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Waterbaby: Memory Be a Blade review – stellar singer-songwriter pieces post-breakup life back together

The Stockholm musician’s debut album is a fascinating character study with improvised lyrics and a light, pretty sound that belies its emotional depth

Mitski review – pop meets performance art in a masterful spectacle

The Shed, New York CityAt a six-night residency, the singer creates an immersive world filled with wry humor and big emotions

Squeeze: Trixies review – finally completed first album proves teenage dreams are hard to beat

Squeeze’s first new album in nearly a decade is based on material written when they were teenagers. It’s endearing but callow

10cc review – 70s legends reprise a dazzling string of pop classics

Fifty years since the band fractured with the departure of Godley and Creme, songs from Donna to I’m Not in Love are in prime condition on what is billed as ‘another bloody greatest hits tour’

Harry Styles: Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally review – nice all the time. Good, occasionally

The music on Styles’s new album is muted, subtle and pleasant – but from the title downwards, he has a real problem with words

David Byrne review – in life during wartime, this show will restore your faith in humanity

Byrne again reimagines the possibilities of the live gig, creating a vision of egalitarianism backed by elastic bass and polyrhythms

Lily Allen review – pop star makes much-anticipated comeback – but where is the West End Girl?

Allen isn’t in the first act of her own show, only coming on after 45 minutes of a string ensemble to stiffly deliver her acclaimed album in full

Morrissey review – classic Smiths songs meet GB News-style talking points

Morrissey is in impressive voice and the old songs still retain their power, but the conspiracy theorising and nationalist rhetoric are miserable in all the worst ways

Grace Jones review – chaos, nudity and endless costume changes: the disco legend’s show has it all

The 77-year-old is one of our greatest living performers, doing sit-ups, hula-hooping and even flashing the audience – but her rich voice is the true revelation

Cruz Beckham review – son of David and Victoria transcends nepo-baby tag with intriguing psych-pop

His music is still all over the place, lurching from landfill indie to solipsistic ballads, but the youngest Beckham son can certainly play guitar

Bruno Mars: The Romantic review – you’re better off listening to the songs he’s blatantly imitating

(Atlantic)Harking back to Oye Como Va, Move On Up and other 20th-century classics, Mars’s homages are beautifully performed but bereft of new ideas

Lala Lala: Heaven 2 review – brooding alt-popper fights the urge to run

Lillie West’s fourth album is a hazy, mid-tempo meditation on escape that gets stuck in a numbing mid-tempo mode – though there is a gorgeous moment of release

Gorillaz: The Mountain review – a late career peak haunted by ghosts yet glowing with life

Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s cartoon band mark 25 years with an album inspired by India and shaped by loss, featuring collaborators living and dead

Hen Ogledd: Discombobulated review – a manifesto for collective action from Richard Dawson’s folk-rockers

Featuring taunts in Welsh, ‘bard rap’ and spirited jigs, the British quartet’s ragged, rich music underpins their vision for change

The Streets review – semi-theatrical staging of A Grand Don’t Come for Free resurrects a British classic

Deadpan recital of the era-defining album of downbeat English rap suits the full-album format, presented with a formidable band

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  • Metallica review – metal legends break out the pyrotechnics … and a Proclaimers cover
  • Candomblé: Sacred Rhythms in Brazil review – ceremonial drumming remixed for the dancefloor
  • Downtown Boys: Public Luxury review – a joyful blast of bilingual political punk
  • Jonathan Kuo: Java Dreams album review – young pianist brings unflashy exuberance to complex works
  • Phoebe Bridgers: Lost Boys review – ghosts, guns and guileless youth on generational songwriter’s return
  • Brahms’ Last Concert review – OAE and Emelyanychev take audience back to 1897
  • Anna Netrebko review – high camp and bel canto brilliance as star soprano shows she’s still the real deal
  • Orchestral Works of Mel Bonis album review – full justice is done to her finely crafted and sensuous music
  • Muse: The Wow! Signal review – stupendous space-rock silliness … yet somehow surprisingly subtle?
  • Turandot review – Opera Holland Park celebrate 30 years with Puccini’s grand guignol
  • Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) review – Tyshawn Sorey’s meditations yield their mysteries slowly
  • Giulio Cesare review – nightmarish take on Handel has snakes, sadism and a mummy
  • Hayley Williams review – punk and R&B expertly intertwine on first solo tour for Paramore star
  • Aldeburgh festival roundup – Tansy Davies and Freya Waley-Cohen premieres, plus blistering Shostakovich
  • Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland review – Lewis Carroll’s familiar characters move in from the garden
  • Das Rheingold review – a sure-footed feast as Alberich descends into madness
  • Gorillaz review – a staggering hi-tech mini-festival from the magpie mind of Damon Albarn
  • Il Ritorno d’Ulisse review – a sensuous slice of opulence and luxury
  • Ibeyi: Offering review – French twin sisters master the balance between mysticism and edge
  • Joe Lovano: Paramount Quartet review – inspired sax maestro bounces from bebop to fertile improv
  • Elgar and Dvořák: Cello Concertos album review – Gerhardt’s readings are forthright, refreshing and thoughtful
  • Brahms: Violin Sonatas album review – Ehnes and Armstrong’s performances exude an effortless rightness
  • Myles Smith: My Mess, My Heart, My Life review – faceless, formulaic mush of Mumfords, Sheeran and Coldplay
  • Lily Allen review – West End Girl’s marital collapse is superbly evoked at arena scale
  • L’Orfeo review – Kentridge’s exhilarating creativity animates compelling Monteverdi
  • BBCSSO / Wigglesworth / Osborne review – jazz energy meets its match in French insouciance
  • Zach Bryan review – colossal US country star converts the UK to his inclusive take on the rodeo

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