Apart from the odd Foalsgasm, I rarely go full fangirl over a band. In my school years, however, my love for Matt Healy and The 1975 was a completely different story. A boy band with an impeccable black and white aesthetic, lyrics that just seemed to truly “understand” my friends and I, and actually a fair amount of musical talent. Memories of my night with them (and 5,000 other people) at Brixton Academy will forever live on in my mind, unsulliable. About six months ago, the band turned in what I assume was meant to be a new and radical direction. Suddenly, they started posting PINK pictures on social media. A countdown started. Something was about to happen. Then last week on Radio 1, Annie Mac previewed their new song ‘Love Me’ before its release the next day. Don’t get me wrong, ‘Love Me’ is a good track. It takes the trademark drums-and-some-bass sound of the band, throws some Bowie influences at it, and retains Healy’s virtually unintelligible croon. It is far more poppy than their old work, but retains the guitar solos, mixing them with electronic jams. When heard alongside the rest of the new album, the track will probably provide some new direction for the band. At the moment, however, the sound is not different enough to justify the attempt at rebranding. The 1975 leave me feeling almost disappointed, and, somewhere, 16 year old Margot is heartbroken (I do still love you, Matty).

Meanwhile, proper synthpop duo Hurts are also back after two years with their new album Surrender. In a slightly less rabid way, I’ve always liked the duo: they met outside a club in Manchester when their friends started a fight, and, too drunk to join in, they decided to start a band instead. They retain the mellow and sometimes dark sound of their first two albums, kicking the album off with a gospel-inspired intro, but the record also has some pleasingly euphoric moments. ‘Nothing Will Be Bigger Than Us’ barrels straight into EDM territory, while ‘Perfect Timing’ is more chilled out, sampled saxophones mixing with gently fizzing synths. The beauty of the album lies in its diversity, which manages to hold onto all the elements that made the band successful initially, but also pulling them into a new domain.

Finally, some classical music. I won’t apologise for this, because Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott have released a work of otherworldly perfection – Songs from the Arc of Life – that can be appreciated by anyone, even if you know nothing about the genre (“This is Cambridge,” the reader sighs and rolls their eyes, “Of course I know about classical music”). There are some orthodox selections of Bach, Tchaikovsky and Saint-Saëns performed, but also some tantalisingly obscure works from others. They show the rapport they have built over decades of playing together, complementing each other’s styles from start to finish, charting the different stages of life from skittish childhood to the drawn out wavering line of loneliness in Sollima’s ‘Il Bell’Antonio’, finishing with Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’. This last track, and the album in its entirety, give both performers a chance to show their unbelievable talent for evoking the depth of human emotion in their masterful playing. Compulsory listening for anyone hoping to complete Michaelmas with a level of calm.