Neil Hannon has been recording and touring as the Divine Comedy since 1989 and has tried a fair few flavours along the way, from chamber pop to Britpop, while sounding fundamentally himself throughout. Rainy Sunday Afternoon, however, sounds like a stocktaking, a deep breath and a meditation on late middle age.

Sometimes, record labels don’t like what those on their roster have recorded. Such was the case with BMG Sweden and Robin Carlsson who, as Robyn, had made three albums with varying success and a raft of home-country hit singles for the label from the mid-Nineties to 2002.

“It’s a long way up from rock bottom/There’s been times I felt I could fall further.” So runs the opening line of Ed Sheeran’s eighth studio album. It’s delivered with the quavering falsetto-voice-breaking that’s become default for sung emotion. Like much of the album, it’s a “poor me” lyric. A generation has grown up with popular music ruled by solipsistic whining, with Sheeran leading from the front.

Quite why Baxter Dury isn't already a national treasure is a mystery to me. Not for his nepo connections but for his perfectly pitched delivery and super-dry observations. He's sardonic, sleazy, sexy and has a cracking dog – what more does any man need? Maybe a bigger profile and some higher rankings in the charts...

Chiswick Records 1975-1982 - Seven Years at 45 RPM is a triple album marking the 50th anniversary of the first release on the titular label. That record was a four-track, seven-inch EP by the rough, Rolling Stones-ish pub rockers The Count Bishops. It came out in November 1975.

Although they haven’t had a hit single in almost 20 years, Faithless remain a potent commercial force, continuing to rack up festival headline sets and big-selling albums. Longterm member Maxi Jazz left the band in 2016 but Champion Sound is the first album by remaining duo Rollo and Sister Bliss since his death in 2022. It is overlong at more than 75 minutes, but its four distinct sections pass in a warm MDMA throb.

International is Saint Etienne’s 13th album. It is their last. According to the promotional material, it was written while recording their last album, 2021’s I’ve Been Trying To Tell You. The trio – Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs – must have known back then they were planning to bow out.

The Outer Limits were from Leeds. Active over 1965 to 1968, the soul-tinged mod-poppers didn’t chart, but their two regular singles are now pricey collector’s items. There was also, before the orthodox 45s, a track on a Leeds University charity fund-raising single.

Queen of the earworm Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson has had quite the summer, capturing imaginations and sparking indignation. The brazen hussy has the audacity to wear what the hell she likes while belting out her stream of catchy country-pop, life-affirming hits. She’s in your face, unapologetic and going absolutely nowhere.

“What's the New Mary Jane” is a nursery rhyme-like song, one of John Lennon’s most peculiar offerings. It was recorded for late 1968’s double album The Beatles (i.e. the White Album) but, literally, did not make the cut. Nonetheless, John Lennon would not let it go.