Japanese director Kon Ichikawa’s An Actor’s Revenge is something of a one-off. Even in the context of the prolific director’s career variety, it’s an unusually stylised and visually captivating story of high artifice – there’s rich melodrama in its kabuki emotional playing and theatrical setting – that is set against the lowlife criminal comedy of 19th century Tokugawa Tokyo, or Edo as it was then known. Rich and strange, indeed. 

This New York band’s first album for a decade is as good as anything else they’ve done, but what were they thinking with the track order? Things get off to an agreeable bouncy Blondie-esque start with first single “Pirates”. But after that there are several decidedly plodding, generic tracks before the party really gets started. Perhaps they have succumbed to the long-held received wisdom that only a dull four-to-the-floor beat will seduce the masses.

Oh this is annoying. One really doesn't want to be mean about the People's Princess. Kylie is one of the great pop stars of our time: charming, witty, a survivor, with several dozen proper classic songs under her belt, she has never stopped sparking with star quality. And the way she talks about her creative process, it's clear she still cares, so it's very easy to believe that she still has an album in her that can stand with her best and cement her status as one of the best to do it.

The Damned may very well be the last men standing from the first wave of UK punk – albeit with only Dave Vanian and Captain Sensible still there from the original line-up – but with their new disc they haven’t even thought of resting on their laurels and churning out endless variations on “New Rose” and “Smash It Up”. Clearly the musical heritage industry is going to have to wait awhile for them yet.

Fenne Lily is a young Bristolian singer-songwriter whose voice will take her far. Her debut album is decent enough, and there are songs on it that reach out and grab you by the guts, but it’s her extraordinary, fragile voice that stays in the mind. Lily’s oeuvre is folk-acoustica but run through with electronics and reverb, putting her in a haunted place where she sounds as if she belongs in one of Twin Peaks' more peculiar scenes.

The obvious comparison for much of this album is Lana del Rey, although Lily's voice is higher pitched. There’s something about the way she rides chords and rhythms that recalls the American singer’s drawling, louche manner. There are songs, however, where Lily swoops into a soprano that expresses vulnerability in a way that’s more directly affecting. She majors in damaged love songs and, for instance, the way she sings “You broke me there” in “The Hand You Deal” has whispered potency.

Another song that stands tall amidst this collection is “Top to Toe”, Fenne Lily’s calling card and a song she wrote, unbelievably, when she was only 15. The quavering tone she adopts takes what is already a good song much further. Her breathy intonation becomes gradually more faltering, as if the singer is revealing too much of herself. It has a soft power.

For much of On Hold, the songs maintain a mood but blend into each other and are not, in and of themselves, classics. She revs up a little on the indie-rockier title track, while “Brother”, a song dedicated to her kin, has an Irish lilt to it, but the best material is the quietest stuff. The less there is going on, the more alone she seems to be on the sonic landscape, and her forlorn, lovely voice comes into its own. It’s a voice we will be hearing more of.

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Overleaf: watch Fenne Lily perform "Top to Toe" live at Sofar, London