It’s a relief to find Williams as thought-provoking and moving as ever.

The group maintain control throughout, making this a flawless and packed debut – one that has been worth the wait.

Throughout, he remains prickly and eloquent.

As a whole, it’s a confident imagining of her infectious future funk sound.

Átta feels surprisingly unengaging.

Its songs, by southerner Randall Bramlett, don’t have the heft of Dylan or Simone, but prove a good fit for Lavette’s heart-on-sleeve vocals.

Having parked her dystopian allegories, it follows that Monáe now feels a little more like an artist in a crowded partying field. But she has earned this mainstream place. Moreover, she remains distinctive.

This is a sexy, sparkling snapshot of borderless youth in 2023, with Amaarae emerging as an ascendant star.

The less good news is that although every pairing has juice in it – the inclusion of a Nicole Scherzinger-paired Hawaiian traditional is a great curveball – many of these songs feel like over-pretty drawing room star turns. Nothing here is slick, exactly, but much tends towards mellifluous pleasantness – even the songs about protest and murder.

It’s a shame, then, that the songs accompanying Grohl’s most powerfully affecting set of lyrics so often fail to reach the same standard [as the Foo Fighters’ 1995 debut].

The third album since Shirley Collins’s renaissance at 81 turns out to be the finest.

Clark’s falsetto, reminiscent of Caribou’s Dan Snaith or executive producer Thom Yorke, is used carefully as a texture that neither distracts nor dominates, counterbalancing the occasionally abrasive electronics.

There’s not a weak song here. A genuine pleasure to listen to.

If some of Young’s ballads feel more conventional, the jazz-tinged Pretty in Pink reveals an artist who questions, but ultimately knows who she is.

It’s a sprawling, chequered affair, with six of its 14 tracks co-written with Albarn (she on guitar, he on synths), while the rest co-opt a stellar cast of collaborators. There’s much to admire.

Animals continues seamlessly, using a raft of guest musicians and rappers, its rhythms shuttling between drum kit and electronica.

Starring his voice and nimble guitar, with subtly dramatic instrumentation adding texture throughout, this is less a record than a dream state designed to wash over the listener in one sitting.

Though interludes from the late guru Ram Dass feel a little hokey, overall Gag Order is polished, powerful and affirming.

Too many songs start engagingly, become slightly less interesting then peter out. And as ever, Tucek’s lyrics fall between pleasingly quotidian and blandly banal, derailing promising tracks such as The Tunnel.

This is an album full of emotional ambushes.

What’s lacking is a standout floor-filler. There’s nothing here that comes close to Ooh La La, and some of these slight but elegant songs just fade too far into the background.

Perhaps Money Plant is overlong, but the mournful coda of Ladder more than makes up for it. Yes, it’s a little one-dimensional, but it’s a lovely dimension.

Subtract is palpably a grownup record on which he swings from coping to not coping. ... Artistically, things are less clear cut. If this is not a time for frisky, funky percussion, the watery tropes on these songs are matched by the album’s misty sound.

The spacious, wiggly drum’n’bass of You, Love outclasses much of the jungle 2.0 around now, while You Broke My Heart but Imma Fix It is so nimble and textured it’s impossible to pin down. The slight downside: The Rat Road remains dominated by voices that are not Jerome’s, so it’s hard to hear the autobiography. But that’s a small caveat.

Mostly, this post-genre approach works. But pure electronics are her strongest suit; you want to cheer when the housey oscillations of Sky River arrive after too much derivative wafting.

In its themes of longing and Berninger’s baritone vocals, it has all the hallmarks of a National record, yet lacks the vitality to stand out in their back catalogue.

While many mainstream acts lean on jazzists to lend some flair, it’s rare that it goes the other way. But Dinner Party bring serious chops to contemporary music’s top table.

Standouts such as Run a Red Light and No One Knows We’re Dancing provide clubland demimonde vignettes, while a number of expansive, impressionistic sound-beds allow for more matter-of-fact lyrics about loss (Lost) and cutting oneself some slack (When You Mess Up). Less memorable are the songs – like Caution to the Wind - where the two coast pellucidly along.