There is much to be admired here, rather less to be enjoyed.

The album, which was funded by producer Jeffrey Gaskill through Kickstarter, is full of treats; and Johnson deserves 21st-century acknowledgement.

Inspired playing by Sam Sweeney (fiddle), Rob Harbron (concertina), Roger Wilson (guitar, fiddle), Ben Nicholson (bass), Toby Kearney (percussion), and guests appearances from Jon Boden (guitar, fiddle) and Martin Simpson (guitar) add to a delightful album.

The album, produced by the celebrated Béla Fleck, has treats galore.

O'Donovan knows how to sing perfectly with sparse and delicate arrangements and the album, which also features Tucker Martine (the Decemberists), shows she can create some magic of her own on this her second solo album.

You and I lacks the depths and textures of Grace--the intoxicating communion with other musicians, the wild strangeness of his own nascent songwriting and the assuredness that came with locating his place in music. Yet, even without all that, Buckley’s raw talent alone remains an astonishing thing.

At 66 Raitt’s warm graze of a voice is better than ever, balancing the confidence of experienced with a more nuanced perspective. Inspirational.

The sound on this pivotal sixth album, however, is subdued, moody, even dark at times, the instrumentation stripped back to bare essentials.

A treat.

The harmonies are gorgeous and the lyrics thought-provoking. A good start to the year for folk music.

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.

Rod Picott achieves his aim of making an authentic studio version of his live shows in his new album Fortune. The material is sometimes contemporary.

The harmonising on Call to War is excellent and I particularly like the short and sweet To the Woods. An enjoyable album.

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.

Producer Jacquire King, who worked on Tom Waits’s Mule Variations and Norah Jones’s The Fall, allows Della's gutsy sound to soar.

At times the music feels more like a classical arrangement than a bluegrass record--but it works.

They are beautifully crafted songs, sung with feeling and subtlety and with lyrics full of honesty.

Happily, the words are wonderful and Something More Than Free is an album that grows and grows on you. Producer Dave Cobb is in fine action again and gets the best from the settings behind Isbell's effecting voice. Some of the songs are simply splendid.

On Over and Even, which was produced by Daniel Martin Moore, she also sings harmony with Will Oldham and Glen Dettinger and allied to riveting guitar work, as it is on My Only Trouble, the result is terrific.

It is the 12 songs he wrote and co-wrote that sparkle.

It feels as bold and weird as anything in Bowie’s back catalogue, sure to delight some and infuriate others.

Fans will miss the mordant voice and songwriting of Doves frontman Jimi Goodwin (whose 2014 solo debut Odulek found him pondering how to recover your youth and giving up the booze: “What have I got to lose?”) But the brothers acquit themselves well here.

Throughout, the band’s big, bittersweet sound is, as ever, wonderfully immersive: whalesong cycles of electric guitar echoing through a buoyant soup of synths that sound both pleasant and forgettable.

The melodies are lovely, if conservative: as elegant and classically tailored as her gowns.

It’s moderately uplifting, all pretty easy going and easy listening.

Art Angels is made of the same dark candy, with even more weird and wonderful flavour combinations. I began to think of songs as three-minute gobstoppers in which layers dissolved unexpectedly.

25 is certainly the equal of its predecessor. What it sacrifices in youthful rawness it makes up in maturity and sheer class. Adele Adkins has taken her time over her third album and it shows.

The result is more urgent, less reassuringly structured than your typical Elbow record.