The National frontman Matt Berninger strikes out on debut solo album

There is also a much-anticipated debut from Beabadoobee.

re-release of The National’s career-high album just four months ago, does the world really need a solo album from the band’s singer?

The answer is a definite yes, as Matt Berninger’s debut under his own name is a quiet triumph, produced impeccably by Booker T Jones, frontman of Booker T & The MGs.

Opening track MyEyesAreT-Shirts (“they’re so easy to read”) comes with his distinctive baritone, while the album features washes of organ on OneMore Second, mournful strings on Collar Of Your Shirt and licks of brass on

and is a duet with Gail Ann Dorsey, and the title track is the last of the 10 on the album. The typically literate lyrics are more personal than those for The National, while the music is stripped down, freed from the need to fill arenas, 8/10

Turn-of-the-millennium emo pop might not quite be the flavour of the month right now, but Beabadoobee – real name Beatrice Laus – somehow carries it off in a way that feels totally at home 20 years on.

After all, her biggest splash so far came in the most 2020 way possible – suddenly going viral on TikTok after rapper Powfu sampled her debut single Coffee. In a recent

interview, the British-Filipino singer said she spent every night dancing around in her pants to the likes of Michelle Branch, Veruca Salt and the soundtrack to Lindsay Lohan’s

That should probably give you a decent idea of what to expect from her debut studio record, but there’s far more depth to Beabadoobee than her bedroom listening and playful demeanour might suggest.

Sorry is a quiet-loud-quiet anthem bursting with serious pop prowess, while the lo-fi lilting ballad HowWasYourDay is lifted straight out of the Daniel Johnson songbook.

6/10

If ever there was a 21st Century reincarnation of glam rock, The Struts are surely it.

Bedazzled with rhinestones and draped in leather, the enigmatic Derby quartet have emerged with another riffheavy offering from the depths of the global pandemic.

The follow-up to the impeccable hooks of 2018’s new album

saw the band move to the US and in with producer Jon Levine.

Thrashing out nine tracks in 10 days, this speedy approach has left the new album lacking the magic of its older sibling.

title track is an underwhelming, mid-tempo affair, drizzled with the vocals of fellow Brit Robbie Williams, while the additional guest appearances read like an A-Z of classic rock – The Strokes’ Albert Hammond Jr, Tom Morello, Def Leppard duo Phil Collen and Joe Elliott.

6/10

Psychedelic rocker Frank Zappa’s genre-breaking album of orchestral music, TheYellowShark, gives this band their name.

It’s a fine indicator of what’s to come – a meeting of classical and contemporary rock that spews forth something quite unlike either.

Frequently disorientating, Yllwshrk’s debut album, IamAladdin, gives the listener only fleeting reference points to cling on to.

Sam West’s vocals point towards the diaphanous tones of Anohni, the percussion to the spasmodic post-punk of These New Puritans.

But the band’s sounds are their own, shifting through noisy orchestral excursions to tender ballads like OneBy

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