Out of Tucson with the skull crushing hardcore metal assault of debut album Pass the Flask, the quintet haven’t exactly rung too many changes with current follow-up Found In The Flood (Vagrant). Brutal riffing and pummelling rhythms are the order of the day once again with James Munoz spitting out the screams and throat searing guttural howls, occasionally punctuated by the odd time out for a bit of big drama moodiness like the progrock tempting My Assassin or some acoustic melds of rage and whisper such as the brooding Antarctica or the quiet parts of Daylight Bombings with its vague Metallica aspirations. Mostly though they grab you by the collar and slam you into a wall of noise plastered with songs about the usual hardcore subjects of betrayal, retribution and the way the world’s going to hell. Sounds like the barrage balloon’s going up again.

 8pm. £10. Carling Academy 2

The Guardian’s description of them as "one of the greatest unacknowledged geniuses of pop’s past two decades" may be somewhat overstating the case, but as influences on the likes of Bloc Party, The Darkness, Coldplay and even U2 and with healthy sales in the 30 million mark, they certainly probably deserve a little more respect than they get. Certainly new album Analogue (Polydor) is classy adult electro pop even if you’re not tuned in to the Christian undertones that ripple through songs here and there. Opener Celice, with a mood that harks back to the vintage days of Take On Me, will feature in the forthcoming DaVinci Code movie while Cosy Prisons, Analogue and Birthright are fine examples of their soaring grand drama, the latter sounding like Coldplay at their melodic melancholic best.

They let their hair down on occasion, Don’t Do Me Any Favours and the naff titled Half Way Through The Tour hustling along with a Eurorock cum Beatlesy edge while Make It Soon erupts into a squall of noise likely to catch fans well offguard. But it’s their trademark grown up world weariness and romantic yearning that endows the album with its warmth, strings sweeping a Fine Blue Line up into the skies, acoustic guitar underpinning White Dwarf and meditative piano doodling beating the heart of the closing reflective The Summers Of Our Youth.

Doubtless the set will be well represented by picks from the 13 top 10 singles they’ve had in the UK, with numbers such as The Sun Always Shines On TV, Hunting High and Low and Crying In The Rain, but really it’s the new material that suggests the trio have as healthy a future as they have an impressive past.

7.30pm. £32.50/£25. NEC

A class act, guitar genius and one of folk music’s finest interpreters of traditional song, Simpson seems to have hit a particularly purple patch in recent times with his past two releases, The Bramble Briar and Righteousness & Humidity. Back home after a lengthy sting in America the hue remains rich and deep with his current offering, Kind Letters (Topic), returning to a fine collection of traditional English tunes after his romance with American stylings (a reminder of which lingers with the banjo picking of House Carpenter). Embracing rearrangements of such evergreens as Peggy & The Soldier, When First I Came to Caledonia, Adieu Adieu and Here’s Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy (both of which see him backed by Danu), it’s an effortlessly relaxed affair with Simpson in a voice as fine as his fretwork. The nimble fingers are shown to particularly good effect on the instrumentals Bareback to Bullhassocks (where he spars with accordionist Chris Parkinson) and the guitar/violin duet A Blacksmith Courted Me (better known as the setting for To Be A Pilgrim) with closing nine minute epic that is Clerk Sanders should leave jaws fairly rooted to the floor.
With two sets, he should be able to comfortably squeeze in a fair proportion of the new album among the back pages, but whatever he chooses you consider your lugholes well blessed.

 8pm. £9. Red Lion

Saturday December 3

Back in the fold after a stint with Babyshambles, founder member drummer Gemma Clarke, brings the girls back to town for a second bite of single Everything You Do, its sassy swaggering riff pretty much summing up the scuzzy rock n roll that’ll be making its way on to next year’s debut album. Just don’t offer to buy them a round.

 8pm. £5. Barfly, Sanctuary, Digbeth

Six years ago singer-songwriter instrumentalist Conrad Lambert was about to become the next big thing with the advent of a major label debut album that won admirers from the dance scene and the emergent folkatronica scene alike. Then he vanished off the face of the earth as his record deal collapsed around him, sending him back home to the dole in Huddersfield. Since then he’s been pretty much holed up in a small flat and a variety of studios putting together his comeback.

That now emerges in the shape of Loveheart, released through small independent Gronland, an album that inevitably reflects the experiences that forged its making with the likes of the spare bluesy Mentor’s call for guidance and inspiration and the isolation themed piano-led Postcards From A Dark Star and the folky shivering My Name Is Sad And At Sea with its tolling ship’s bell.

Having wed during its evolution, there’s upbeat, lighter colours here too, most notably on the skipping wings of Butterfly, the swaying folk-blues Verily and the dreamy electronica and acoustics of the title track while a folkfunky Dangerous Heady Love Scheme offers a bittersweet celebration of intoxicating infatuation.

He’ll likely not be dragging along the harpsichord or choirs for the night but, even stripped back to guitar, keyboards and assorted electronic assistance, you’ll find the quality of Merz’s not strained.

 8pm. £5. Glee Club

Sunday December 4

They’ve had a good year with their embracing of soft rock and heaven vaulting melodies on current album Pushing The Senses, building musical cathedrals with Feeling A Moment and Tender and soaring into the sky on the Coldplay-like Bitter Glass. But while they retained some of the old thrashy approach with the title cut and Pilgrim, you have to wonder whether the new mellowing may have cost them some of the old fan base and whether this step up to arena level may not be a little over early ambitious unless there’s a fire in the hold to offset the inclination towards ruminative anthems.

Unlikely to lapse into anything resembling a last dance waltz or emotional epiphany, support comes from Welsh pranksters Goldie Looking Chain who’ll be working the crowds into an early flurry of limbshaking with their amusing not to say sweary observations on British life and culture set to bling friendly pop grooves.

7.30pm. £18.50. NEC

The name’s from St. Petersburg, the band from Newcastle, the music from a record collection clearly well stocked with Sparks, XTC, and Roxy Music. Seeing out the year with a well timed stocking filler reminder of debut album A Certain Trigger’s fizzing collection of keyboard swirling art pop.

With personality oozing from such masterly melodic moments as the swooping Signal and Sign, Graffiti’s evocation of early spangly Roxy,, the rush n tumble Now I’m All Over The Shop and the love and loss bittersweetness of The Coast Is Always Changing, this Park life is one well worth living.

Sharing the Sparks influence are openers Clor whose eponymous debut album also manages to embrace Gang Of Four’s angular funk rock, early Human League, Krautrock, and XTC. Reinterpreting dance music through 70s technopop, the album bristles with catchy tunes, the Talking Heads-like Stuck in A Tight Spot, a space lounge Making You All Mine, and the juddering electro-punkfunk Dangerzone to name just a handful of highlights. With skewed guitars, sinuous bass, wormy lyrics that often hover around darker shadows of sexuality, they’re going to be ones to keep a close eye on next year.

7.30pm. £9. Wulfrun Hall

A special pre-Christmas treat for the fans apparently, this last night of the tour brings Maxi Jazz, Sister Bliss and Dido’s brother Rollo back to town for another dose of their greatest hits and choice cuts from the recent No Roots album with its fusion of dance, ambient chill and social politics themed around relationships, self-worth and how we live today.

Expect to find swaying house vibe Miss U Less, See U More, Mass Destruction, the massive What About Love and recent hit I Want More alongside favourite items Insomnia, We Come 1 and, obviously, crowd rouser God Is A DJ.

7.30pm. £23.50. NIA

It’s his second show at the venue this year, a testament to the massive upsurge of interest in Loudon and Kate McGarrigle’s flamboyantly gay offspring since the release of Want One and sequel Want Two.

Last time in town he was going it alone, tonight he brings the band to give things the full arrangement works to his romantic piano ballads, chansons, Baroque pop, rooftops jazz, and lush songwriter rock.

Between his signature witty ramblings and anecdotes, the set list is likely to see a few permutations from the last tour but it’s a fair bet that live favourite staples such as Gay Messiah, Little Sister, Memphis Skyline and The Art Teacher will be present and correct with hopefully room found for The Maker Makes, a new number that will feature on the soundtrack to Brokeback Mountain. The film’s also seemed him team up with Teddy Thompson to cover Roger Miller classic King of The Road, so given the appearance of his versions of Across The Universe and Hallelujah on the last set list maybe he can squeeze that in too. Essential really.

Support from Birmingham’s own and utterly brilliant Guillemots who, now signed to Polydor followinga label bidding war, follow up their ltd edition EP with ‘official’ 7 debut Trains To Brazil (Fantastic Plastic). Written three years back by frontman Fyfe Hutchins and concerning a terrorist bombing, review copies were not available but you can be pretty sure it’s going to be fairly awesome.

7.30pm. £20. Symphony Hall

Surprisingly, Gray’s not going for the arena audiences you might have expected - and which he’d certainly have drawn - following the massive success of his long awaited Life In Slow Motion album, preferring instead to retain a degree of intimacy with the fans.

Certainly the smaller scale venues are more sympathetic to his tremulous vocal warmth, but you can’t help but think that the cinematic production and soaring orchestrations of things like Alibi, the Springsteenesque The One I Love and Ain’t No Love are waiting to be let loose on something like the NIA.

Still, that’s a quibble and frankly whether he played in an aircraft hanger or your front room, you’d still be blown away by such numbers as slow Northern soul beat current single Hospital Food or the serene beauty of Disappearing World, while I daresay he might just slip Babylon into the proceedings too.

7.30pm. £25. W’hampton Civic Hall

Tuesday December 6

Steven Wilson may dispute descriptions of the band as prog rock and load up crunchy riffs and snarling guitars on things like the hardcore aspiring Shallow, the metal roiling Halo and the title track where electronica swiftly gives way to thundering drums and heavy guitars, but it’s still the dreamier, more spaced numbers of current album Deadwing (Lava) that sound the more convincing.

The shimmering grace of Lazarus and the album’s other mellow ballad excursion Mellatron Scratch or the slow building cosmic harmonic majesty of the closing Glass Arm Shattering tend to suggest the man protest too much but what really gives the prog game away is the multi-layered epics that are Start of Something Beautiful and the twelve minute Arriving Somewhere But Not Here which wouldn’t be out of place at a Pink Floyd convention. But whatever label you want to attach, the gig promises some heady noise. And, just to add a small incentive, they’ll have a rather special guest in tow in the shape of King Crimson founder, musical experimentalist and, of course, not at all proggy, Robert Fripp.

7.30pm. £14. Wulfrun Hall

Drawing on the glittering joys of living in Staines with its pulsating nightlife, economic opportunities and architectural attractions (that’s irony, ok), the band’s debut album, Stars of CCTV (Atlantic) emerged (re-recorded after landing the major label deal) to glowing praise for its tales of crap clubbing (Living For The Weekend), being broke and ducking out on your pregnant girlfriend (Cash Machine), the death of friends in Iraq (Middle Eastern Holiday) or their being banged up in the local Young Offenders' nick (Feltham Is Singing Out).

Musically the influences are readily apparent. Cash Machine and Tied Up Too Tight might prompt comparisons to Gorillaz but the roots stretch back much further to the white reggae infusions of The Clash and The Specials. Indeed, switch Staines for Coventry and you could be back in the 80s with Jerry Dammers bemoaning the state of his slab of the nation.

Musically they stick fairly close to a diet of dub friendly hip hop, soul-funk, skanking beats and disco, bringing a solid pop sensibility to the lopingly anthemic title track, Hard To Beat and Better Do Better’s tale of an ex trying to restart the relationship. However, they don’t sound too convincing when they try and go the sensitive piano ballad route with break up number Move On Now, suggesting there’s still a little more work to be done rounding themselves out before the fulsome praise is fully justified.

However, it’s an impressive, confident first step and with a couple of dozen new songs already on the back burner for the follow-up, some of which may well get the roadtest tonight, it’ll be interesting to see just how far they can move beyond their record collection and what responses are generated by exposure to the world beyond Staines.

7.30pm. £12.50 Wulfrun Hall

This time last year he was in town promoting his rather fine covers collection Under The Covers, now he’s back with a brand new album of self-penned material in Deep Blue (Pipe), the swiftish follow up to Whoever It Was That Brought Me Here Will Have To Take Me Home.

It’s a given, of course, that anything he does is going to be rewarding, intelligent quality music informed by deeply felt emotions, sensitive insights, concerned social conscience and humanistic compassion, but this is also one of the best things he’s done.

Beefed up with a more fuller production than usual with Nigel Hopkins’ keyboards adding extra depth and several cuts adopting a solid band sound, it strikes powerfully in its response to the current world climate ongoing legacy of Messrs Bush and Blair.

The simple acoustic guitar picked How Did We End Up Here is forthrightly specific in referencing prisoner abuse, rigged elections and the economic agenda behind American foreign policy while his potent cover of Larry Norman’s harmonica blowing Dylanesque Six Sixty Six sees the sign of apocalypse among those doing the devil’s work. However, while the jangling acoustic Yet Still This Will Not Be (echoes here of fellow Welshman Mike Peters) talks of ‘nurturing child soldiers with the munitions from our factories’ and political self-interest, Joseph also sees hope that the ‘kingdom of the fool’ will eventually fall as the ‘broken-hearted’ are elevated to caretakers of the world.

Mortality strikes in This Fragile World’s note on a boy drowned while, ever the questioning Christian, his recurring themes of doubt, faith and a reason to believe in a better dawn inform the hushed Turn Me Tender and the opening slow waltzing Some Of Us, a litany of human hopes, dreams, sufferings and fears trembling in the anticipation of eventual grace.

There’s more than usual religious imagery to the lyrics this time with specific references to Judas, Jesus, Satan, the Psalms and, of course God, but never to extent of Bible bashing if you don’t subscribe to the same beliefs so that, for example, the wonderful swelling Coldplayish I Can’t Breath (revisited in acoustic form for the closing track) and the Van Morrison soulfulness of I Would Never Do Anything In This World To Hurt You are as easily read as secular love songs as they are about adoration, doubt and spiritual failings.

Only one track doesn’t seem to quite fit into the album’s scheme of things, though the strummed Proud Valley Boy’s angrier return to Please Sir’s lament for the destruction of the Welsh mining industry is a no less welcome inclusion.

Adopting the voice of ‘Evan Merthyr born’, he sings of retraining schemes, discarded dreams, backbones bent and the ‘legions of the coal dust brow’ now just ‘photographs in fancy bars’ while recalling the legendary singer and civil rights champion Paul Robeson who paid tribute to them in his 1940 film Proud Valley and left a fire that still burns in the soul.

It’s a number likely to prove a powerful highlight of Joseph’s reliably intimate and inspiring live show with a set sure to cast its net far and wide over his sixteen album’s worth of material and, hopefully, his now staple version of U2’s Stuck in A Moment.

8pm. £13. mac

It’s been a long two years since the release of the Birmingham four piece’s debut single, during which time they’ve moved past its acoustic based folk flavoured melodic pop. Certainly belated follow up Mirror (Solar) suggests more along the lines of the retro funk groove indie of Bloc Party and Franz Ferdinand with reggae hinting staccato rhythms, scratchy guitars and dance itches. You can measure the shift by the inclusion of a new version of live favourite One Kiss which also figured on the debut and now brings more of a Police pop beat and less of the Manfred Mann to the r&b flavours.

Certainly, along with the vaguely Oasis meets Gang of Four Money, there’s now more of a consistent vision to the sound as opposed to going off into Paul Simon, Ronnie Lane or Beatles tangents, so it’ll be interesting to see what shapes they spin on next year’s debut album, Proper Tunnel Vision, tasters from which will be in evidence tonight.

8.30pm. £4. Jug of Ale

Not as much a part of the run up to Christmas as B list celebs switching on the lights, the Quo are back for their annual knees up, the tour this time sponsored by Kit-Kat. How rock n roll is that! However, as two hit singles in as many months, has just shown, they’re not entirely relegated to relying on old glories to keep the pulse beating. Indeed, they’ve even managed to find themselves getting the odd Radio One play again after years in exile.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the festive special if they didn’t spend most of the set churning out the old hits for the aged air guitarists and boogie jean brigade, but there’s actually quite a sizeable chunk of The Party Ain’t Over Yet (Sanctuary) you wouldn’t walk out of either. Indeed mixing up the excellent country pop of the title track (which wouldn’t be out of place in a Mavericks set) and the instantly recognisable catchy Quo pop of the Buddy Hollyish All That Counts Is Love with a bluegrassy Nevashooda, the goodtiming 12 bar boogies Stupid Cupid and You Never Stop, it also takes a nod back to the earlier days with Gotta Get Up And Go a close cousin of Down The Dustpipe and both Bellavista Man and Goodbye Baby reminders of their days as a real blues band.

For a while it was fashionable to treat them as a joke, but if they’re going to keep recording things like country barroom ballad then I reckon it’s the Quo who’ll be having the last laugh.

 7.30pm. £28.50. NEC

You’ll likely never have heard of them, though if you know your 80s American guitar rock bands you might recognise attractively named current guitarist The Flesh Hammer as Jeff Wells, former founder and lead guitarist of the underrated Guadalcanal Diary. These days, teamed with Dan Electro, Brit bassist Buzz Hagstrom and frontman Manfred "The Professor" Jones, he’s cranking out 60s garage rock n roll fuelled by a cocktail of soul, r&b and surf, ripping up the roof with furious frenzies of freak outs from the days when a rave had nothing to do with house music.

They’ve been knocking around since 1987 (long before the garage revival bandwagon), racking up some eight studio albums and assorted singles, a trawl from which now surfaces as Soul Sizzling 7" Meltdown (Chicken Ranch). A 15 track compilation of 45s and EPs, it give a pretty good idea of what to expect from the party with their raw and rowdy covers of such old school nuggets as Soul Sister, Brown Sugar, Spirit’s I Got A Line On You, Used To Be A Lover, But Now I’m A Fighter, the Pretty Things’ Buzz The Jerk and even Dave Clark 5 B-side Concentration Baby. They also do a ferociously solid testifying James Brown with Get Down With It, the first track Peel played on his last ever radio broadcast.

No frills, no pretensions but if you want to see the real thing rather than young pretenders like The Strokes, then scout this lot out and be prepared to sweat buckets.

9pm. £10. Bar Academy (Cold Rice)

They seem to be gigging in their adopted home town every other week at the moments, and here’s another outing to boost festive sales of the Joy Division/Bunnymen influenced debut album The Back Room. They’re a fine outfit with a lot of promise, but keeping an eye on over-exposure might not be a bad thing.

Support’s provided by Brighton combo The Kooks who, after making a favourable impression with sunny fuzz Britpop debut single Eddie’s Gun now find themselves running to stay still on follow up Sofa Song (Virgin), a jaunty somewhat out of season summery garage pop jangle that again prompts thoughts of The Strokes and The Kinks but really has nothing about it to stand out in a very overcrowded scene.

8pm. £10. Barfly, Sanctuary, Digbeth

Hard to credit, but it’s ten years since Dave Grohl put the Foos together following Kurt Cobain’s suicide. Earlier this year he put together the band’s most ambitious album yet, a double set that should provide the spine of the accompanying tour. In Your Honour (RCA) comes as a double set, part hard driving heavyweight melodic rock, part acoustic and loosely tied around Grohl’s support of John Kerry during the last set of American elections.

The rocking set hits the ground running with the title track, guitars spraying all over the place and instantly laying down the Husker Du comparisons (and Beatles hints) that will feed into the following tracks, swaggering through a storm of pop friendly verse and chorus numbers like No Way Back, The Sign, DOA (on which they manage to combine Hawkwind and the Beach Boys) and the irresistible Best Of You. There’s more hooks here that at a convention of fishermen. If you don’t find these aren’t among the best things they’ve done since This Is A Call then it’s hard to know what might impress you!

Resolve and power ballad The Deepest Blues Are Black bring the adrenalin level down a notch.

But these are like volcanic eruptions compared to the barely there sounds of the acoustic set where Grohl does his sensitive singer-songwriter bit with hushed vocals, the opening Stay inspired by memories of a teenage suicide in his childhood, Friend of a Friend a lament for wasted life (Cobain?) dating back to 92. It’s delicate stuff that even enlists Norah Jones to duet on the jazzy samba flavours of Virginia Moon.

Highly unlikely of course that that will turn up life, indeed unless they have an acoustic interlude the chances of anything from the second disc turning up on stage is pretty remote, though it would be nice if drummer Taylor Hawkins was allowed his moment in the spotlight with the jangly pop Cold Day In The Sun. Still, if you want to cuddle up on the sofa to the Foos, it’s probably bets done in the comfort of your own home, if you want to be down the front punching the air you’ll be crushing against the barricades tonight.

Support comes from The Futureheads, purveyors of a fine self-titled debut album that paints them as an intriguing ska-informed hybrid of Madness, Dexys and The Skids. Currently plugging the all new Area EP, a taster for next year’s sophomore album, you can saefly assume that’ll be slotting in the set alongside the likes of such current stands-outs Decent Days And Nights, Le Garage, their reconstruction of Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love and the very Kaiser Chiefs sounding Trying Not To Think About Time.

7.30pm. £25. NEC

Sunday December 11

The Wainwright siblings just can’t stay away can they. This is Martha’s third show here this year, back with the six piece band for another trip around her self-titled debut album (of confessional/accusatory folk-pop. While fire spitting tracks like sexual politics belter Ball & Chain and G.P.T showcase the power of her voice and anger, it’s arguably the smokier side that serves her best, offsetting the acid edge of her lyrics with musical honeyed charm as on Factory’s bruised cry of displacement, the domestic stagnation of This Life or new single Far Away that takes The Carpenters riding Across The Universe.

She’s blessed with an emotionally acrobatic voice, cracking with a choke, leaping with hope and aching with a forlorn lack of self-worth and defensiveness that informs many of the songs here, most notably TV Show and sweet jazzy blues Who Was I Kidding?

The album’s also been given a make-over for the tour, resurfacing in Special Edition form with bonus tracks (lifted from Canadian EP I Will Internalize) that feature her duetting with Rufus on Bring Back My Heart plus a new studio version of live favourite Baby. Long may she keep returning.

Sharing the spotlight is close friend, occasional collaborator and scion of British musical royalty Teddy Thompson back to spread the word about his excellent new album Separate Ways with inclinations for the folksy pop fields of the late 60s and early 70s that embrace such influences as Jackson Browne, The Beatles and the Everlys.

It’s a warm, rich listening experience that calls to the heart on lost love shuffling lament Sorry To See Me Go, a back porch lonesome Think Again, You Made It and the bluesy moods of No Way To Be. Just to show he doesn’t only do ballad melancholia, he kicks up a pair of rocking heels too on That’s Just Enough For You and a swelling Petty meets Orbison You Made It.

Given Martha guests on Shine So Bright and the countrified pop of Everybody Move It, perhaps she might even be persuaded to put in an appearance before her own set too.

7.30pm. £12.50. Carling Academy 2

Sunday December 11

Following preview gigs the other month, the County Mayo boys are back to give some larger exposure to The Cure, an album that finds Davy Carton now taking on all vocal responsibilities and the band in rather more serious contemplative mind than usual on the politically inclined Out For A Smoke, a gentle country jogging Stars Over Cloughanover, and the wistful Vulnerable.

Sax wailing stomper My Last Summer In New York shows they’ve not wholly abandoned their trademark punky Irish folk clatter and chances are that the live show will still involve much bouncing around the floor on the part of the audience, but as the years begin to stack up the focus on their musically softer side should see them safely into this new phase of their career.

 7.30pm. £18.50. W’hampton Civic Hall. (+ Sun Dec 18, 7.30pm. £17.50. Warwick Arts Centre)

Sunday December 11

If you need further convincing that On A Storyteller’s Night is both the band’s finest hour and an unacknowledged masterpiece of melodic, anthemic rock then the Black Country outfit are happy to repeat the evidence with a return of their sell-out Storytellers Anniversary show. There’s no support, instead the first set will cross the band’s career path for a collection of such album favourites as Kingdom Of Madness and Soldier Of The Line while the second half sees them perform the Storytellers album in full. Devotees will naturally have earmarked the gig already, but if you’ve never really devoted the attention that such Storyteller classics as Les Morts Dansant, How Far Jerusalem and the brilliant The Last Dance deserve then maybe you should try and sneak your way in and savour the awakening.

7.30pm. £16.50. Wulfrun Hall

Sunday December 11

The latest name to surface from the burgeoning Leeds scene, the quintet take a pre-Christmas jaunt to spread festive cheer and their tongue in cheek new single, Pressure On You (Nude). Part Pulp, part Squeeze (surely there’s a whisker of Cool For Cats in there) and part retro shaded Britpop (a bit of Kinks riffery), both it and the angular melodic pop of Idiot bode well for development next year where, no doubt, their self-confessed Floyd and Stranglers influences will make themselves heard.

7pm. £6. Bar Academy