This is a brave album both sonically and strategically. Mendes’ previous four albums topped the US album chart so changing lanes is admirably risky. But I’m unconvinced this represents a great leap forward.

Opener Ready to Go Home is toweringly gorgeous, the Fela Kuti-like frenzy of Circle of Life is thrilling and the one chord riffing Love Ain’t Enough is a blast. Ballads offer more of a challenge, where Gillespie’s wheezy vocals have nowhere to hide.

Like many of his recent releases, it is bathed in qualities of ancient grace, a tender, philosophical, sometimes humorous looking back at life and forward towards death that reflects his advancing years, yet it also sounds astonishingly contemporary.

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.

There is something so cathartically bleak about Songs of a Lost World, so epically pessimistic and emotionally wrought, that the results are perversely invigorating, transmuting powerful feelings of loss, grief, anxiety, anger and self-doubt into a work of such grandeur it leaves the listener strangely exhilarated and uplifted.

The opening four tunes are extraordinarily catchy, yet each is marred by queasy allusions to sex (Zombie Love) and drugs (Dirty Luck), which’ll be a turn-off to many listeners.

You’re So Impatient rattles along like a lost mid-’60s garage-psychedelia nugget, but with a simmering fury that lurks unresolved. The near title track, Jane (The Night the Zombies Came) gives baroque chamber-pop a surreal cinematic twist, with its Morricone twang and offbeat “Jane!” chorus shouts.

Everything about this album suggests someone at peace, from the tone of voice to the smoothness of sound and transparency of lyrics. It strikes me as Marling’s least ambitious yet most satisfying album, as if she has stopped trying to write self-consciously great songs and yet they still arrive, smaller but perfectly formed.

It is arguably a better collection than the original Tension but lacks wow factor and a solid gold banger. It’s good enough to keep the Kylie show on the road, though. So release the tension, enjoy the ride.

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.

Taken alongside Brat’s first iteration, it’s a fun, crazed musical triumph; explored as its own entity, it can feel somewhat like a cynical marketing ploy dreamt up by suited bigwigs.

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.

Any hint of Coldplay ever having had rock inclinations has been blasted away in a blaze of pop hooks. There is little of the fragile intimacy of 2000 debut Parachutes, none of the rock angst of 2002’s Rush of Blood to the Head or the epic grandeur of 2005’s X&Y. It is the upbeat, poppy Coldplay honed to a gleaming EDM point.

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.

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.

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

Four albums in, the band are still no closer to honing in on a sound that’s recognizably theirs. There’s no denying the band’s impressive ear for melody, but on Smitten, they’re no closer to answering the question they posed three years ago: who am I?

In Colour might have been more ambitious in its production, but In Waves is a no-nonsense, euphoric work, perfect for a sunny day or a dance inside a club.

The big balloons that Perry’s music once waved aloft deflate slowly into a slew of dull, rubbery beats and empty boasts.

If the song strategies seem predictable and the sentiments over familiar, the album as a whole still grips my heart and squeezes. I find myself wanting to listen to it again and again, and I can’t say that about every album I review.

The songs are cerebrally bold but really get going when Gilmour finishes singing and launches into ambitious codas that remind us what an extraordinarily gifted guitarist he is, with impeccable touch and tone that can shift sublimely from tender melodiousness to flaming rock-outs.

It reminds me how much I miss the devilish Old Nick, but it’s a privilege to bear witness to such a beautifully realised artistic, emotional and philosophical journey by one of the greatest singer-songwriters of our time.

Espresso shot Carpenter into the spotlight, but Short n’ Sweet shows she is here for the long haul.

The Texas-raised Malone proves genuinely good at this stuff, with a sharp lyrical wit and sweet singing voice that rises to heights of soulful passion when needs be, notably on the disco flecked What Don’t Belong to Me and twisty alt-folk of Nosedive (the latter with Lainey Wilson).

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.

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.

It’s refreshing to hear an album that so thoroughly ignores those strictures. That said, I doubt Cellophane Memories will ever be more than cult listening.

It’s an amusing debut albeit she will have to develop skills, depth and substance if she hopes to be more than a flash in the pan. Just like in the kitchen, a little spice goes a long way.