Being vulnerable is a prerequisite to being loved, an emotional state equivalent to a state of emergency for anyone naturally resistant to that kind of intimacy. As if delivering instructions in an undercover military operation, her tight jaw relinquishing to a rallying cry, Carrie Brownstein commands this love song for the unlovable, keen to impress upon a partner the urgency and disembodying exhilaration of becoming open to love, the domestic and existential overhaul of it. “You got me used to loving you!” she spits, half-indignant, half-enrapt at the surprise of it. It is the first song from the Pacific Northwest trio’s forthcoming ninth album, produced by St Vincent, whose fantastic way with aggression and absurdism makes itself heard in the lurching vocal cries of Corin Tucker that colour Hurry on Home’s pop-industrial churn.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sleater-Kinney. Photograph: Record Company Handout

Houston’s hottest sets out her philosophy on the first track from debut album Fever: men are good for nothing but money and head, though cash is best made oneself, the fewer details given the better, and critics can go whistle (in so many words). Her punishing flow is proof of an impending supremacy, a thrillingly vicious counterpoint to her hometown’s screwed legacy and rap’s post-SoundCloud slurring.

“Everyone deserves a past they don’t care to mention!” Bill Callahan declared on America, from his 2011 album Apocalypse. But on The Ballad of the Hulk – one of six songs released to trail new album Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest – he is “talking about the old days”. He muses, in that beguiling, quizzical baritone, on whether permitting himself more angry outbursts in his younger years might have saved him “holding on to ancient aches” that a reiki master intuits in his body. “I try to be a good person,” he pledges, then wonders if that’s worth pursuing at all when “the risk of the road” might derail those efforts. But the peace of Callahan’s new material – the loosest acoustic guitar playing, as bright and cleansing as dawn, inflected with humour and subtle drama – makes the case for trying. It is a fool’s errand to look to musicians for guidance, but Callahan feels attuned to a sense of calm and certainty worth heeding.

JXF is a North Carolina-based folklorist and guitar player who specialises in making old songs glow with new wonder. On Out of Sight, his forthcoming record on Paradise of Bachelors, he is joined by a band for the first time, dwelling on material about “the troubles and delights of love, work and wine”. Oh Captain’s narrator is dissatisfied with his workaday grind, but Fussell and co make bright, dewy work from guitar, fiddle, piano and pedal steel.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rhiannon Giddens. Photograph: Michael Weintrob

Wayfaring Stranger is one of the great mythic songs of America: dating back to the early 19th century, its stirring melody is always searching for resolution, much like the itinerant figure of its title. The definitive versions are perhaps by Johnny Cash and Emmylou Harris, but everyone from Ed Sheeran to Jack White and Eva Cassidy have had a go at it (and there’s a brilliant dark UK garage version by Jamie Woon remixed by Burial). Rhiannon Giddens’ take, from her second brilliant album of the year after her collaborative Our Native Daughters project, is stirring: her soaring voice giving the old song a new clarity and certainty.

The permanently dapper Blood-affiliated rapper released his new album 4REAL4REAL this month, and it’s an absolute triumph: a true West Coast classic reminiscent of Tupac’s complex, propulsive passion. There’s blistering gangsta rap (Stop Snitchin), classy R&B (Keisha Had a Baby) and a tremendously impassioned speech paying tribute to the late Nipsey Hussle. But the high point is Do Not Disturb – over a simple piano motif, YG’s verse is quick and dextrous, and Kamaiyah’s chorus is as withering as it is catchy. G-Eazy meanwhile uses the en vogue off-beat flow coined by fellow west coaster Blueface; purists might hate it but the breezy style matches his casual cattiness: “She got a 21 waist, she models VS / Her diet is sniff more, eat less.”

This is the best thing that Jarvis Cocker has done since the dissolution of Pulp: a psych-pop epic packed with humour and anthemic energy. Over a peppy rhythm, organs and Morricone-style vintage production, Cocker – under his new guise of Jarv Is… – sings a song of reluctant personal development. Or rather speaks it: in the storied style of talky Cocker songs like I Spy and David’s Last Summer, this features some wonderfully droll fantasies (“I walked through a tunnel backwards through time / Dragging my knuckles, listening to Frankie Knuckles”) as it bustles towards a spectacular climax.

There’s a point at which rap technique becomes so refined and skilful that it almost morphs into a kind of sport: a prowess to be cheered and marvelled at as you would a particularly neat rabona. The verses on this track, traded between two of the UK’s most exciting up-and-coming MCs will have you hooting with satisfaction at the tongue-twisting skill; the production from Scratcha DVA is the perfect springboard.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Employed to Serve. Photograph: Devil PR - National Music PR, plugging and management

Eternal Forward Motion, the third album from the Woking quintet, has been met with raptures in Britain’s metal community, and for good reason. It is a supremely focused, bracingly angry record, with space for some startling innovations amid the violent downforce, like the minimalist drums’n’screaming intro to Harsh Truth. Vocalist Justine Jones pours everything into her excoriations of toxic relationships and social pressures, including on this title track that sets up a thrilling dissonance: is she finding comfort in how time marches on regardless, or is she being steamrolled by it? Either way, the cacophonously strident climax is a weirdly moving moshpit moment.

Murda Beatz, the man on the boards for beautiful productions like 6ix9ine’s Fefe, Travis Scott’s Butterfly Effect and Drake’s Portland and Nice for What, crafts one of his prettiest confections for the latest and best in a string of Chance singles. Chance’s verses are great: naive playground melodies used to chart how far he’s come, from “kitchen drawers full of sporks” to a five-star hotel where “fancy carpet make her feel like Jasmine”. But he gets upstaged somewhat by goofy Texan MC TisaKorean, whose pronunciation of “crow” is life-givingly silly.