Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes hits it out of the park with her second album What Now

Frontwoman Brittany Howard — who was named by Rolling Stone on their list of 250 greatest guitarists of all time — has gone it alone in recent years and after impressing with debut album Jaime, she hits it out of the park with magnificent follow-up What Now.

To say that she combines a vast range of music styles and influences would be an understatement — it would almost be easier to mention the genres that don’t get a look in — but what’s clear from the off is how comfortable Howard is with hopscotching from one idea to the next. Retro soul, futuristic funk, garage rock — it’s all here and her guitar is every bit as expressive as her voice.

As with her debut album, Howard touches on the queer existence, and her songs expose vulnerability and defiance. Lyrically, she eschews prosaic sentiments, such as on Red Flags, a startling, striking song on infatuation which allows her soulful vocals to be illuminated.

Another Day is a clattering, percussive paean to acceptance, an alternative Pride anthem that sounds especially timely in a world in which homophobia is often all too close to the surface.

The music is uniformly thrilling. Together with co-producer Shawn Everett and some of Nashville’s top players, Howard delivers an album that’s consistently inventive and relentlessly varied. Power to Undo is especially striking — a celebratory track about letting go of toxicity, it has remnants of Prince in his pomp, the arrangements gloriously funked up.

Brittany Howard hails from Athens, Georgia. It’s a small city that has given the world several great bands, including REM and the B-52’s. Sometimes, certain places really punch above their weight when it comes to music. Sweden is a case in point. Ever since Abba blazed a trail, the country has been a pop beacon. Zara Larsson, who won the Swedish instalment of the Got Talent franchise, delivers unashamedly commercial pop, but her fourth album, Venus, is a disappointment.

Fluctuating from EDM to Europop with emotive balladry thrown in too, Larsson seems to undersell her strengths. On My Love, her collaboration with dance king David Guetta is underwhelming. It’s a song that might get the heart rate up in an aerobics studio, but it finds both artists on autopilot.

The overall sound is curiously dated, too. It looks to the glossy, if safe pop of the 2000s. End of Time is all about the power of the studio mixing desk rather than the build quality of the song itself.

Larsson is on surer ground with lead single, Can’t Tame Her, which — surely — has been inspired by the Weeknd’s mega hit Blinding Lights. It’s a robust anthem likely to go down well when she headlines an outdoor show at Fairview Park, Dublin, on June 21.