fable. In a world of fluff and mayhem, it feels solid, needed even.

This is a set of absolute bangers including a barrel-house Crocodile Rock romp through Little Richard’s Bible, the twisty Americana-flavoured fantasia of Riverman and a moving Elton solo finale on When This Old World Is Done Me. On such evidence, we’re not done with him yet, nor he with us.

Folky stand-outs like Monochrome cast a warm glow, and Carry On concludes with the expertly poignant wordplay and emotive refrain which will surely have Anglo-American audiences weeping. Five albums in, the Mumfords will, indeed, carry on.

On the strength of Tell Dem It’s Sunny’s liltingly exploratory grooves, a world-wide audience will surely start getting acquainted with this maverick icon-in-waiting.

For Melancholy Brunettes is an odd, subtle, suffocating album essaying a complexity and ambiguity you don’t often hear in modern pop.

The 11 songs here are another slice of juicy joy, and the final track implies that it won’t actually be the last we hear from him.

Mayhem is exciting but exhausting, a battering ram sonic assault. In such bland pop times, it’s good to see her parking her tanks back on the dance floor.

I am blown away by this album, which will reward a lot of listening.

It [TV Dinners] is one of a handful of exceptional songs that raise this album above Fender’s base level tendency towards passionate but undistinguished rocking. The most exquisite is the clipped guitar and synth mesh of the downbeat Crumbling Empire, that brushes against Springsteen’s Philadelphia with hints of Don Henley’s The Boys of Summer in a song about returning to the ruined scenes of his misspent youth.

Pop music has become saturated with soft, emotional ballads (the songs of Billie Eilish and Gracie Abrams spring to mind). McRae offers a welcome change – if you want tunes packed with snappy, catchy choruses and racy lyrics that make you feel powerful and sexy, then look no further.

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 more than stands on its own merits.

Automatic is a lovely thing, made with understated soul and humour.

Alexander’s fantastic voice is pushed to the fore, making the most of rich, appealing, high vocal tones reminiscent of Green Gartside of Scritti Politti or (in more modern terms) multi-billion streaming superstar the Weeknd. Even Dizzy sounds better in this context, a breathless banger that shakes off its Eurovision failure to spin around the dancefloor once more.

There’s a wonderfully empowering sense of elders handing down sublime idealism and wisdom for our entertainment and enlightenment. Behind dodgy titular spelling, Renascence is top-class.

Hurry Up Tomorrow is certainly a bold way to drop the curtain on a phenomenal career, a luscious pop epic about how awful modern fame really is.

Variously evoking euphoria and melancholy, awe and introspection, Mogwai’s latest triumph further cements their status as Great British originals.

The joy of Eusexua is not so much its oversexed content as its alien sounds, incorporating elements of acoustic balladry, industrial rock, ambient soundscapes, moody trip-hop (one of her co-producers is Marius de Vries who has worked with Bjork and Bowie) and shimmery electropop (on Like A Girl and Perfect Stranger, Twigs evokes Madonna and Kylie Minogue at their most sparkling).

It is another fine album from one of the country’s finest singer-songwriters, quietly but productively ploughing his own fertile furrow.

Lambrini Girls’ music is not for everyone, but nor is it meant to be, and, taken as a statement of intent from one of Britain’s most hyped new bands, it’s a pretty ballsy one. Big d--k energy, indeed.

A little bit of Ringo goes a long way, which has been the challenge of his solo career. The good news is that his 20th album may genuinely be his best since the post-Beatles highs of the 1970s.

With his new album, Afrikan Alien, Salieu cements all this raw potential by creating a galvanising record that roots itself in uplifting immigrants and unifying warring factions of an inner-city community.

Mahashmashana is Tillman’s best album yet. It’s hearty. It’s massive. It’s (captain) fantastic.

While Petrichor is a solid album that will surely cement 070 Shake’s visibility, it would be good if she embraced more of the poppier moments instead of obscuring them under foggy soundscapes.