Justice
Heavy Metal

Struggling with your new year reinvention? Don’t feel bad. All those folk attempting to revert their bodies and minds back to factory settings every January should accept that sometimes the old you was OK and just needs a little sprucing up to feel relevant again. Just look at producers Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay, dusting off their 2016 lockstep-prog onslaught of rabid harpsichord for a relentless frightmare of a track: it’s like Daft Punk hijacking a ghost train, and therefore still weirdly 2019-apropos.

Fleur East
Favourite Thing

So how much has Fleur decided to lean into her I’m a Celeb-powered comeback? Is that a bit of jungle drumming in the intro to Favourite Thing? Will MC Hazza Redknapp pop up for a guest verse? Having escaped the Aussie undergrowth, the former X Factor contestant is back on a proper smouldering pop trajectory with a sensuous but strident banger where the closest thing to a Bushtucker Trial is the fact that “kisses are better than caviar”.

Jack Savoretti
Candlelight

Uh-oh, sounds like a square-jawed troubadour somehow got his hands on a Last Shadow Puppets record and has internalised all the stylistic tics: heavy lounge lizard “vibes”, cinematic strings and a frisky Gainsbourg bassline. Worst of all? Candelight actually sounds good, a luxury storm cloud of crushed romanticism.

The Raconteurs
Sunday Driver

After a period of stasis locked in a dusty vault stacked with gramophone records, the Raconteurs who aren’t Jack White have been reactivated. The sometime-supergroup are basically White’s Red Arrows, big on performative displays of roots-rock formation flying. While they are clearly still well-gelled, Sunday Driver is just the usual leathery saddlebag of sharp riffs and vague lyrics.

Beabadoobee
Dance With Me

If you haven’t had the pleasure of hearing Beabadoobee before, your first thought might be: I wonder if that’s fun to say out loud? (Spoiler: it totally is, though add an extra “bahdoobah” and you risk veering into Eiffel 65 territory.) Manila-born, London-raised Bea Kristi may only be 18 but is knocking out galaxy-class starry-eyed swoon-pop: the tinkly Dance With Me kicks off with just an acoustic strum and Krista’s clear-spring voice but eventually folds in piano, cello and harp to conjure a shy but determined declaration of love.