Ignore the whingers: guitar music isn’t dead and you don’t have to look far to find the good stuff. Case in point: Alvvays’ third album Blue Rev (2022) which resuscitates a sparkling jangly fuzz pop that had lain heaving since the 1990s. Molly Rankin’s vocals, both detached and effortlessly powerful, wrap around propulsive arrangements and scuzzy distortion (the handiwork of guitarist Alec O’Hanley) to form a pop missile that’s wholly immediate without losing its intricacy. It’s as sonically energising as a Smiths A-side and lyrically knotty on a par with The War On Drugs at their peak. 

Teeming with ghostly synths seemingly beamed from another planet, Marianne Faithfull’s Broken English (1979) revels in pitting cold 1980s production against the formerly pitch-perfect singer’s cracked and rasping drawl; a decade of cigarettes, personal turmoil and heroin addiction had added creaks and crags to her every intonation. When she asks ‘what are you fighting for?’ during the title track, it sounds like a plea from a wounded veteran. History has cemented her place as one of rock’n’roll’s great survivors, but it was Broken English that confirmed Faithfull’s status as a consummate, forward-thinking artist.

Other B listens: Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub (1991), Blind Faith by Blind Faith (1969), Bury Me At Makeout Creek by Mitski (2014).