Mark Knopfler Get Lucky (Mercury)
There is little point at this stage in his career in expecting surprises from Mark Knopfler. Just turned 60, what he does is make well-crafted albums of thoughtful songs, offset by his exquisite blues, country and British Isles folk-tinged melodic guitar work.
Get Lucky is another selection of slice-of-life tunes, all drawn from a lifetime of emotionally engaged observation of what people do - courageously or foolishly, rightly or wrongly - to give meaning to their lives. It's all obviously close to his heart. One song, Monteleone, is dedicated to a maker of beautiful mandolins and guitars.
Others deal with soldiers and death in wars - a theme of his that first surfaced on Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms - and the proceeds of two particularly apposite songs, Remembrance Day and Piper to the End, are being donated to the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal.
A song about gambling, You Can't Beat the House, takes him back to some gritty blues, but most of the tunes are steeped in the Celtic folk tradition he first overtly drew on for the Local Hero and Cal soundtracks. This is vintage Knopfler.
He now makes one album per year, and he hasn't had a bad year yet.