Big Thief
Love in Mine

For a group whose entire pitch is just “the Band, but in 2020”, Big Thief have an uncanny knack for poleaxing you in the tender parts; for making music feel as if it can still guide you, heal you, run a soft, dewy hand across your brow and tell you everything is going to be OK even if it clearly, definitely, totally isn’t. Honestly, if I weren’t already crying, I’d probably be crying now.

Razorlight
Burn, Camden, Burn

Razorlight are so deep into their post-peak arc that they’re doing a Benjamin Button: original members are starting to rejoin. Here, Johnny – who, if you’ll remember, lost all of his fellows in an unfortunate personality-clash accident and replaced them with Worzel Gummidge ringers – has picked up the phone to founding guitarist Björn, who has in turn laid some very OK 2003 fretwork on to this stonkingly efficient slab of retro.

Arca
Nonbinary

Were it 2002, Arca’s lissome half-talking, half-rapping vocals, and the slithery beats that ground them, would be called electroclash and Felix Da Housecat would do a mix of this for City Rockers. Except it’s 2020, we don’t really do genres any more, and she drawls about gender and empowerment rather than cocaine and Marlene Dietrich.

Blossoms
Lost

It would be nice to say that in isolation Blossoms are suffering just like the rest of us. Except that wouldn’t be true, because we have to contend with Blossoms covering Frank Ocean. My broader conclusion is that the Wizard of Oz’s screen has been ripped down on modern pop, and most artists are just monkeys banging dustbin lids. The key challenge won’t be restarting the music industry, it will be restarting our belief in the music industry.

Hinds
Just Like Kids (Miau)

Somehow, the feelgood hit of Primavera 2013 are on their third album, although mastering their instruments remains a pipe dream. Imagine if Supergrass really sucked, but also enjoyed carping about the downsides of success, and you have Just Like Kids: fun, brassy, narky, mainly inaudible, entirely calorie-free.