There's a real grace about The Longest River, the debut album from self-taught multi-instrumentalist Olivia Chaney.

Coombes, a quite masterful musical auteur after three decades in the game, skillfully navigates the record away from one long mid-life nightmare. ... it’s another hugely satisfying listen.

You have to be in the mood for Young Man In America but, when you are, you'll be rewarded by an absorbing album.

Scrub away reputations and this album is so much stronger than the latter-day works of many of Fay's contemporaries.

Process seems unlikely to make Sampha a household name in his own right. Yet it has a drama and intensity that should increase his influence on those who already are.

He continues the good work with sixth album The Night Chancers, a set of seductive, atmospheric late-night grooves on which Dury conjures sinister vignettes of insomniac dwellers of the wee small hours.

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.

Once I Was An Eagle is a masterpiece, and, at 23, she’s still only getting started.

Unsurprisingly, loss and grief lie at the core of the Foo Fighters’ most succinct and intense album.

Songs maintain a facade of well-mannered, old-fashioned structures (waltz times and Fats Domino-style “swamp pop” piano bass) that gradually reveal murkier interiors restlessly inhabited by Jones’s unique, meandering ghost-child of a voice.

Months from her 40th birthday, Ethiopian-American artist Kelela Mizanekristos has blessed us with a sexy, sultry masterclass in RnB.

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

It’s not all perfect: every so often, the tracks swing from sounding like impossibly cool, experimental rock to, er, Coldplay. Overall, however, this is guitar music at its most thrilling.

This is a set of funny, twisted, sharp-edged vignettes about the choices women face in the gritty, down-to-earth setting of daily working life – feminist pop as kitchen sink drama.

As a 40-minute listening experience, it’s equal parts eccentric and impassioned, thought-provoking and out-there – if not exactly fun, given the mental-health issues, then certainly liberating, nourishing and thoroughly memorable.

Forster all too humbly paints himself as a modest talent next to his late foil’s melodic genius, yet this eighth solo outing is packed as ever with minimal, carefully chiselled, acoustic-thrumming arrangements, topped by extraordinary lyric writing.

Cohen’s triumphant return to the live arena is reflected in the growling assuredness of his vocals. An absolute treat.

The lyrics are fantastic, the grooves irresistible, the ideas constantly entertaining. His sense of fun is infectious. It’s good to have James Murphy back doing what he does best.

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

After The Ball, a classic waltz in 3/4 time and a song of heartbreak as powerful today as it was more than 120 year's ago, is just one highlight on this super musical history lesson.

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.

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.

His harmonies have a louche charm, his trumpet sound has a fascinating vocal intimacy, and he makes lightning-fast interplay with the quintet, especially sax player Walter Smith III.

It’s an adventure.

Orton digs so deeply into her own personal spaces and memories that what she finds there is unique. Middle-aged discontent has rarely sounded so lovely.

If you can look beyond the occasional ham-fisted blip – the command to “stop tap dancing around the conversation” that closes out the otherwise-astounding We Cry Together is the most egregious example here – then there’s so much reward.

Bush is still making music that intrudes and abducts.

This album is a musical gumbo: a rich, surprising and ultimately satisfying stew of Simon's folk, rock and pop influences from all over the world.