Foals
On the Luna

Last month’s Foals comeback Exits was a cultured atmospheric pop piece. So it is good to know that they still make tracks that sound as if they arrived at the studio in a violently shaking box, were let out in a storm of nails, teeth, two-note synths and guitar squeals, and got chased around with a control pole as the band tried to get a chorus muzzle on them before they mauled any babies. Such a marvellous math-pop beast is On the Luna. Long may it try to catch up with itself.

Catfish & the Bottlemen
Fluctuate

Dark days for lad rock. Not only is swaggering machismo as in vogue as debating Brexit with your clothes on, but most of it rocks about as hard as a tatts-out Maroon 5, too. Right, Blossoms? So credit to Catfish, who have decided their teenage fanbase are finally ready to graduate to the hard stuff: Humbug-era Arctic Monkeys. Fluctuate lumbers into view with its low end rotting off, its solos badly charred and its drummer hammering at the walls to escape. The lyrics would give Grammarly a stroke, but it’s an impressive stab at this “rock” of which the ancients speak.

Cardi B & Bruno Mars
Please Me

If James Joyce had ever penned the internal monologue of a twerk at a Snoop gig, this is it. Over 90s west coast pool-party grooves, Bruno pleads for carnal fulfilment and Cardi obliges, trappily advertising the quality of her genitals.

Fontaines DC
Big

Voice of Tom the village idiot from Father Ted, Grian Chatten of industry-favoured rabid indie punks Fontaines DC rants “my childhood was small, but I’m gonna be big!” amid a monotone tour of Dublin’s more salubrious mescaline joints. Admirable ambition, but as his whip-skinny band bounce neurotically between two chords like there’s only one line of Daz-cut speed left on the draining board, “I’m gonna be cult, tops” might be a more realistic motivational mantra. Cult, mind you, is where movements start …

Honeyblood
The Third Degree

It is uncertain whether this third album primer from Stina Tweeddale, now sole groin-kicker of Glasgow’s Honeyblood, is referring to the same ex she’s been addressing since 2012, Boris Johnson or the Trivago woman. She is as forthright as ever, though, snarling over a fuzzy glam Beach Boys tune, like Wouldn’t It Be Nice vengefully sprayed with acid. “The one who comes next, she’s a braver girl than I.” Boris, then.