The New Faith is hymnal, rich with chants and layered, organic instrumentation. It is deeply and spiritually moving, vibrant and celebratory. Revelatory, even.

A resounding comeback. ... The best thing Cocker has done since Pulp, and that is very good indeed.

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.

From the full tilt title track, the echoing twang of The Buzz, the strutting rock reggae of Lightning Man, the swoonsome torch soul of You Can’t Hurt A Fool and swaggering rush of I Didn’t Know When to Stop, it is a Pretenders album that sounds like it could have been recorded in their first flush, a perfect blend of sensuous vocals and blazing guitars.

Leonard Cohen is back with a posthumous album as great as any from the late period of his considerable canon. And that is very great indeed.

Lyrically, Hozier aims high, addressing social and emotional issues against a backdrop of political and generational anxiety. He uses bold, mythic imagery with a playful spirit that hints at the dark wit of Leonard Cohen.

If Art Official Age is a juicy reaffirmation of Prince pop basics, Plectrumelectrum, his collaborative album with 3rdEyeGirl, represents a more intriguing departure, even if it too reaches back into the past, making a bold connection with a time when Jimi Hendrix was the last great black American rock star, before funk really left rock 'n' roll to the white man.

Stunning. ... With slick, tasteful production from Jack Antanoff built around shining guitars and perfectly balanced vocal arrangements, this is a powerful addition to the genre.

These are beautifully turned songs filled with empathy for downtrodden characters battered by life but always ready to fight back, bridging social distance with langorous melodies and deep emotion. The lockdown may have been a terrible moment for music and musicians, but it has resulted in Taylor’s Swift’s most powerful and mature album to date.

Though consistently ground-breaking and lyrically challenging, Ritual Union never feels like hard work.

An extraordinary debut from a new British-based band who combine a gipsy swagger with tremulous sensitivity and gothic rock drama.

There may be nothing particularly original here, but the gritty ambience of electric instrumentation suits Mumford & Sons’s way with melody, emotion and dynamics. Simply put, the Mumfords rock.

Everything is quite extraordinary; an orchestral poem of spiritual surrender that offers up a gorgeously bleak depiction of “the whole magnificent emptiness”.

It teases and satisfies at once, which is why, unless you’re allergic to Snarky Puppy’s special charm, you’ll want to play this album over and over.

Just Mustard have said they wanted their second album, Heart Under, to make the listener feel like they are driving through a tunnel with the windows down. And on this noisy, wonderfully chaotic record, the band seems to have nailed it. ... The inventive beats make you want to dance.

American Kid is a triumph of songwriting and expressive singing.

Riderless Horse is far from an easy listen for obvious reasons. But hearing the 56-year-old Nastasia describe and attempt to understand these stark events is never less than compelling.

Gospel choirs hum and swell tenderly beneath the rougher edges of his riffs. They add mature, universal gravitas and often a holy ecstacy to an intense, youthful lyrical tangling of religion and romantic obsession that regularly finds him poised "between love and abuse".

This ranks with the very best of Gabriel’s work, which means it is very great indeed. Peter Gabriel is a genius. i/o is a masterpiece. That is all ye need know.

To listen to Hold On Baby is to feel like you are really inside someone else’s world, their voice urgently delivering their most intimate feelings in your ear, transmuting them into pop gold.

The Endless Coloured Ways could have been just another exhibit on the exquisitely curated but ever growing pile of Drake nostalgia. Instead, it’s an essential manual on the art of songwriting.

Only the schmaltzy If I Could Believe left me unmoved. Otherwise, this is a very cool, politically charged collaboration which finds the Roots and Costello at their thrilling best.

This album proves his talent is timeless.

A record with moments of pure, solar heat.

Producers Dave Kaplan and Dave Darling have sanded the new arrangements of smooth oldies such as Gentle on My Mind down to the rough grain. The result is a deeply moving record--a warm, valedictory squeeze of the listener’s hand from the cowboy hunk.

Hozier sounds like what you might get if the late, lamented Jeff Buckley had thrown his lot in with Radiohead to conjure up folk music from the dark side of the moon.

Oh My God is a spiritual album for a secular age, one that tries to distil a sense of the divine from the very act of making music.

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