Muna

MUNA's self-titled third album, is more than a return. The band's period of uncertainty and open questioning burned everything away, leaving a feat of an album – the forceful, deliberate, dimensional output of a band who has nothing to prove to anyone except themselves. The synth on "What I Want" scintillates like a Robyn dance-floor anthem; "Anything But Me," galloping in 12/8, gives off Shania Twain in eighties neon; "Kind of Girl," with its soaring, plaintive The Chicks chorus, begs to be sung at max volume with your best friends.

MUNA is working the source code of pop that pulls at your heartstrings; the album is full of longing and revelation and hard-won freedom. They'd made their first album themselves, with free plugins, in a home studio; they'd made the second one in proper sessions with co-producers, thinking they ought to professionalize. With MUNA, they did it all by themselves again, with newfound creative assurance and technical ability – in terms of Naomi McPherson and Josette Maskin's arrangements and production as well as Katie Gavin's songwriting, which is as propulsive as ever, but here opens up into new moments of perspective and grace.

1. Silk Chiffon
2. What I Want
3. Runner's High
4. Home By Now
5. Kind Of Girl
6. Handle Me
7. No Idea
8. Solid
9. Anything But Me
10. Loose Garment
11. Shooting Star