SERPENTINA isn’t a coherent whole but rather a doggerel and ill-considered mishmash of disparate parts.

Tempest’s turn of phrase is constantly arresting.

It is an absolute blast, a crunchy, punchy, smart, deliciously goofy charge through new wave pop rock. It bursts with earworm hooks, snappy choruses and the delightful sense that the duo at its heart are having such a hoot they don’t really care what anyone else thinks.

While this pastiche is obviously intentional, it never really feels like one. It also creates a much more romantic and intriguing world to fall into than the closed-curtains one of its predecessor. Josh Tillman remains a curious cat, but here he also sounds like a much more contented one.

Every tiny detail is in aesthetic congruence with the initial feelings that birthed these songs – all of which you’re made privy to in violently vivid detail. Broken Hearts Club is an expertly sequenced, perfectly packaged ode to a lost love.

They exhilarate and seduce the listener into a world that makes enduring and acknowledging turbulent times a bit more glamorous.

The sound is lean and clean, sharply separated with individual instrumentation shining through and not a lot of over-dubbing or effects.

This record is undoubtedly their strongest offering since 2006’s Meds, strengthened by the inclusion of the sort of furious social commentary that made them such heroes to countless kohl-eyeliner-wielding teenagers in the late 90s.

Gifted keeps giving: Koffee achieves a brilliantly confident debut with the promise of more good things to come.

Mainstream Sellout portrays MGK as a victim of success; it gleams like a fancy ornament on an industry merry-go-round – then the music hits you, not with a roar, but a very loud meh.

There are a few moments here that feel like major label fodder, sure, but on the whole Kojey Radical deserves enormous credit for putting out an album that remains thoughtful and spiky despite its clear intention to get people dancing.

Because there’s a rap-type of percussion to her music, it’s hard to tell whether she’s ready to break into an indie harmony or some lo-fi poetry – yet this unpredictability is what makes PAINLESS so exciting to sit through. ... This should rubber-stamp Nilüfer Yanya as a generational star.

The songs themselves may not be complex but the simple and sincere emotions expressed on anthems such as the chiming indie epic Forever, the rip-roaring AC/DC-style rocker Running Round My Brain and the Rod-Stewart-flavoured piano ballad Every Dog Has Its Day carry a potent weight of feeling and offer euphoric release.

As always with Mehldau ambition often tips over into pretentiousness, but one forgives him because there’s a real musical sensibility at work.

Crash is clever and fun, as her admirers have come to expect from XCX, but until Charli scores a bona fide smash it is going to feel like an art project commenting on the state of pop rather than the real thing.

The pure beauty and emotion of Rosalia’s vocals and the sensational grooviness of her rhythms all speak for themselves, offering a fantastically fresh take on Latin flavours and modern urban pop.

The most disappointing thing is how thin much of Donda 2 sounds, how messy and badly structured the songs are, how few pop hooks or memorable melodies it conjures, and how weak and repetitive West’s rhymes often are.

The album stands as a triumphant poke in the eye to modern listening mores. It sounds like a leisurely road trip around the hazy fringes of the most intense summer of your life, back in the days when summers – like this album – comprised segueing chapters.

The Dream is sensuous and seductive, but it often lingers on the borderline of turning into a nightmare.

If Laurel Hell is anything to go by, Mitski is only getting better.

It’s easy to make fun of, but the melodies are uniformly gorgeous, the layered synth and string arrangements are bright and exciting, Smith’s singing is filled with pliant emotion, and it all adds up to a pop album so addictive that it feels as though it had been intravenously injected into my system.

What songs they are: melodious, wise, elegantly understated but emotionally resonant.

The don’t-bore-us, get-to-the-chorus model followed by the top half of Night Call works fine when taken in pieces, or as the beat-driven soundtrack to a gym workout. But it frustrates and alienates in its album sequence. Yet, Night Call delivers in affirming Olly Alexander as an artist capable of connecting with a varied, multi-generational audience.

The Overload is a very fine debut from a group that sound like they think they are smarter, funnier and fiercer than all of their peers, and just might prove to be.

The tension and ambiguity implicit in downbeat songs with upbeat choruses lies at the heart of an album that may not easily yield its secrets but will keep you singing as you try to work them out.

Dawn FM is his most ambitious album to date, and one that shows welcome signs of emotional and psychological growth.

There’s a range, ambition, confidence and accomplishment on display.

Covering Black Tie, White Noise, The Buddha of Suburbia, 1.Outside, Earthling and ‘hours…’, this box set is a welcome opportunity to re-evaluate that period with a more forgiving spirit and historic context. Because (as they say in sport) form is temporary, class is permanent. And Toy is further proof that Bowie was always a class act.

The Bridge is out of time yet timeless, pure pop class.

This is certainly her strongest album yet, a work of catharsis, therapy and succour. It does what pop music is greatest at: gathering up emotions, focusing them and pouring them out to songs that everybody can sing, but few can sing quite as well as Adele.

The Nearer the Fountain may be Albarn’s most intimate, understated and impenetrable work yet. But if you are prepared to get lost in his self-involved hall of mirrors, you might just find yourself beautifully bedazzled.

When the harmonies blend and Andersson’s piano rings out, it sounds enough like Abba to have hardcore fans tossing their feather boas in the air. But the dancing queens have lost the spring in their step, and the result is out-of-time rather than timeless.

To some tastes, Sheeran will be corny and trite. Yet what he does well is essentially inarguable: provide songs that fulfil the emotional needs of universal moments.

Everything on this flashy, melodramatic album punches its weight. If it had come out in 1985, it would have ruled the world.

It feels like Del Rey’s way of reminding us we still don’t know as much about her as we like to think. Blue Banisters hints, tantalisingly, that there is far more to reveal, while putting us firmly in our place. Make no mistake about it: Del Rey will do it all strictly on her own terms.

The movement back and forth between the chiselled simplicity of the core Suite itself and the freedom of the improvisations that spin out from them creates a sense of epic scale. It’s a more than worthy addition to the Coltrane recorded legacy.

There have been many great sci-fi concept albums before, but Coldplay’s offering is not so much about exploring the outer limits as continued world domination. It's Zippy Starburst and the Earworms from Marketing.

Seventeen Going Under would benefit from more such restraint, to really bring out the vulnerability and sensitivity underpinning Fender’s oeuvre. It is not much of a criticism to note that he doesn’t have the dynamic range of his musical hero yet. Fender may not be ready to take on the mantle of the Boss, but he’s a worthy apprentice.

It’s certainly delightful and delicious – as they croon on opening track De-Lovely – although also decidedly undemanding.

This appealing set of 12 short, sweet, heartfelt songs rattles along with gorgeous vocals, silvery guitar lines and perky bass and drum rhythms, stirring a jaunty singalong spirit of friends on a mission. But if the Lathums truly aspire to be the indie voice of a new generation, they are going to have to sharpen their quills or invest in a rhyming dictionary.

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.

In guitarist-singer James Dean Bradfield and drummer and multi-instrumentalist Sean Moore, they boast two incredibly gifted musicians whose dense arrangements glitter with intricate interplay.

Her magnificent fourth album demonstrates that she is one of the best rappers in the world, period.

He is, it is true, a singular talent and his inner monologues crackle with an undeniable dark alchemy. And yet, like a sermon that goes on too long, Kanye’s stream-of-conscience observations on Jesus, Kim Kardashian and the importance of being Kanye suffer for an absence of breathing space. Full of sound and fury it may be – but West’s latest ultimately lacks direction.

It sounds utterly gorgeous, and perhaps this laid-back, stripped-down folksy bent is part of a generational pop shift, echoing the intimate minimalism of Billie Eilish – but I have my doubts. ... Lorde’s lyrics are still acute, her singing superb, her songs beguiling, but her perspective has shifted from every-girl outsider to over-privileged solipsist. Solar Power is underpowered and unlikely to set the world on fire.

With more restrained tempos and a broader, gentler soundscape, the focus shifts to Flowers’s thoughtful lyrics, lovely melodies and grave yet pliant vocals for the most nuanced and heartfelt set of songs that he (with various co-writers and band members) has ever conjured up.

There’s a directness, freshness and intimacy to these performances that puts the late, great Beatle George right in your ear, untarnished by time. Not all things must pass, it seems.

The 16-song set flows beautifully, carrying listeners on an emotional journey in which surprising musical twists and glittering barbs of lyrical empowerment cast optimistic light on a long dark night of Billie’s tortured soul.

The overall impression is of a super-slick exercise in generic, glossy, team-built, uber-commercial RnB-pop. Still, Anne-Marie has the kind of voice and presence that could make anybody’s day better.

It’s fervid, feverish and never less than ferociously funky. And far from unnerving the listener with a haunting voice from beyond the grave, Welcome 2 America serves as a call to arms for Prince fans. For all its lyrical and sonic contortions, the ultimate message is simple: even as twilight descended, his genius endured.

Mayer’s songs about bruised male egos, damaged hearts and hard-earned life lessons conjure up slow motion sequences from a long-lost John Hughes movie. It really is Some Kind of Wonderful.

It Won’t Always Be Like This amply demonstrates that there is more to Inhaler than family resemblances.

Utopian Ashes, then, is a marriage made in musical heaven, conjuring marital hell.

There’s real genius at work here – but it’s so effortlessly delivered, you might almost take it for granted.

Wilson unpacks her heart with poetically intimate lyrics about relationship troubles in a blur of downtempo RnB grooves and hip-hop flow, showcasing Wilson’s sensational multi-octave soul singing and masterful instrumental playing, all filtered through atmospheric digital effects that lend her old-fashioned analogue skills a contemporary sheen.

Blue Weekend both refines that sound and takes it in dizzying new directions. Rowsell’s lyrics have never been more absorbing in their examination of friendship, heartache, anxiety, acceptance and self-confidence.

Del Amitri’s bracing feel-bad pop-rock won’t be for everyone, but for those of us who appreciate sweet melodies set off with sour sentiments, it is perversely good to have the old curmudgeons back.

Whatever philosophical conundrums are addressed, the gorgeously staggered harmonies on the chorus of Dares My Heart Be Free offer profound answers in the music itself, a tangible spirit of human connection that warms the cockles of Skellig’s querulous heart.

Sour is a melodramatic pop opera of broken teen dreams: right now, it puts Rodrigo in the driver’s seat, and woe betide anyone who gets in her way.

Daddy’s Home is further proof that St Vincent deserves to be considered in their [Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell and Tori Amos] stellar ranks.

The infuriating thing is that there is a great album lurking here, one that a disciplined editor and more sonically adventurous producer might have uncorked.

Their ambitious double may aspire to the eclecticism of The Beatles’ White Album, but it remains resolutely, if sweetly, sepia-toned.

Jones’s voice has weathered better than most, taking on an oaken quality, with rich low notes and just a patina of tiny cracks adding some antique class. There’s no false tooth sibilance, and every lyric on Surrounded by Time is crisply enunciated and delivered with conviction and thought.

Hypnotically compelling.

Freed from the constrictions of slavish imitation, with production from her new and more experimentally inclined collaborators, Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff, these six songs offer an intriguing lens through which to view this more innocent version of the savvy star, imbued with the dreamily nostalgic ambience of an adult remembering her bright-eyed youth.

For an album drawing on despair and recovery, Dancing with the Devil… The Art of Starting Over is a life-affirming pleasure from top to bottom.

Any vocalist might thrill to engage with such sleek backing tracks, yet Shaw’s cool delivery and off-kilter lyricism occupies unusual spaces in the band’s arrangements, pushing the whole project into edgily discombobulating territory.

Her crisis of faith provides a sharp edge to Evanescence’s formulaic grandstanding.

The production by Jack Antonoff is stunning, with a huge amount happening beneath the surface of what first manifests as a scratchily intimate acoustic-flavoured unplugged band. There is not a weak song or throwaway performance here, amidst many that only reveal their secrets on repeated listening.

The problem with Justice is that Bieber thinks his music is more powerful than it actually is.

Still Woman Enough makes it clear that she is still up for a lively session.

It’s the sound of a band subverting expectations in the most dramatic fashion possible. And it confirms The Horrors as one of Britain’s most intriguing bands.

There are 11 songs on When You See Yourself, filled with pretty words and lovely tunes, but I would struggle to tell you what any of them are about. Although blessed with a raw, raspy tone that could make a shopping list sound sexy, Followill’s vocals are buried in a bass-heavy mix.

Nelson’s bravura title track had a defiant vigour when Sinatra delivered it as a mid-life crisis anthem in 1966, but it takes on a different pathos when gently sung in the weathered tones of an octogenarian. ... Nelson’s jazzy combo and luscious string arrangements are more faithful to the old swing style. These versions are not intended to replace, reinvent or even rival the originals, simply to bring them back into the light.

Carnage is infused with profound and almost inescapable grief. But as this particularly audacious singer-songwriter grapples with isolation, loneliness, loss and the hard emotional graft of endurance, all set against a backdrop of apocalyptic threat, the personal becomes universal. Carnage may just be the greatest lockdown album yet.

There are striking contributions from an eclectic range of guests, including veteran British rapper Skepta, sound wizard James Blake and singer-songwriter Deb Never, and it all sounds intriguingly modern, with a pleasingly discombobulating bent. Yet, when stripped of political context, it exposes the emptiness of Slowthai’s wordplay, all sound and fury, signifying nothing much at all.

Their love for their art is evident. When their voices come together, it is pure magic.

This is a classy debut, from a sophisticated talent who takes things at her own sweet pace. She may not turn out to be the next big thing, but Celeste sounds like she is in it for the long haul.

Though the materials accompanying Nobody is Listening insist that it’s Zayn’s most personal record to date, and the one over which he’s had the most personal control, it’s hard to find much trace of him here.

Sweary, punky and bilious, Spare Ribs is unlikely to win over new converts but it is as good as anything in Sleaford Mods extensive oeuvre.

Anyone expecting a stroboscopic hoedown may be disappointed, but if it’s great performances of great songs you’re after, then fill your boots.

When it comes to lyrical audacity and dramatic delivery, rap’s most maniacal motormouth still wipes the floor with all-comers, albeit this time he might pause to wipe the microphone first.

I have no hesitation in saying that McCartney III is every bit the equal of its predecessors. It is unadulterated Macca, with a little bit of cheese on the side – the sound of one of the greatest songwriters of our time, having the time of his life.

As a direct follow up, Evermore may lack the impactful frisson of Folklore, but is nevertheless another treat of classy, emotional songcraft.

It is a dream of an album. I’m just not sure it will make any sense when you wake up.

Weird! is his most crunchy and sonically streamlined work to date, replete with catchy earworm hooks and meaty singalong choruses.

Playing piano and acoustic guitar, the 44-year-old takes listeners on a bittersweet journey balancing the melancholy of the medium with a healing message. Stand out songs Closer and Lose My Way have a meditative sadness but there is real warmth in choral backing vocals, subtle grooves and Brun’s melodic instincts.

Rather than pivoting to rockstar to play the part, Cyrus is shedding some previous layers of industry artifice to speak to a genre that has always unleashed her voice from any electropop or hip-hop audience-baiting cage. Not only that, the arena of rock enables Cyrus to indulge controversy in provocative stage performances that needn't alert the cultural appropriation police.

Power Up is as exultantly fierce, furious and – let’s be honest – belligerently dumb as anything in their catalogue. It is no-nonsense, headbanging, fist-waving, foot-stomping, raw-throated, hard-screaming, riff-ripping, pedal-to-the-metal maximum rock and roll all the way.

Pick-n-mixing sounds and being savvy about who they work with has paid off beyond trying to maintain quality from track one to track 13. So take it for what it is: a collection of songs that happen to be next to each other, some of which are glorious (most of the singles) and some of which are a bit cringe (Gloves Up, A Mess).

Disco offers a set of familiar grooves. ... Her comfort zone is effervescence and escapism, in the pursuit of which Disco stays light on its feet and easy on the ear. We’ve heard it all before, but Kylie has the floor, and, honestly, she sounds like she’s having a (glitter)ball.

With its intriguing cast, exotic songs and dazzling arrangements, AngelHeaded Hipster is a loving, rich, strange and rewarding delight for Marc Bolan fans, and Hal Willner fans alike.

E3 AF marks his growth into an elder statesman of rap. Perhaps he sounds so assured because he’s embedding himself again in the sound that he helped to pioneer.

Positions is not as immediate as the work Grande is known for, though it will find many fans. There are no tentpole hits, no obvious hooks and far too many words crammed into 14 relatively short and sometimes samey songs. But it explores new territory for the singer: new relationships, a new sound, a new sense of self.

Its 14 overloaded songs jostle awkwardly together in a cornucopia of conflicting impulses, shifting from beatboxing punk to beatnik poetry, ambient moodiness to sophisticated showtunes, peppered with snappy couplets and gilded with gorgeous melodies.

Its beauty lies in the intuitive simpatico of the playing, with different elements rising to the surface at just the right moment. It used to take them months in the studio to achieve this blend. Now these old road warriors can conjure it in a single take.

This is a laidback album, drawing on the dreamy Seventies milieu of Laurel Canyon with a touch of the easy listening sumptuousness of Burt Bacharach. It is about the ways lovers drift apart, evoking the fall of Autumnal leaves rather than blood on the tracks.

Drill is a music aimed at dedicated acolytes rather than general listeners. But strip away the lyrics, and the strange mix of electro loops, nervous beats, sad melodies and sci-fi sounds is utterly compelling and contemporary, evidence of a cutting edge local music scene that continues to thrive even with venue doors barred shut.