Birmingham Gig Guide - News and Reviews

A new addition to the singer-songwriter ranks, Drever is a Scottish multi-instrumentalist with a voice reminiscent of the late great Stan Rogers. The son of Wolfstone member Ivan, he started singing and playing in the Orkneys when he was just 13, moving to become a fixture on the Edinburgh folk scene when he was 17 as well as touring with the likes of John McCusker, Karine Polwart and Kate Rusby, for whose band he supplies guitar.

Now he’s set to make his solo debut with Black Water, a stunning acoustic collection of songs that features guest appearances from Rusby, Idlewild’s Roddy Woomble and Eddi Reader. Rich, and heartfelt, it ranges from traditional numbers like Patrick Spence, Green Grow The Laurel and Braw Sailin' On The Sea to contemporary social themed contributions such as Boo Hewardine’s Harvest Gypsies, Phil Gaston’s haunting Navigator and Edinburgh writer Sandy Wright’s title track lament Steel & Stone (Black Water). The betting on folk debut album of the year starts here.

Blur may remain on hold but, taking time off from his ethnic music explorations and cartoon band Gorillaz, Damon Albarn’s put together a new outfit with former Verve member Simon Tong, Fela Kuti’s Tony Allen and ex Clashman Paul Simenon, to make what is, to all intents and purposes, a sequel to Parklife.

Basically, it takes the Specials’ Ghost Town sour view of Coventry, mixes it with London Fields by Martin Amis and applies it to the capital’s grey cityscape of gasworks, canals and a Prime Minister engaged in a tidal wave of war. The Kingdom of Doom, as the song would have it.

Kitted out in a mix of the strummy acoustic folk and scratchy electronica emblemised on History Song, the perky chugging pop of 80’s Life and scuffling single Herculean, and the crankier fuzzed rock of the title track, it’s surely also influenced by the suburban midtempo balladry of The Kinks’ vision of England on their Village Green Preservation Society with Nature Springs while Behind The Sun and The Bunting Son conjure thoughts of Roger Waters.

With Green Fields a rework of Last Song, the track written for Marianne Faithful, it’s an album that becomes more cohesive and thematically resonant with each listen, and this - for the moment - low key foray out on to the touring circuit promises to hold equal magic.

Fronted by Philadelphian Alan Ounsworth, the art rock quintet have made some tentative strides towards polish with sophomore album Sound of Thunder (Wichita), enlisting Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann to spread a little of his magic dust over things. Not that they’ve abandoned the engagingly ramshackle experimental air of the debut, just brought their naggingly catchy melodies into stronger focus.

Ounsworth still sounds like David Byrne being strangled and the opening title track and the closing Five Easy Pieces are still marvellously ragged round the edges, but what really hits you between the eyes is the gorgeous, tumbling, hooks laden, piano-tinkling, chords crashing melodies around which infectious numbers like Emily Jean Stock, Goodbye To Mother and the Cove, Mama, Won’t You Keep Them Castles In The Air and Burning?, Yankee Go Home and Underwater are hung.

Capable of shifting from the watery Lennonesque piano ballad of Love Song No 7 straight into the bleeping off the wall dance fractures of Satan Said Dance, the woozy instrumental throwaway Upon Encountering The Crippled Elephant, or the clockwork mechanical tick rock pop of Arm and Hammer, they’re a unpredictable sunny delight that you’d be crazy not to catch.

Main support is fellow LA outfit Cold War Kids. Here recently with their We Used To Vacation single, they return packing the Robbers & Cowards (V2) album, pursuing a similar narcotic bluesy sound that’s seen them touted as a cocktail of Beta Band, Velvets, Dylan and Billie Holiday.

They’re certainly fond of fuzzed up guitars, lurching rhythms and strung out Buckleyesque soulful vocals, in plentiful evidence on things like Hang Me Up To Dry, Hair Down, the bass heavy gospel stomp Saint John and the Weiner cabaret meets Tom Waits around gypsy campfire of Passing The Hat. Then again elsewhere Hospital Beds conjures thoughts of early solo John Cale, Robbers and Pregnant are slow drunken lurches and both Red Wine, Success and Rubidoux show off their clattering rock clothes.

They could, perhaps, find room for more light and shade with some softer arrangements here and there, but on the evidence of this they seem on course to be this year’s My Morning Jacket.

Opening the show will be new name Elvis Perkins, a sweet, high-voiced (Wainwright, Buckley if you need pointers) singer-songwriter with melancholic, dreamy folk leanings and songs laced with images of sleep and flight. A debut album is in the works, samples of which he’ll be hauling out tonight, hopefully among them the worn down romanticism of Sleep Sandwich (where Wainwright Snr comes to mind), kick off Cohen blues single All The Night Without Love and, promising to be a live favourite, the beautifully fumbling early hours of Ash Wednesday.

A welcome return for the Icelandic songstress who, contrary to expectations arising from her origins, feeds debut solo album Dirty Paper Cup (Red Grape) on a diet of 60s English folk (Plastic Halo), mediaeval troubadour pop (Hometown Hero), bluegrass n Eastern (Diamonds On My Belly) and vaudeville (a jaunty rework of Lou Reed’s Who Loves The Sun). It’s a magically spooked noise, that’s deservedly attracting a growing following.

If you were won over by the riff pummelling PJ Harvey meets The Stooges and Ramones dirty rock n roll of the Be My Friend and I Need You singles, then you’ll have no problem with the Glasgow’s girl quartet’s debut album One More Won’t Kill Us (Measured). Largely because pretty much everything follows the same pattern with biting guitars, throbbing rhythms and spit in your mouth attitude vocals.

Tippi, Rosie, new bassist Gill and, er, Soup would have been well at home back in the psychedelic garage rock days of the late 60s where they’d have doubtless launched an all girl band version of the Nuggets compilation. They’re not deep and they’re not original but, Tippi occasionally calling to mind early Debbie Harry, pop rush sensibility numbers like Falling Star, Couldn’t Leave Her Alone, Sympathy, Place Like This and One More Won’t Kill Me pretty much come with a money back guarantee of a rowdy, sweaty, beer chugging great night of slamming against the walls.

Having released their best of last year and with a new album due this month, this looks like being a night of recollection and anticipation from the Bristolian pioneers of trip hop. Currently lining up as founder member Robert Del Naja, Neil Davidge, programmer Alex Swift and, possibly, fellow founder member Grant Marshall if he can beg time off from looking after the new baby, it’s unclear who they might be drafting in to handle the vocals that it’s unlikely that studio collaborators Hope Sandoval, Terry Callier and Dot Allison will be doing the live thing.

Whatever, with a set mixing up such woozy old favourites as Teardrop Protection, Unfinished Sympathy and Karmacoma with whatever bluesy soul direction the recent Live Me Me has spun out, it’ll be getting a packed welcome back from an audience keen to see if they’ve dusted down the relative cobwebs of 100th Window.

The latest name on the acoustic singer-songwriter scene to find himself draped in the new Nick Drake/Elliott Smith cloak depending on your age and reference points, Regan hails from Dublin and judging by the rather rather fine guitar he picks on debut album The End of History, is equally familiar with the collected works of Bert Jansch and John Fahey.

He also has an open hearted voice that will conjure comparisons with not only Damien Rice and Conor Oberst but also Loudon Wainwright (Hey Rabbit's lament for the destruction of nature) and Paul Simon (Snowy Atlas Mountains).

Drawing many of his images from rural nature, the darkly urgent Hunter's World uses a fox in a trap as a twisted romantic metaphor, childhood memories of a tongue-tied school friend return to 'the insect filled jars in rows' in the backporch lament The Cowshed and even end of relationship song Put A Penny In The Slot sees him 'sit like a doc leaf sit beside a stinging nettle'.

And if he's not conjuring bucolic pastures, he’s turning memorably original poetic conceits such as comparing himself to an old typewriter (The Underwood Typewriter) or, on Be Good Or Be Gone, an aerial view of a coastal town. It doesn't always come off and some lines feel forced, but he’s assuredly an artist you'll be listening to long after the fashion parade has passed by.

Reissuing early single Raoul to try and repeat the success of the annoyingly memorable Monster does raise worrying fears that the Cardiff teen combo may well have run out of steam a little early on in the proceedings, especially since the single didn’t do all that well. But they still get to headline this NME tour, cranking up the songs of disaffected youth from their Not Accepted Anywhere album to doubtless riot frenzied dancing.

You might surmise from influences that embrace the Beta Band, Kinks, XTC and Sigur Ros, Bexhill On Sea’s Mumm-Ra would favour slightly skewed tempo shifting rock. However, their last single, Out Of The Question, was all bopping along jangly guitar pop euphoria and they keep up the direction with follow-up What will Steve Do? (Columbia), another big surge along stomper that should effortlessly propel them into the chart’s upper reaches, laying the ground for what promises to be a scintillating debut album.

Taking a cue from the likes of The Cramps and Raybans with the influence of Joe Meek in evidence, The Horrors are a garage surf punk outfit from Southend, ramping up the guitars, throaty bass and pumping organ on the likes of the swamp boogie Crawdaddy Simone and frug friendly Death At The Chapel. With debut album Strange House due next month, they’ll be slashing their way through previews, among the incoming single Gloves.

Then there’s Dundee punky power pop scallywags The View who should be in jubilant mood with the release of debut album Hats Off To The Buskers (1965). Opening in wall scorching form with the garage stabbing drive of Coming Down, and featuring past singles Wasted Little Djs and Superstar Tradesman alongside current romper, the Brimful of Asha soundalike Same Jeans, it swaggers along in bristlingly confident form.

With Don’t Tell Me all lope-along scally pop, Skag Friendly a whoop n skank early Blur-like drunken stagger, The Don dosing on Squeezey carnival pop, Grans For Tea and acoustic strummer Face For The Radio musical nods to an obvious love for the halcyon days of The Kinks and both a chirpily enthusiastic Dance Into The Night and 60s midtempo swayer Claudia fine examples of their skill in crafting classic old school pop, quite frankly and quite rightly they look like being unstoppable. Expect them back headlining within weeks.

Variously likened to Oasis and Kasabian, the Coventry trio follow up 60s Brit garage flavoured debut single 40 Days & 40 Nights with It’s Not OK (Stiff), a ridiculously catchy dollop of unbridled swirling and circling guitar chords spraying with yet more nods back to the British mod n acid 60s. It won’t start revolutions, cure poverty or win them award nominations, but you’ll be hard pushed to hear a more air fisting, bounce round the room, slice of jubilant feelgood indie pop this month.

Drawing on influences that range from Daft Punk and Nine Inch Nails to, rather obviously, Gary Numan and early Human League, this Belgian techno quartet arrive to spread the word on their Bring It On (Skint) album. A familiarly dark, brooding set of electro-dance filtered through rock n roll drive dynamics, they pitch head on in with tracks like Everybody, British Mode (the Depeche nod?), Black Gloves and Check while Slow Down and Safari Beach respectively flag up shades of the blues and, er, Beach Boys.

The strobes will have to be set to max for the robotic beat boys among the crowd to milk the most from the sonics, but if this doesn’t boost recruitment to the Tubeway Army nothing will.

Channelling the spirit of Billy Bragg and The Streets, the lanky Wimbledon white rapper cum suburban folkie finally delivers his much anticipated debut album, Panic Prevention (Virgin), revealing a mix of reggae, lurching pop, electronica (current single Calm Down Dearest owes a nod to Gary Numan) and, on Back In The Game, even hints of Bacharach influenced bossa nova lounge. You might even detect a touch of the experimental side of Godley and Creme to some of his musical weaves.

Lyrically, tracks like Sheila, So Lonely Was The Ballad, Ike & Tina, If You Got The Money and the dub soaked Alicia Quays are rife with incisive observations on the numbingly depressing nature of modern life awash with drink, drugs, cigarettes, pub fights, sulky teens and dead end nights out, suggesting the chambers of his heart are equally balanced between cynicism and compassion.

Although it’s riddled with the sort of language designed to keep him away from daytime radio, numbers such as the strings papered Salvador, Operation and the Brian Wilson veined Pacemaker are all clear evidence that, should the mood take him, he’s quite capable of producing the sort of classy classic melodic pop of which Radio 2 programmers dreams are made. It’ll be interesting to watch him develop, so get in on the journey now.

Now firmly back in the fold after major label attempts to turn her into some indie rock folk chick a few years back, this finds Carthy out on the road under her own steam, rather than as part of Waterson Carthy, for the first time in a while.

She’s here with melodeon player Saul Rose, a fellow Waterson Carthy alumni who figured large on the more trad material of her Red/Rice album. Doubtless they’ll be sifting through some of that material along with picks from Anglicana, but chances are the emphasis is likely to be on her most recent release, Rough Music, a return to more traditional roots with such choices as Turpin Hero, Gallant Hussar, Maid on the Shore and, by way of contemporary representative, Billy Bragg’s King James Version. With a new album planned for later in the year, she may well be testing out a few possibilities for that too, but whatever the set list this intimate gig should be a must on any folk devotees list.

Sometime North London DJ and occasional Ian Dury wannabe, Jack Allsopp looked like another casualty of the record buying public’s indifference when debut album The Outer Marker surfaced a couple of years back. Since when, consciousness raised by the likes of Lily Allen, Jamie T, Plan B and The Streets, there’s been a more receptive response to the sort of urban indie dance, rap, rock and electronica fusion songs about working class life that fuel his songwriting. So, currently chewing the charts with Starz In Their Eyes, he seems set to make the breakthrough with Overtones (Mercury), an album that swirls together elements of jazz, Latin, hip hop, ska, funk (listen to the Jay Kay styled I Talk To Much) and skewed pop slurry beats around his semi-spoken approach.

Ably demonstrating his musical diversity, Spectacular Failures, Writer’s Block, the flamenco flavoured Hold On, clattery jazz funk Curtis Mayfield throwback No Time and even an acoustic Mourning Morning all offer future singles contenders while guaranteeing twisting limbs on the dance floor. Looks like Jack’s finally hit the road.

The Sydney based singer-songwriter of Middle-Eastern heritage is apparently big in Australia where his debut, Autumn Flow (Red Ink), was nominated for Album of the Year.

Well, that’s Australians for you. It’s pleasant enough soul roots stuff and, as tracks like Daniel, Bedouin Song and Grey Ocean show, he’s got a warmly liquid voice. But it’s going to take a lot more than some Paul Simon knock-offs (Autumn Flow could have come from Rhythm of the Saints), half-hearted rock intensity (Stuck In A War) or watered down Seal (Superficial) to persuade more cynical Brits.

His acting career may have now finally collapsed into straight to DVD B movie knock offs with his only appearance on the big screen in recent years being a self-spoofing Orange commercial, but the kaftan-wearing pony tailed action man looks to be carving out a decent second life as a bluesman. Certainly this tour had to be rescheduled due to the incredibly high ticket demand when it was first announced for the end of last year. And that’s got to be more than just Above The Law fans.

No stranger to the electric guitar, he’s been playing since he was a kid and certainly knows his way around the frets and has a deep, growly voice that bears testament to his love of early Delta and Chicago blues. His first album, Songs From The Crystal Cave reaped unexpected good reviews and his latest, Mojo Priest (Steamroller), has followed suit, picking up glowing praise from those who know a few things about the blues.

He hangs out with the right people too, the album featuring contributions from the likes of Howlin Wolf sidekick Hubert Sumlin, Bo Diddley, Lady Saw, James Cotton, Willie "Pinetop" Perkins and the late great Ruth Brown.

With a track list that mixes up old nuggets such as Hoochie Koochie Man, Dust My Broom and Little Red Rooster with self-penned numbers such as the boogie down Talk To My Ass and Love Doctor, while not up there in the same league as, say, Stevie Ray Vaughn, it’s a solid, muscular affair guaranteed to stir the blues blood.

Given a somewhat fluid line up, it’s not entirely clear who’ll be in the eight piece band, but there’s a good chance it’ll include Luther Allison’s son Bernard on slide guitar with Norris Johnson on keyboards. Whatever and whoever, this promises to be something of a highlight on the blues calendar, regardless of whether you’ve ever seen Under Siege or not.

Two years on since their dynamite debut Silent Alarm marked them out as the field leaders for dance-driven post punk guitar rock, the boys return with their first tour in over a year and the much anticipated follow-up A Weekend In The City (Wichita), inspired by frontman Kele Okerere’s interest in ‘the living noise of the metropolis’.

Which, roughly translated, means an album’s worth of songs exploring the life of a city, from commuting to casual sex, from larging it on Friday night to taking the long ride home the following morning.

Song For The Clay (Disappear Here) kicks things off in quasi theatrical rock manner with a driving urgent rhythm and strobe effect guitars, but then along comes Hunting for Witches with its electronic static and cut ups intro to a pulsing techno beat hung with an air of neurosis embedded in the politically carved lyrics.

A tumbling lullaby, the morning off to work Waiting For The 7:18 offers the first mid-tempo scuffer with an eruption into sonic fuzz chorus before current dark hued dance stomp single The Prayer gives way to the nervy Uniform’s swipe at studied cool and lack of individualism with hints of Blur, Cockney Rebel and Robbie Williams.

With the debut album evoking the influences of The Police and XTC, the swirly shapes of On and the pastoral drift of SRXT suggest they may well be Peter Gabriel and early Genesis admirers too while the liltingly relaxed Kreuzberg and the drum clattering lazy afternoon in the park shades of Sunday should both go down well with Snow Patrol fans.

With the riff circling, bass throbbing anthemic I Still Remember likely to prove a live highlight and Okerere venomous rant on British racism (with its provocative line about stamping on the faces of policeman) in Where Is Home? guaranteed to ignite a few right-wing tabloid bonfires, it seems fair to say that the band’s come of age with a vengeance. Arenas beckon.

Touted as the new big thing out of Coventry, the trio of brothers Patch and Paul Lagunas and drummer Rachel Butt have their heads firmly buried in the new wave days of The Clash, Buzzcocks and Pistols on debut single Loco (Catskills) while a jerky punk cover of Too Much Too Young seems more indebted to Sham 69 than The Specials. The hype isn’t exactly borne out by the single, but with debut album Long Live The Ripps due next month perhaps there’s still revelations in store.

It’s been four years since the Texas riff rock boys were over here promoting Source Tags & Codes, since which time they’ve had a sound backlash thrashing and sales snubbing for the follow-up Worlds Apart. Which means they’ve quite a bit of ground and reputation to recover reputation. Unfortunate then that critical reaction to last year’s new album So Divided, has been less than enthusiastic, reviews accusing it of being all overblown sound and fury with little substance or energy, lacking stand-up songs and wallowing in bloatedly over-extended rock outs devoid of momentum.

Since UK advance copies weren’t available, it’s hard to judge on the accuracy of the slag-offs, but while titles like an arena-rock inclined Wasted State of Mind and a cover of Guided by Voices' The Gold Heart Mountaintop Queen Directory have earned grudging faint praise, it may be best not to take along too high expectations.

Support’s Forget Cassettes, a guitar driven trio fronted by Beth Cameron that once included current Trail drummer Doni Schroeder.

Former frontman for hardcore outfit Million Dead, Turner’s found his inner strumming folkie and reinvented himself as a sort of B list Billy Bragg. So, here he is on the road promoting debut solo album Sleep Is For The Week (Xtra Mile), a somewhat anaemic but not entirely dreadful collection of songs drawn from his experiences of life.

His nasal vocals aren’t particularly distinguished but they do have a catch to them and at least you can hear the lyrics which, for the most part, are fairly well observed, dealing with relationships with friends, father and, on The Ladies of London Town, the women he never gets to sleep with, frequently strained through a filter of introspective reflection and melancholy.

There’s some good individual moments here, The Real Damage, A Decent Cup of Tea, Worse Things Happen At Sea, Once We Were Anarchists and The Ballad Of Me And My Friends, especially worth a mention, but cumulatively things all tend to rather merge into one with no musical highs or lows, suggesting he’s going to have to work hard if the live set’s not just going to feel like some busker who just wandered in off the street.

Featuring assorted ex members of Dustball and the Unbelievable Truth, Oxford’s Dive Dive double up as Turner’s backing band and opening act. They’ll be showcasing new album The Revenge of the Mechanical Dog (Land Speed), an angular collection of indie pop rock with snarly whine vocals and jagged guitar riffs that tumble together fragments of XTC and Green Day, running the gamut from the fractured shards of Clarence Bodiker and the bouncealong maybe I’m OK to the roiling pop riffery of Let The Blind Lead The Blind, Cuts And Bruises and the Clash-hinting Seven Of Eight.

Nothing to work up a sweat about, but they do a nice line in angry tension that should boil over quite effectively when they cut loose live.

New invaders of the indie-acid dancefloor, the London nu rave trio bring their mash up guitars, sirens and synths to bear on debut album Myths Of The Near Future (Rinse), an art rock tea party get together with Bowie, Brian Eno, PiL, Krautrock and, on Forgotten Works even echoes of 60s psychedelic wig outs the Electric Prunes.

Seamed throughout with lyrics that reference sci fi, Aleister Crowley and Rosicrucian society the Golden Dawn, there’s a spacey mood to the fore on As Above, So Below and Two Receivers with its lead in rumbling drums, while to underline the diversity they cut it up techno style on former single Atlantis To Interzone, come over all 80s pop groove with the current Golden Skans and immerse themselves in sinister folk tribalism for the bass throbbing Isle of Her.

Gravity’s Rainbow is the one still guaranteed to get the 21st century disco limbs twitching while a loose limbed bassline and swirly synth punked up reconstruction of Grace’s house hit It’s Not Over Yet should bring out those acid smiley faces. Ambitious stuff, it’ll be interesting to see just how they pull some of this off live.

Support outfit Sunshine Underground hail from Shrewsbury and made a reasonable splash with debut album Raise The Alarm and its PiL buzzy inclinations. Following up recent single Commercial Breakdown where John Lydon meets Snow Patrol, they’re now lifting thrumming live favourite Borders (which has a very similar scratchy guitar intro) for the final single and, one suspects, their biggest chart stab yet.

The vagabond soul Irishman heads into 2007 with a new headlining tour and a new single. Unfortunate then that the latter happens to be Freewheel, one of the less memorable tracks from the otherwise fine Songs From The Deep Forest album. Sounding like a poor man’s Robbie Williams ballad, it’s pleasant enough and our man’s voice carries it off, but compared to the likes of Brixton Leaves, Ballad Of A Broken Man, Salvation Tambourine and the pop swing Billy Joel echoes of Everybody Wants A Little Something, you know he can do better.

A Seattle guitar rock outfit fronted by Alaskan songwriter-guitarist John Roderick, they’re still busy pushing current album Putting the Days To Bed, a collection of jangling pumped up guitar pop likely to summon thoughts of The Jayhawks and Wilco with the occasional shade of REM. A set of relationships based songs and musings on the capacity for self-destruction, sometimes offering cautionary advice, sometimes peeling back his own skin to examine what lies beneath.

(It’s A ) Departure shows they’re as guilty of dumb swagger as anyone, but with numbers like Teaspoon, Ultimatum, Pushover, the gloriously soaring Hindsight and the vaguely Wall of Voodoo like Sky Is Open where a retired air force pilot goes in search of his soul this is clearly a band with a heart and a brain to go with their rock n roll.

Hailing from Glasgow, put together by former Supernaturals frontman James McColl with singer Fili being touted as a Scottish Cerys Matthews, the sextet hit the round in support of debut EP Tiger (Fat Cheeleader). The title track immediately announces their musical template as one of playful indie pop duly recalling Catatonia and fellow Scots the Rezillos, Napoleon Dynamite adding a ska beat to the mix and We Expected all guitar jerking chewy power-pop with a touch of the old Tracy Ullmans. Despite some spike to the lyrics, there’s not too much substance in evidence and over four tracks the band don’t display too much musical diversity, but these are early days and perhaps inconsequential pop music might well be what the year actually needs.

A deft mix of commercial radio friendly appeal with more experimental excursions, last year was something of a whirlwind for Birmingham’s latest entrants into the wonderful world of rock n pop with an overnight best selling album, hit singles, Mercury nomination and sell-out tours.

Doubtless, a backlash will happen along sooner or later but for now there’s rather more pressing concerns. Not, one hopes, attention from Mr Billy Joel’s legal representatives regarding the marked similarity between recently reworked Annie, Let’s Not Wait and his own My Life, but the fact that, having now exhausted the album for singles they’ll need to come up with some new material prior to any second album if they want to continue the momentum over the next twelve months.

Given the wealth of talent possessed by frontman and songwriter Fyfe, that shouldn’t be too difficult but at the same time they’ll need to be wary of overexposure making them victims of their own success, especially avoiding any record label marketing ploys of album reissues with bonus remixes. In the meantime, this tour promises to be the next step up to their deserved arena status.

Not exactly a new name since, fronted by sometime Primal Scream session guitarist Barrie Cadogan, the Nottingham quartet have actually been knocking around since 1999, releasing their debut album a couple of years back. However, the follow-up, Stand Your Ground (Pias), should see them finally become wider known with a solid set of rock-soul Southern Blues. There’s shades of Eddie Cochrane (Green Eyed Fool) and the Stones (Yeah We Know You) here and there while the likes of Pretty Pictures and Pin That Badge nod equally to surf rock and rockabilly. Slow bar blues (Who Don’t You Do It) and 60s rock n roll (Love You) mix it up across the tracks, Billy Skinner providing a solid anchor on the drums while Cadogan greases off the hot licks and lost your woman lyrics. Meat and potatoes perhaps, but they serve it with some very tasty gravy.

With a tremulously gruff yet sweet voice that sounds like a combination of Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, Leon Redbone and Guy Clark, the Texan native has had a decidedly chequered past; his long battle with prescription drugs leading to an arrest, jail, loss of all possessions and subsequent homelessness.

While living in a squalid motel and working at telemarketing, he wrote a clutch of songs, played some gigs and, with help from the Earlies, recorded debut album, Micah P. Hinson and the Gospel of Progress. Signed to British indie Sketchbook, it became a cult success in Europe and saw him touted as the next Bob Dylan.Career progress was knocked back when he had a drugs relapse and rehab, but he’s relatively fit again now and back with sophomore release, Micah P. Hinson and the Opera Circuit.

It’s very much a stripped down affair, many of the songs simple finger-picking guitar numbers others coloured by mandolin, banjo, violin, accordion or the sort of warm brass usually associated with old Hovis ads.

Folk with strong country leanings provide the musical stylings, though the banjo romping Diggin A Grave has definite mazurka inclinations while You’re Only Lonely explodes in a climactic flurry of orchestration and Don’t Leave Me Now erupts in a sonic squall of dissonance to show he’s not just about soft melancholia.

But the best are the simpler numbers, the dusty opener Seems Almost Impossible, a drunken waltzing Jackeyed, the old time feeling that seeps out of the violin aching Drift Off To Sleep, the speak-sing She Don’t Own Me and the beautiful despair of the pizzicato string accompanied Little Boys Dream.

Lyrically downbeat in its musings on relationships, regrets and wisdom, he promises an evening of hushed contemplation with the occasional roar of pain and perhaps a little shard of hope before the fat lady sings.

Hailing from Teeside, soprano voiced Debbie Palmer and musical partner Stu Hanna started out singing in their local choir, a background that undoubtedly went some way to shaping her pure vocals. While nodding to indie pop inspirations here and there, the core of their sound is rooted very much in the late 60s folk-pop, the opening Rose On The Stem reminiscent of Mike and Sally Oldfield's outfit Sallyangie or Renaissance before they went all over-orchestrated.

Their traditional influences are well in evidence on their debut album On The Side (EDJ), with five songs getting Megson arrangements and with the duo setting trad lyrics to their own music on northern homesick lament Oak & Ash and the salty breeze hued tale of Grace Darling.

Their interpretations are undeniably solid; haunting Welsh folk song The Loom showing off Hanna's prowess on finger picked acoustic guitar while a wistful reading of Butternut Hill's anti-war sentiments (Palmer's angelic voice soaring away in behind the guitar solo), the perky Maid on the Shore and the 18th century nursery rhyme Sandy Dawe on which Hanna takes lead all prove highlights.

They're no slouches penning their own material either. More Than Me is a gorgeous chiming break up love song that evokes thoughts of Art Garfunkel while a bouncy mandolin led tune provides setting for Freefall's snapshot of the daily grind. They've already warmed the cockles of Bob Harris's heart with the sweetness of the melodies and harmonies and it shouldn't be long before they're making further inroads into the awareness of audiences already turned on to the likes of Eliza Carthy and Rusby & Lakeman.

One of only three UK gigs, this serves to introduce UK audiences to the Detroit outfit, a fitting time since it happens to coincide with their third and most accessible album, Make History (French Kiss), a pop friendly socially conscious set stuffed with romping melodies, hooks, and choruses while keeping the faith with their skewed post punk past. Thus you get

the straight ahead surge of Panthers In Crime, The Veil Comes Down and We Win (Wa Ha) coupled with the noisier, twisted shapes of Shake Them Awake, the bass buzzing punk rush of PPL R Anmls and the high anxiety angular yelping Why We War. They’ll doubtless be back later in the year, by which time word of mouth will doubtless be talking about this gig in awed tones.

Here’s a welcome opportunity, a free gig by the Irish-Brit-Brazilian-Gypsy 18 year old to showcase her debut album, Still Waters (Blue Note). Inevitably likely to be compared to Norah Jones with her soulful husky vocals and a piano ballad style that sits firmly in the same pop soul-jazz mainstream, it mixes up co-penned songs and some choice cover versions, the former at their strongest with heartbreak ballad I Can’t Hurt, her a capella arrangement of the gospel folk Will The Circle Be Unbroken, the and current single Wrong Again. But it’s the covers that shine brightest, her powerful delivery of the Chaka Khan/Bruce Hornsby Love Me Still, a lovely reading of Dylan’s To Make You Feel Love, Seal’s gospel infused Can’t Stop The River (written especially for her), the Ladysmith Black Mambazo collaboration Bring A Little Water Sylvie and a marvellous soulful torch song interpretation of Springsteen’s If I Should Fall Behind. Her surname translates as ‘little star’; I suggest you get in now before she becomes a big one.

They came together following an audition for Michael Barrymore’s My Kind Of People and they take their name from the triangular Quality Street chocolate, but there’s nothing cheesy or sweet about this blues rock trio. Sporting giant eye-lashes, willowy Amazonian lead singer Shinhgai has a high pitched bluesy yelp that sounds not unlike a cross between Skunk Anansie, Siouxsie Sioux and Billie Holiday on amphetamines while the two guys have a go at being Led Zep and the White Stripes but with Rat Scabies on drums. Oddly it works rather well on recent singles Sister Rosette and Don’t Give Up (Vertigo), boding well for debut album What’s The Time Mr Wolf which they’ll be unleashing tonight.

It was impossible to avoid hearing I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (with Flowers In My Hair), a catchy musical era conflating single that went from the Scottish singer-songwriter’s Tooting basement webcast to the No 1 spot in the charts.

Now, though, comes the tougher job of persuading people there’s more to her than a good news story and a catchy country pop flavoured single that sounds suspiciously like Kevin Johnson’s Rock ‘n’ Roll (I Gave You The Best Years Of My Life).

Despite the album emulating the single’s success, with the handclappy follow up failing to crack the Top 20, the long term prospects look like being something of an uphill struggle, especially since she tends to come on like a slightly more countrified but less interesting K.T. Tunstall.

Not that the album’s isn’t a pleasant listen. When Horsepower Meant What It Said is another catchy, shuffling barnyard boogie lament for the good old days, Sunset Borderline a Nashville honky tonk ballad, and Superman a dance floor waltz love song while the Carly-like Time shows her in dreamily twee frame of mind. For the moment she’s still a Radio 2 darling, whether a second album will sustain the romance remains to be seen.

Friday February 16

Patrick Wolf

With influences that range from PJ Harvey to Bowie to Bush to Stockhausen and collaborators include Marianne and the Symphony Orchestra of Vienna, 23 year old Wolf is rapidly making a name for himself as one of the most exhilarating practitioners of 21st century pop. He’s out here with his third album, The Magic Position (A&M), variously embracing folk, electro, cabaret and loungecore with the sort of camp sheen and bells and whistles over the top production that makes the likes of the Divine Comedy and Scissor Sisters sound positively dowdy.

Brazenly opening up with Overture, marrying a palpitating tribal techo heartbeat to acoustic guitars and dark swirling mood, the title track pounds into a handclappy, strings soaring marriage of ELO, Jarvis and Erasure while Enchanted swoons into cocktail lounge romance, Get Lost takes the pop Cure and Augustine throws in the big drama works with an eye on those Scott Walkerisms.

Add in previous single Accident & Emergency and the upcoming juddery pastoral pop swoon of Bluebells and it can only be a matter of time before he’s teaching the whole world "to live, to learn, to love in the major key."

6.30pm. £10. Carling Academy 2

The winner of 2005’s X-Factor, Ward must surely now be a forgotten man. The obligatory No 1 single, That’s My Goal, and self-titled album have been and gone and no one’s heard a peep from him since Stand By Me struggled into the Top 20 last year. His record label declined to provide a review copy of the album when it came out, there’s no new release on the schedule and it’s likely there’s a fair few people out there who bought a ticket when the tour was announced a year ago who wish they could flog them off now they’ve moved on to other things. With a couple of notable exceptions, the careers of X-Factor and Pop Idol winners usually tend to be short lived. Ward seems destined to join the ranks, so let’s hope he made a few bob on the accrued interest from the advance ticket sales.

A couple of years of almost constant UK tours has paid off nicely for a band that might otherwise have been consigned to the wannabe Blink 182 bin. They are, of course, exactly that, but they also have the knack of coming up with ridiculously catchy sherbet fizz pop songs, from Girl All The Bad Guys Want and 1985 to current single High School Never Ends off new album The Great Burrito Extortion Case (Jive). As ever, as befits an outfit whose line up includes one very large bald tub of lard and who wear wedding dresses on the album cover, they don’t take themselves too seriously, peppering their songs with pop culture name checks for the likes of Joan Jett, Reese Witherspoon and, on the my life’s ‘more Caddyshack than Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ song Val Kilmer such movies as Raising Arizona and Top Secret. Hard not to smile either at A Friendly Goodbye where they make a point of avoiding swearing with lines like ‘I’m sick of all the S-word you put me through, so F you’.

With 14 power punch pop numbers (and two bonus tracks) they give value for money too, even if quite a few of them end up sounding a little overly similar to one another. Not the case though with Much More Beautiful Person which suggests their record collection may well include some 60s psychedelic pop garage band albums and the odd Monkees track too while When We Die serves notice that they can write an arena swaying anthem in their sleep. Huge, catchy riff spraying fun that only the biggest, most jaded cynic could sit through without a big grin.

Joining them on the Get Happy tour are Brit boys Son of Dork, fronted by former Busted boy James Bourne. While there’s likely to be some new material showcased from the as yet unfinished second album, they’re still plugging their Welcome To Loserville debut and its leaping in air, legs akimbo while playing guitar, chewy buzzing teen bubblegummy pop and songs about high school angst, being dissed by your girlfriend, catching her with another bloke.

Their star having fallen somewhat since Teenage Dirtbag was all over the airwaves like a rash, Wheatus were dumped when the second album stiffed and are now to be found making their own way with self-released follow-up Too Soon Monsoon (Montauk Mantis). Unfortunately, they appear to be lost in something of a musical fog, often harking back to the tired days of AOR with that adenoidal vocal put to the service of meandering, formless numbers like Something Good, In The Melody, grindingly dull dirge The Truth I Tell Myself and the, oh dear, twin towers referencing Hometown. They will, of course, be including THAT hit, but it might be advisable not to include it too early if they want people to still be in the room come the end of their set.

Out on the road celebrating their 40th anniversary, I’m not sure if Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg, Ric Sanders, Chris Leslie and Gerry Conway have baked a cake but the world’s longest serving folk rock band have cooked up a brand new album for the party. Fittingly Sense of Occasion (Matty Groves) tips the hat to their illustrious career with new revivals from the old days in the shape of trad nugget Tam Lin and Polly On The Shore while underlying their diversity and fresh pop energies on splendid Fairport styled covers of XTC’s Love On A Farmboy’s Wages, Glenn Tilbrook’s Untouchable and PJ Wright’s splendidly lurching Galileo’s Apology.

Alongside a simple multi-layered rural harmony version of Steve Ashley’s salutatory Best Wishes and a clutch of Sanders instrumentals (the Celtic haunting Your Heart And Mind the best), there’s also five new Leslie contributions, romping from the feelgood trot of Keep On Turning The Wheel and the moving on waltzing Spring Song to the less hopeful She’s Leaving Home echoes of In Our Town and South Dakota To Manchester’s rueful story of a Lakota medicine man dreaming of his native home while working in a travelling Wild West show.

Given what’s likely to be a heavily retrospective evening with a wealth of audience favourites in demand, quite how much of the new album will feature live remains to be seen, but, with special guests Show of Hands along to add to the fireworks, this is guaranteed to be a folk rock devotees night to remember.

With Brandon Flowers swapping eyeliner for facial hair, ditching the glam and fully embracing his love of Springsteen and U2, sophomore album, Sam’s Town (Vertigo) goes for the anthemic arena rock sound with a vengeance, littering the songs with highways, cars, and big dreams in small town America. They even sing about the Promised Land on new single Read My Mind.
They pretty much pull it off too, coming out racing on all cylinders with the gloriously overblown title track, unfurling the flags and firing the cannons as they thunder through the clarion call guitar riffery grandeur of When You Were Young, For Reasons Unknown, and Bones, almost putting Meat Loaf to shame with This River Is Wild and the rockoperatic Bling. And yes, you’ll need lighters to hold aloft and scarves to sway for the piano pomp ballad My List too.
It’s probably not a good idea to look too closely at the lyrics, where there’s little evidence of Bruce’s genius (‘don't you wanna feel my bones on your bones?’ hardly rivals ‘wrap your legs 'round these velvet rims and strap your hands across my engines’), but if it ultimately falls some way short of Born To Run there’s no denying it’s got a fine pair of. What really intrigues though is what on earth the band’s new Heartland America sound and direction will make of the 80s Manc rock synth songs from Hot Fuss.

Borrowing their name from a track on Kate Bush's Hounds of Love, the Leeds based acoustic folk-rock quartet (Rachel, Patsy, Becky and Jools) have been tagged a female CSN&Y. Actually, they’re more like the Poozies or a four piece While & Matthews, which is probably an even higher compliment and recommendation.

Having built a solid local reputation, their third album, The Boys From The Abattoir (Witch), fuller, more polished and confident than its predecessors, should be the one to bring them to a wider audience. It’s packed with lilting melodies, sublime harmonies, intelligent lyrics, emotional muscle and musical moods that shift from aching cello backed balladry (High Fire & High Water) and sultry dance heated folk-blues (Only Human) to bossa nova (My Conscience Keep), tropical chug (Look Right Back) and the dark rolling Fleetwood Mac (Christine Perfect, not Stevie Nicks) of Me Leaving Me where guitarist Bruce Watson works some extra widescreen magic.

Parading their pop hearts on the mandolin tinkling Yorkshire Boy and getting funky on the choppy politically fired Horse To Water, it’s difficult to narrow down standout tracks but if push comes to show they’d have to be the keening Northern mist of the aching love song Rock n Roll with its Richard & Linda Thompson hints and the lost small town dreams of Jenny Thornton & The Boys From The Abattoir that sounds like some long lost Kirsty McColl gem. If their new studio assurance is equally present in the live performance, this promises to be one hell of a gig.

Tipped as a name to watch, this London five piece cite Bowie, Blur, The Cure, The Killers, Nirvana, U2, and Ben Folds among influences, several of whom waved hello during last year’s impressive anthemic wannabe debut Stand Still (Gracious). They return now with the not quite as good indie urgent rocking Wonderful where singer John-Paul Jones (no, not that one) spotlights his yearning, short of breath vocals on a chorus that sounds like he might also include John Lydon in his reference book. A debut album, doubtless featuring the moody big music of Explode, orchestral ballad Sleep All Day an, the stadium friendly chorus hook of Sleep Like A Stone, will be along soon.

It took six years for Epsom four piece Clocks to get round to their debut single, That Much Better, a chirpy little pop number that, along with the sunny English jaunt of In My Arms, bore witness to such influences as The Beatles, The LAs, Teenage Fan Club and The Kinks. However, they apparently seem in no rush to follow it up, so you’ll have to make the most of with sneaking an MP3 recorder into the gig.

Shameless proponents of the soft rock revival, they have no manifesto other than to make upbeat sunny pop music. Listen to debut album Twelve Stops And Home (Universal) and you’ll readily hear ELO, the Beatles, 10cc and Supertramp. Musically, they have it all sorted, a fistful of cheerfully overindulged songs packed with catchy melodies, harmonies, redundant guitar solos, hooks and those 80s memories. The songs are a different matter. There’s nothing exactly wrong with things like Fill My Little World, Sewn, Never Be Lonely, Love It When You Call or Blue Piccadilly, but stand up alongside even the lesser efforts of their models and they just don’t have the lyrical nous or wit to endure in the same manner as, for example, Dreamer or Mr Blue Sky.

However, if they’re just here to put a little sunshine back into the radio while keeping their tongues in cheek, then all power to their wearily melancholic but radiantly joyous cliches.

Not to be confused with the Birmingham band of the same name that arose from the ashes of criminally underrated Birmingham outfit Dissident Prophet, this is the Brighton outfit whose songs have been likened those of Ray Davies and Ian Dury, wide eyed romantic single First Love more accurately ploughing the middle ground between The Futureheads and Kaiser Chiefs with singer Orlando Weeks sounding like a strangled adenoidal Jarvis and the guitars buzzing like a swarm of bees after a night on the Lilt. They return now with About The Dress (Fiction) which is just as good though to be honest it doesn’t actually sound all that different.

Come to it, they tend to repeat the same racing guitar trick, urgent vocals and flurried chorus on X-Ray, Lego and Precious Time on the upcoming album, suggesting that while they have a pretty impressive trick, it may be their only one.

Support comes from spiky synth clattering indie poppers GoodBooks, whose last single Leni turned out to be a somewhat forgettable Bowiesque offering of breathy worn down vocals and Supertramp stabbing keyboards, which may explain why there’s apparently nothing new out to coincide with the tour and no release date on the horizon for the debut album.

Two years ago, while still schoolboys, they won In The City. Now the Manchester art rockers are making strides in the real world. Following on from the Fast, Faster, Fastest EP they’re out on the road plugging We Are Not The Enemy (Faster), the title track a glam stomping, fuzzy guitar punk pop swagger with a cosmic psychedelic freak out finale while The Sheets Twist is heads down riff n technoed 60s garage with echoes of The Stooges and early Stones. It’s a fine noise, though as they make it clear on A Blueprint, they’re equally capable of taking it down a peg or two for some murkier, piano led atmospheric swirls. Scarily good.

Twenty years together, for their tenth album Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have recaptured much of the energy and spark that distinguished their early albums. They’ve not made a bad record, but the past decade has seen them somewhat treading water, looking to get back to basics. Now signed to a new label, they appear to have found the key they needed, Despite Our Differences (Hollywood) infused with a strong pop sensibility as well as elegant melodies and their trademark intelligent lyrics about life, love and politics.

Showing off their rock muscle, Rock And Roll Heaven’s Gate is a driving swagger with the sort of power chords you might expect from Pete Townsend and Pink dropping by to lend some extra vocal fire while They Won’t Have Me’s lament for the vanishing farmlands rumbles along with crunchy reverb rock blues guitar.

Even when they don’t crank up the amps, there’s still plenty of punch powered acoustic numbers; the opening Pendulum Swingers with its attack on both religious sexual inequality and Bush’s war on terror, Little Perennials twangy, handclappy country rock about blood ties and loneliness and the urgent, angry Money Made You Mean.

But, on an album that deals extensively with failed relationships, it’s the slower burns and quieter tenderness that shine brightest; the shimmer of hope in I Believe In Love, the pedal steel keening old school barroom country Last Tears, Dirt And Dead Ends’ spare strummed lament for a friend too proud to admit his life’s gone down the toilet and get help, and the equally sparse Lucinda-like aching song of emotional salvation Three County Highway.

It’s a welcome reinvigoration that should equally feed into the old material too, promising a live set of second coming proportions.

"I'm not a one-trick pony", sang Furtado on her last album Folklore which swerved away from the poppy light rock of her debut and tracks such as I’m Like A Bird and instead both drew on her Portuguese folk music heritage and threw in some more rock inclined shapes. So it shouldn’t have been too big a surprise to find the follow-up, Loose (Geffen), switching style and direction again, this time plunging headlong into the sort of R&B and dance music beats you might more readily expect from Kylie, Stefani, Aguilera and Madge.

Led out of the paddock by the synth pop single Maneater (with an obvious nod to Hall & Oates), it was hardly cutting edge stuff, producer Timbaland recycling familiar disco beats and hip hop on the likes of Afraid, Promiscuous, the Latin grooves of No Hay Igual and Te Busque, and the Bollywood colours of Wait For You.

Whatever, it seems to have done the trick, forcefully getting her career back on track and broadening her audience into the clubs while Chris Martin’s bland ballad All Good Things and In God’s Hand keep fans of Whoa! Nelly from decamping elsewhere.

Doubtless, her new sassy sex n beats sound will provide plenty of scope for the stage choreography and some skimpy costumes, though it’ll be interesting to see quite how her musical multiple-personalities shape up in mixing together the new material and the old hits into a cohesive set.

With her swooping vocals and ethereal, cinematic music, Pakistan-born, Brighton based singer-songwriter Natasha Khan’s critically hailed debut album, Fur And Gold (Echo) has understandably drawn comparisons to Kate Bush and Bjork, though What’s A Girl To Do suggests a fondness for Spector and the Shangri-Las too.

Taking inspiration from fairy tales and nursery rhymes with gothic folk songs of dark desires and disturbing dreams veined with natural imagery and coloured by strings, harpsichords and percussion, the mood is decidedly cobwebbed and pagan.

Organic, fragile, dramatic, mystical and stunningly atmospheric, it shows her naked and vulnerable caught in the open by angst on Sad Eyes, celebratory and cantering in the woodland moonlight on the mist enshrouded Horse and I and awestruck by the free spirit of the natural world in Bat’s Mouth. But there’s dread and danger in their wilderness too. Just listen to the deceptively uptempo Sarah

It’s an intoxicating musical feast, shimmering with New Age clouds on Tahiti, going folk-tribal with upcoming single Prescilla’s handclaps beat and mediaeval textures and walking through the ice-encrusted piano tinkling, shaker shuffling musical landscape of The Wizard, before the album closes in sinister symphonic splendour with I Saw A light, a song that includes two dead people in the back of a car. With her staple live favourite piano ballad cover of Springsteen’s I’m On Fire, what’s not to love!

He’s got white hair, wears jacket, waistcoat, cravat and trilby, has a musical affection for early David Bowie and Noel Coward and did a tour of libraries to promote recent single Bread + Roses. Gimmick you think, and you’d not be far wrong. Mr Hudson had best hope it catches the public’s eye because on the evidence of that track’s weedy electro soul pop and white man hip hop. This jaunt coincides with the follow-up, Too Late, Too Late (Deal Real), an equally thin dose of pop n beats mixed in with some anaemic Police white reggae, Steve Harley semi-spoken vocals and some Two Tone brass. Word says, the live show, which mashes things up a little more persuasively, is worth browsing though.

A better proposition is support act, Iowan four piece The Envy Corps, a chiming guitar outfit with strangled whine vocals and an ear for swirling pop anthems such as the marchalong romantic effusion title track of the current Story Problem EP (Vertigo) and the equally military beat pop of Sylvia (a track about Sylvia Plath) while the pared back acoustic confessional Rooftop shows them no slouches in the bedsit department either. Ones to watch.

The London born jazz-blues talent made an impressive entry into the public consciousness with her debut album of two years back, fusing her parents’ Carole King and Sarah Vaughan record collection with a contemporary hip hop and r&b stylings to emerge sounding like some 40s Black torch jazzer with a modern girl sensibility.

The follow up, Back to Back (Island), is even better, recent single sounding for all the world like a cross fertilisation between Bobby Gentry and Aretha set to a 60s girl group melody and burping sax.

The jazz colours have been toned down and replaced by more 60s Motown and Philly soul flavours (she even titles the sassy blues lounge slink Me and Mr Jones in homage to Billy Paul), complete with doo wop backing, on forthright songs that pull no punches in their content urban contemporary woman sexual attitudes and content.

Short, sharp and not entirely sweet in its unapologetically blunt lyrics, it doesn’t make a fuss about itself, but with numbers like the piano moody Eartha Kitt-like title track, skittering speakeasy soul jazz Tears Dry On Their Own, the slurred and drugged out Dionne Warwick she becomes for Some Unholy War and the whisky fumed salsa of You Know I’m No Good, it has the assured confidence of an enduring classic. If she can keep the booze under control, the world lies within her grasp. Support is Mr Hudson & The Library.

She husky and prowling with Portishead and Joanna Newsome colours, he more akin to Paul Simon, the Australian brother and sister were at the club playing support last year to plug their debut EP Chocolates & Cigarettes, a rather fine collection of shuffling (Paper Aeroplane, Mango Tree) or dreamy (All Of Me, the wistful piano backed title track) acoustic folk blues.

They return now with it repackaged along with the follow-up, Heart Full Of Wine (Independiente), following pretty much the same blueprint, the pair alternating vocals on more introspective barely there songs that flow between airy summer days and late night CabSauv sessions, embracing the spare bluesily narcotic brushed slouch of Fooled Myself and the title track, Julia’s airy What You Wanted and the leafy pagan folk aroma of Sadder Than You. No talking at the back or you’ll miss these delicate gems.

Imagine a cross between emo and industrial electro rock steeped in brooding paranoia and you’ll have a good idea what’s on offer from this Glasgow outfit. Making their debut with Violence & Birdsong,a title that deftly summed up their musical extremes, tracks such as Operated On, Opposite Direction, Evil Has Never and Taste For Harmony leaked threat and menace while infecting your dance cells. More recently, the Operated On EP (Relentless) served up the all new Infant Eyes, its cheesy buzzing synth swagger and fog shrouded vocals reminding that their also not averse to turning those analogue riffs and dirty programmed backbeats to more commercially viable ends.

Anyone hoping the Sussex public schoolboys might be in a cheerier mood for their follow up to Hopes and Fears and its songs of sorrow, sadness and regret would have found little comfort in Under The Iron Sea (Island). If anything, it’s a gloomier, darker, more angst-ridden and intensely earnest affair, its big music, yearning vocals, and driving guitars put to the service of ever more downbeat songs set in a fairytale world overcome with dark confusions. That’ll be England then.

If you weren’t persuaded by their last collection, it’s unlikely the likes of a stodgily clunky The Frog Prince, the prog-Coldplayisms of Leaving So Soon?, the empty anthemics of new single A Bad Dream or the overblown operatic finales of Broken Toy will change your mind. Indeed, even devotees might find their loyalty faltering if they have to listen to the awful Crystal Ball on a regular basis. Just pray it’s not on the set list.

You’ll know Grace Kelly, the track that crashed to No 1 on the back of downloads, a relentlessly catchy dose of dandyesque pop in which the Beirut born songster gave the finger to a former record label that wanted to completely restyle him and laid out his aspirations to be a new Freddie Mercury. If that didn’t eventually make you want to throw the radio out of the window, you may be delighted to welcome his debut album, Life In Cartoon Motion (Casablanca), which offers a further ten infectious/annoying bubbles of high camp falsetto pop that variously summons up thoughts of Leo Sayer, Sylvester (Love Today), and, on the kiddie boogie Lollipop even Shirley Ellis of The Clapping Song fame given a tropical Scissor Sisters makeover. Relax rips off the I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight intro before giving way to Giorgio Moroder Bee Gees disco pop, Any Other World pretends to be a strings drenched over the top Pet Shop Boys ballad, Penny Lane wannabe Billy Brown offers a gay Gilbert O’Sullivan lollopper with brass and so forth. Oh, an just to keep the Queen reference in mind, Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) is what Fat Bottomed Girls might have been if it had been written by, er, Steps.

A hidden track where he turns into a choirboy backed by simple piano will probably have those who’ve stayed the course collapsing in hysterics.

Quite how serious the chap takes all this only he can say, but you can be pretty sure that it’s going to sell by the trucklaods and a much bigger tour will follow before everyone gets very very sick and tired of hearing it.

Pure American bar band rock with heavy echoes of Springsteen in their epic guitar and keyboard melodies, sharply observed narrative driven songs and gruff voiced singer Craig Finn’s throaty spoken-sung delivery, though you’ll also detect the influences of Bob Seger, Boston, Husker Du, Thin Lizzy and The Replacements on the Boys And Girls In America (Vagrant) album.

Born in Minneapolis, this is beer spilling anthemic guitar rock in search of redemption out there amid mythic Middle America streets awash with drugs, booze and doomed love. You will, naturally, get the titutar reference to Jack Kerouac’s On The Road.

Steeped in stained blue collar romanticism, the power chord big music of Stuck Between Stations, Party Pit, You Can Make Him Like You, Southtown Girls, First Night and the roiling Some Kooks might not be quite as potent as, say Greetings From Asbury Park or Born to Run, their two most immediate blueprints, but it’s difficult not to agree with claims that it’s the first great American rock album of the year.

Mixing up the new songs with earlier nuggets such as Stevie Nix, Multitude of Casualties and Killer Parties, they may not be in the mainstream of today’s music fashions but they sure give blue jeans, bikes and beer bottle dreams a good name.

Not too far removed from Bloc Party, they play energetic, melody twisting, hook riddled punky dance thrash while frontman Tom howls out strangled vocals like an animal being garrotted with chicken wire. Noise mongering art rock urchins with a line in emotional volcanics, for their debut album, Give Me A Wall, the Leeds outfit decided to number the tracks, opening with Thirteen and running non-chronologically through to Eleven, taking in the likes of Twelve, Seven, Sixteen and Fifteen, parts I and II, along the way.

You’ll be pleased to learn then that they’ve now taken to using song titles, the first in evidence been all new number Don’t Be A Doctor, a nigh 8 minute epic of heavy prog-punk and shifting tempos that’s been welded into the live set and may give some indication of how the second album’s shaping up.

It’s been four years since Reader’s last studio album, a collection of the songs of Robert Burns. She remains in a traditional folk mood for her latest, Peacetime (Rough Trade) but while this also features three Burns numbers, Aye Waukin-O , Leezie Lindsay and Ye Banks and Braes O’Bonnie Doon alongside a brass arrangement of The Shepherd’s Song, Scottish trad tunes Baron’s Heir and Mary And The Soldier and the folk chestnut Nancy Whisky, there’s also self-penned originals and covers, recorded with some of finest contemporary folk musicians around.

Reader’s sole contribution is Safe As Houses, an aching lovely song co-written with Boo Hewardine after the London bombings, while Hewardine, who’s along as part of the touring band, also brings two further tracks to the table, Muddy Water’s song of pulling back from a cheating affair, and the evocative title track. Elsewhere there’s Galileo, Declan O’Rourke’s love song answer to Vincent, Johnny Dillon’s hymn to Ayrshire river The Afton, and two (the tinkling Prisons, Should I Pray?) by John Douglas, drummer with her brother’s band the Trashcan Sinatras.

It’s gentle, beguiling music designed to waft around the ears, heart and soul, so don’t expect Reader to be in anything like the more uptempo pop-folk rocking mood her shows sometimes take.

Support comes from her touring band guitarist, the excellent fellow Scot singer-songwriter Kris Drever whose debut album Black Water (which also features a Hewardine number, Harvest Gypsies) has just won him the Radio 2 Folk Awards Newcomer of the Year.

Hailing from Idaho, the five piece come complete with female tap dancing percussionist Jamie instead of a drummer, two girl singers, Kianna and Neely, and influences rooted in 60s harmony pop. Mates of Conor Oberst, they released their debut album, Wild like Children, three years back packed with songs about the highs and lows of first love summers, following on with the even more sparkling Bottom of Barrels in 2005, both of which finally surfaced over here last year.

They’re out on the road now in the service of current single, The Freest Man (Moshi Moshi), a shimmeringly melodic slice of folk-pop Americana that sounds a lot like the young Natalie Merchant that comes in tandem with a Hot Chip remix of the clattering pop sherbet that is Sing Songs Along. With numbers like the flamenco handclapping Bad Education, gentle ballad Coughing Colours and the country tinged Lost Girls and Rainbows In The Dark, they’re a but like a meeting between The Magic Numbers and The Bangles, but twice as good this sounds like a gig not to be missed.

LA support outfit Little Ones are back for another go round with their mini-album Sing Song (Heavenly), seven tracks worth of ringing, catchy California guitar pop with Anglo colours, Let Them Ring The Bells, Cha Cha Cha and Oh MJ among those surely owing a debt to The Kinks.

Lyrically less bubbly than the handclap friendly music perhaps, but as they kick into the likes of the chime and chug Lovers Undercover or the Beatles shaded face The Facts, it’s hard to avoid breaking out into broad grins of sheer pop pleasure.

Having taken the world by storm with their debut Employment and singles I Predict A Riot, Everyday I Love You Less And Less, and Modern Way, they’re back with the much anticipated follow up, Your Truly, Angry Mob. Unfortunately, the label declined to make advance review copies available or post any track samples on line, so it’s a bit hard to make any informed comments. However, lead off single Ruby (Polydor) is a solid standard bearer albeit a little more measured in a classic pop chorus way than their usual flurry, though whether the likes of Everything Is Average Nowadays, Love’s Not A Competition (But I’m Winning), Boxing Champ and My Kind of Guy will follow suit I guess you’ll have to fork out to find out.

Former Busted member and winner of I’m A Celebrity, you might not hold out much hope for credibility, but debut album Don’t Let It Go To Waste (Mercury) shows Willis to be making moves towards musical maturity with a sound that aspires to the commercial end of emo in the title track and Falling Into You as well as the bouncier side of Green Day/Good Charlotte punky pop with Hey Kid, Sound of America, and Up All Night.
Unfortunately, despite three Top 20 singles, even proving the king of bug eating has failed to persuade punters to rush out and grab the album, so he’s going to have to work a lot harder slogging round the circuit if he’s going to live up to those Robbie Williams comparisons that were being bandied about last year and not have to give Charlie and James a call about a possible reunion.

After last year’s nail-biting final that saw Leona Lewis become the programme’s first female winner, beating out 40s style swing crooner Ray Quinn, this promises to be easily the best of the show’s live tours.

They’re keeping quiet about who the special guests and competitors from the series will be, but the finalists will all be here to strut their stuff. Which means you get another chance to see Eton Road and The Macdonald Brothers, but on a more promising note Robert and Ashley will likely be along too while don’t be surprised if local boys 4 Sure put in an appearance.

However, it’s the final three that are going to be the big crowd rousers. With his own tour due in march, the Bobby Darin-like Ray will be showcasing material from his upcoming self-titled album that features a clutch of swing classics that include Fly Me To The Moon, My Way, Mack The Knife and Mr. Bojangles.

Ben Mills also has his debut album, Picture Of You (Sony), out to coincide (and an Autumn tour just announced), and it’s a fine collection of covers performed in the show and self-penned numbers.

How many he’ll get to perform live remains to be seen, but the album’s certainly worth putting on repeat play with his own soulful interpretations of Somebody To Love, Maggie May, and Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing but it’s his own material that really shows he’s in this for the long term with the funky strutting rock blues single Beside You, big arena power ballads Amazed and Nothing But The Truth and his Bryan Adams-like The Last To Fall.

Which brings us to the main attraction, show winner Leona who’s just inked a major label deal with Clive Davis, the guy who discovered Whitney Houston and Justin Timberlake. She’s yet to get in the studio to lay down any album material so, she’ll be pretty much reprising her highlights from the series, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, I Will Always Love You, All By Myself and First Cut Is The Deepest plus, naturally, her debut No 1 single, A Moment Like This.

She’s got a stunning voice and rang and, more than anyone in the entire series, she’s got the potential to become a real international superstar of Houston, Ross and Streisand proportions.

A rare visit from the ex pat Brummie, this trails the release of her Into The Blues album, not, as it might sound, yet another collection of blues covers, but self-penned narrative based numbers inspired by observations on life. Not due until April, no advance material was available but Armatrading rarely disappoints and she’s got a repertoire full of evidence as to her gifts as a songwriter. Doubtless there’ll be a couple of showcases from the new album along with a set list stretching far and wide over her career, hopefully including Drop The Pilot which, having heard the other day on the radio, stands up as one of the best pop songs ever written.

Take note, this might be one of your last chances to catch the Irish outfit for a while if Hollywood has anything to do with it. Lead singer Glen Hansard has been spreading his acting wings and starring in Once, a new film by director John Carey that recently won the World Cinema Audience Award for Dramatic Film at the Sundance Film Fest. In it, Hansard plays a Dublin street busker who befriends a woman from the Czech Republic who’s living in town selling The Big Issue, making a record together and falling in love.
Life will imitate art when Hansard and co-star Marketa Irglova release their collaborative album as The Swell Season next month, a collection of piano instrumentals and songs, three of which feature in the film. Also on the soundtrack are Falling Slowly and When Your Mind's Made Up, both lifted from the band’s current album, and the one they’ll be promoting tonight, The Cost (Anti-). With Hansard’s low key breathy vocals and the spare, slow surges of the songs creating an air of frayed nerve tensions and weariness on lyrics that hover around the end of relationships, emotional denial and stained love, the mood is likely to be decidedly down and brittle, demanding close attention and quiet as they slip into the likes of the strings dappled Sad Songs, The Side You Never Get To See and People Get Ready. At times making Blue Nile sound like Motorhead, it promises a night of contemplative heartache.

Still built around the three pronged talents of Sister Bliss, Rollo and Maxi, they’ve long been regarded as the UK’s finest proponents of chilled pop, blissed beats and soft buttered rap. However, current album, To All New Arrivals (Sony), may be just too laid back for its own good, with even the opening Bombs sounding like Donna Summer on mogadon.

With electro noodling, widescreen musical vistas and lazy rhythms combining with a sense of faked passion, it’s all incredibly soporific with even the brighter patches, such as Music Matters and the folksy flavours of Last This Day barely repaying the effort of getting on your feet to sway to the vibes.

Hailing from Sunderland, the trio have been recently festooned with critical garlands for their current Tones of Town (Memphis Industries), an album that’s been described as ‘the sound of a band moving in several directions at once, searching for ways to surprise themselves, taking risks and trying something new.’ Well, if that means sounding a lot like 10cc, I’d have to agree. Certainly that the comparison that immediately comes to mind listening to something like Sit Tight or the shifting time signatures of the title track. That’s not the only influence in evidence on their art rock palette, you’ll also hear elements of the Kinks and Brian Wilson to A House is Not A Home and maybe McCartney and even Supertramp with Working To Work. Steely Dan even get a hint from time to time.

It’s all very pleasant listening pastoral pop with its clever harmonies, skewed intricate melodies, guitar riffs and scuffed beats and songs that conjure a sense of 21st century dislocation, but let’s not get carried away and convince them they’re the next big thing.

With two sell out nights, they’re obviously doing something right with the pub floor laddy rock pop,laff and a giggle that is debut album Costello Music and its songs about sex and getting off your face. The likes of Chelsea Dagger, Flathead, Creepin Up The Backstairs, and Everybody Knows You Cried Last Night have certainly paid dividends with bouncing, chorus chanting crowds out for a good time. However, it’s hard not to notice that there’s a certain sameness about everything the band do, so if they’re going to stay the course for any length of time, that second album had better be a real stunner.

Variously likened to Oasis and Kasabian, Coventry trio The Enemy open proceedings, adding an extra nudge to ridiculously catchy new single It’s Not OK (Stiff) and, now signed to Warners, showcasing such equally jubilant numbers as Dancing All Night, Aggro, Away From Here and Don't Shed A Tear from April’s debut album We’ll Live And Die In These Towns.