Gig Guide archives February 2011

Previews by Mike Davies

Wednesday February 2

A Day To Remember

Riding into town on the tails of new album What Separates Me From You (Victory), the Florida boys continue to prove one of the biggest buzz names in contemporary rock. However, while Sticks & Bricks, 2nd Sucks and You’ll Be Tails I’ll Be Sonic still feature those guttural vocals that sound like some demon in a bad B movie horror movie, there’s a lot more leaning towards Green Day inclined pop-rock melodies and harmonies with big catchy choruses. Still driven by ferocious guitars and machine gun drumming perhaps, but the likes of It’s Complicated, This Is The House That Doubt Built, Better Off This Way and the chugging bounce of Out Of Time and If I Leave manifest a straight ahead assault on the mainstream rock audiences who bought into My Chemical Romance and their breed.

Undoubtedly promising a massive noise assault live, they’ll also be prompting many a jump arounds and crowd hook like singalongs, not least on their hymn to living your own life, the unfortunately airplay unfriendly All Signs Point To Lauderdale. A gig to remember too. 7.30pm. £15. O2 Academy

Wednesday February 2

The Bravery

When Ours turned up on the soundtrack to Twilight:Eclipse, thanks to a long running dispute with former label Island, it was the first thing the New Yorkers had been able to release in the UK for five years. They have, however, actually had three albums since their eponymous top 5 debut, The Sun And The Moon, Stir The Blood and last year’s Live At The Wiltern Theatre.

The band’s return to these shores marks the end of the legal battle and the promise of a new release once the tour’s over. It also gives long-starved British fans a chance to catch up on what they’ve missed. That’s a hefty amount of unfamiliar material to pack in as well as peppering the set with tracks from the debut like An Honest Mistake, Fearless, No Brakes and Unconditional, reminders of back when the BBC hailed them as the year’s best new band.

It’s a lot of lost ground to recover, but spurred on live by a determination to claw things back, numbers like the choppy indie pop of This Is Not The End, the big sound of Split Me Wide Open, the Joy Division meets Kaiser Chiefs of Adored, the Psychedelic Furs influences of I Am Your Skin and the Mary Chain touch to She’s So Bendable should have you falling in love with them again like you did the first time. 7.30pm. £10.O2 Academy 2

Wednesday February 2

Lauren Pritchard

A welcome return by the Tennessee soulster whose been likened to Dusty Springfield and Karen Carpenter alike. She’s yet to translate critical acclaim into the market place, debut album Wasted In Jackson having still not troubled the Top 40, but the likes of the bluesy Painkillers, the late night torch soul of Going Home and the Diana Ross styled No Way, and silky new single Stuck (Island) should eventually break down resistance.

Support comes from Bath acoustic singer-songwriter Gabrielle Aplin to whom I was rather unfair last time she was in town. Certainly the early recordings posted on line weren’t great, but a chance to hear more recent and more crafted material warrants a sharp reverse of opinion. The Kate Bush echoes are still there and she’s still a little too high-pitched at times, but listening to the gently vulnerable More Than Friends puts me in mind of Victoria Williams, Ghosts is intricately woven soft folk pop that builds to a flourish climax, and the nursery music box feel of Mountain is as light and airy as clouds over the English hillside. She does an impressive folk piano ballad rework of You Me At Six’s spare The Liar & The Lighter too. Hopefully, I’ll get to hear more. 8pm. £7. Glee Club

Wednesday February 2

The Waterboys

Not your usual outing for Mike Scott and the chaps, this won’t be serving up the usual big music fan favourites but rather presenting An Appointment With Mr Yeats, a suite of songs either based on or set to the writings of Irish poet WB Yeats.

He’s been something of a passion for Scott over the years, writing a musical accompaniment to The Stolen Child for Fisherman’s Blues and setting Love And Death to music for Dream Harder.

Twenty years ago, he performed a substantial number of Yeats-based mumbers for the Yeats International Festival in the Abbey Theatre, but they’ve otherwise remained largely unheard. until the arrival of this new conceptual show. With a line-up that features Steve Wickham on fiddle, Irish singers Kate Kim and Joe Chester, Flook flautist Sarah Allen, Catalan trombonist Blaise Margail and Kate St John on oboe and cor anglais, they’ll be performing reinventions of twenty poems, ranging from The Lake Isle of Innisfree as a bluesy jam, a rocking September 1913, and an Irish jig A Song of the Rosy-Cross to a fiddle and trombone battling Mad As The Mist And Snow and a Kurt Weill waltzing Song For The Delpic Oracle. One of only a handful of UK performances, fans of both band and bard alike should not miss. And yes, he is doing Whole Of The Moon for an encore. 7.30pm. £29.50/£28. Warwick Arts Centre

Thursday February 3

Angels & Airwaves

Since touring here in 2008 on the back of I-Empire, the side-project outfit by Blink-182’s Tom DeLonge have followed-up with last year’s Love, and whether by choice or otherwise, parted company with Geffen Records to release through their own website.

It finds them in majestic form, appropriately laying the ground with pomp rock instrumental Et Ducit Mundum Per Luce before launching into the six minute guitar ringing cosmically significant The Flight Of Apollo, a drum thumping marching beat anthemic Young London and the synths sweeping, air-fisting tumbling melodies of Shove.

Hints of Queen and The Who bubble through Soul Survivor (2012), and the soaring The Moon-Atomic (Fragments and Fictions) should guarantee a live highlight. They should also be offering a couple of tasters from Love Part 2, due for release next month along with the accompanying film which, unless they’re less marketing savvy than I think, will likely be getting some back projection exposure tonight.

Support comes from Utah based Neon Trees, a Mormon quartet who’ve gone from strength to strength since being chosen for The Killers US dates. They fly in to make their UK tour debut in support of upcoming album, Habits (Mercury), a fizzing spray of punk-pop riffs, electro and stadium-aiming choruses delivered with bubble-gum insouciance by frontman Tyler Glenn. First single, Animal, has already racked up considerable airplay and such album cuts as the jungle beat, bass throbbing Love And Affection and sing and sway power pop Your Surrender will keep the momentum moving, but it’s the infectious soda pop flavours of the keyboards-driven 1983 that’s going to be the one to put their name in lights. 7pm. £17.50.O2 Academy

Thursday February 3

The Joy Formidable

Tipped as ones to watch three years ago, the Welsh trio finally seem to be making good on the promise with the release of debut album, The Big Roar (Atlantic), which takes the fuzzed up sugar rush power pop of their previous EP and singles and expands and extends it into urgent, driving, hard-edged indie rock which, for the most part, lives up to an album named for the world’s biggest, most dangerous wave which swells annually in the Amazon basin.

Frontwoman Ritzy Bryan doesn’t hold back on either her lacerating guitar riffs or muscularly ethereal vocals, suggesting a half-way house between shoegaze and quiet-loud grunge as they surge through I Don’t Want To See You Like This, The Magnifying Glass and the new, longer version of Whirring, deliver the short but sharp staccato punky Cradle or turn the mood broodier for The Greatest Light Is The Greatest Shade and the opening burn of Llaw=Wall, where Rhydian takes over vocals.

They could still benefit from learning a little discipline with the opening The Everychanging Spectrum Of A Lie well outstaying its near eight minute running time long after it ran out of anything interesting but, when they go for the punch, as on The Heavy Abacus, they can take the breath away. 7pm. £10/O2 Academy 2

Thursday February 3

Devil Sold His Soul

Ambient influenced progressive metal/post-hardcore it says on the notes, which, roughly translated, provides the unsettling juxtaposition of tranquil melodies suddenly exploding into lacerated throat guttural yowls to be heard on Tides, Frozen and A Foreboding Sky. The remainder of last year’s Blessed & Cursed (Century Media) album is less deceptive, The Weight Of Faith, The Disappointment and Drowning/Sinking all being heavy, loud, aggressive and screaming throughout. The bulk of the songs run well over fine minutes and, if nothing else, the band know how to build to a crescendo from a sustained swell of sonic suspense, but this isn’t really a night for the merely curious. 7pm. £7.50. HMV Institute

Friday February 4

Skunk Anansie

Photo Jeon Seung Hwan

One of the most distinctive bands of the 90s, not least for their striking bald, black feral singer Skin, they released three powerful, angsty hard rock and shouty rap driven albums, Paranoid And Sunburnt, Stoosh (which spent over a year on the charts) and Post-Orgasmic Chill, before splitting in 2001. Going Solo, Skin grew her hair and switched musical tack to soulful r&b and torch with Fleshwounds where influences were Fitzgerald and Holiday rather than Sex Pistols and dub. Disappointingly it picked up no new admirers and alienated the old ones, so the follow-up, Fake Chemical State, saw a return to the old image and sound. However, that too sank without trace and with the other former members having not exactly gone on to greater things (though Mark Richardson did fill the Feeder drum seat for seven years), last year saw a reunion and the release of a ‘best of’ album.

Now they hit the road in support of a brand new collection of material, Wonderlustre (V2), a return to the rock roots but more melodic and less savage, though with no dilution of power in either music or vocals. Over The Love is a marvellous slice of cascading pop rush with Skin sounding like a cross between Annie Lennox and Patti Smith, traces of the latter also distinguishable on the whooping My Ugly Boy and a moody swirling My Love Will Fall.

She’s cited Blondie as an influence in the past and that’s evident now on The Sweetest Thing, though with an added nuclear power station kick to the delivery. Her journey into soul has also brought softer modulations, expressed here on the soaring mid tempo ballad You Can’t Always Do What You Like with its electropop colours and gospel infused stadium power ballads You Saved Me and I Will Stay But You Should Leave.

It’ll be interesting to see how the new textures are applied to older material like Selling Jesus and Rise Up, but their iconic ballads Weak and Hedonism should sound even more monumental. The reunion album’s had a tepid chart reception, but the tour should help re-ignite interest and spread word of mouth, serving reminder that Skin is one of this country’s most valuable vocal assets. 6pm. £20. O2 Academy

Friday February 4

Taking Hayley

The Birmingham power pop quintet played their first show last December and recently opened for Go-X, now they headline their own Academy night in advance of their debut EP. Citing Octane OK among their influences should tell you they play punchy punk-pop and, while MySpace demos are currently the only tasters available, both Don’t Let Go and Three Simple Words suggest an exuberant night ahead. 6pm. £5. O2 Academy 3

Friday February 4

Tenebrous Liar

Fronted by rock photographer by Steve Gullick, this lot make music for people who reckon Nick Cave’s too light hearted and poppy. Following last year’s Jack-knifed and Slaughtered, this is the launch night for new album Run Run Run (TVT), a grimy, snarly, bruising and bleak collection of tortured rock n roll marinated in a stew of misery, menace and misanthropy.

Feeding on the bones of American roots music, Gullick chews over splinters of swampy blues with The Sickness, buries into the soul of Johnny Cash for Desire, writhes in the hot coals of rockabilly and grunge on Primed Lined and Centres where Link Wray wrestles with The Stooges, and heads into the blasted night desert to dance with the shamanic ghost of Jim Morrison to the foreboding, brooding noir that is Western Skies. It’s free entry, but they may make a fortune charging the faint-hearted to leave. 8pm. Free. Tin Angel, Coventry

Sunday February 6

The Hold Steady

Keyboardist Franz Nicolay may have left but otherwise it’s pretty much business as usual with fifth album Heaven Is Whenever (Rough Trade). They’ve been likened to Springsteen but, while you can hear certain elements (notably on Hurricane J), they’re probably more kin to Bob Seger with their chugging road friendly riffs and anthemic choruses, not to mention Craig Finn’s throaty vocals.

That said, there’s a more reflective, nostalgic approach to the songs this time round, perfectly illustrated by the opening The Sweet Part Of The City’s look back on their early days and the wisdom of experience proffering midtempo rocker Soft In The Centre. At their most wistful, We Can Get Together was written as a part tribute to Matthew Fletcher, the drummer from Oxford outfit Heavenly who committed suicide. It’s just a shame the emotional sentiments aren’t matched by the music.

Not that the bar band sensibilities are muted. Middle age niggles come wrapped in a dirty blues package with The Smidge, The Weekenders ebbs and flows between quiet ticking verses and big punchy rock flurries while Our Whole Lives comes stadium-sized with thumping drums and blazing brass. The closing track, A Slight Discomfort shows them pushing their frontiers into a seven minute fuzzy mood piece of guitar distortions and muffled echoey vocals that jars after the straightforward guitar rock that’s gone before. It’s a brave move that potentially suggests future developments, but for now they’d be advised to just turn up the amps and let it rip. 6pm. £15.50. O2 Academy 2

Sunday February 6

The Little Comets

A quirky Northern outfit who describe their sound as 'kitchen sink indie', having been dropped by Columbia after one single their debut album, In Search Of Elusive Little Comets has been languishing in limbo while legalities were settled. During which time the initial buzz about them has rather dissipated, so its arrival now via Dirty Hit is clearly a do or die effort to stay afloat and prove themselves worth the wait.

They’re nothing if not fond of angular rhythms and choppy guitar riffs, making them seem like a poppier version of Gang Of Four hanging out with Happy Mondays on One Night In October while elsewhere it’s hard not find yourself rolling out those Maximo Park, Kaiser Chiefs comparisons.

Robert Cole’s over enunciated vocals with his tendency to swallow the ends of his words and raise the pitch when he gets to the bite of the lyrics can become wearisome with prolonged exposure, but you can’t deny that, taken in moderation numbers such as the gambolling Adultery, the clanking stop start Isles (ignore the clunky state of the nation lyrics) and the zouk influences of Mathilda have considerable appeal.

Doubtless, they’ll be prompting much limb twitchery dancing with the set list though, they’d be advised to avoid including album closer Intelligent Animals, a sub-Radiohead plinking piano ballad which, with its sampling of a sampled geopolitical lesson about Darfur, suggests musical ambition is something they shouldn’t bother their heads about. 6pm. £6. O2 Academy 2

Monday February 7

Joan As Police Woman

Her last album, To Survive, a downbeat affair informed by her mother’s death, Joan Wasser’s declared its follow up, The Deep Field (Pias), to be her ‘joyous record’, a shaking off of grief’s dark clouds for an embracing and celebration of the vastness of life (the title refers to a far off part of space embracing other galaxies), the thrill of impulsiveness and, as she makes clear on the airy pulsing gospel pop of Nervous and late night dreamy synth ballad Kiss The Specifics, the power - and on the fat brass and violin burnished torch of The Action Man, the pain - of love. Or, on the falsetto silken Chemmie, pure slinky lust

This she channels not through familiar spare piano ballads, but with funky 60s soul influences plotted out with sensual grooves and electric guitar caresses, a nod to such stalwarts as the Al Green, Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone and Marvin Gaye evidenced on the likes of The Magic and The Human Condition.

Two numbers in particular stand out. The broodingly atmospheric eight minute Flash which brings work song gospel to bear on a spooked pulsing electronic mist that might have seeped under Radiohead’s door, and the languidly strung out hushed early hours hymnal intimacy of Forever And A Year where she sings “I always knew I would die alone”. Either of these in the set list should ensure an intoxicating show,. both will make it transcendental.

Support comes from singer-songwriter James Vincent McMorrow who, after scoring an Irish #1 last year with debut album In The Morning (Vagrant) will be looking to interest ears over here when it’s released next month. Formerly into hardcore punk, he had something of a Road To Damascus conversion when he stumbled on CS&N, taking himself off to write and record in a remote house by the sea and emerging, with beard, hat and a collection of bucolic songs inspired by folk music and writers such as Steinbeck and Dahl, featuring banjo and delivered in a fragile croaky falsetto to be, rather inevitably, hailed as Dublin’s answer to Bon Iver.

He’s not averse, however, to kicking up his heels for a bit of a shindig with Sparrow And The Wolf positively bustling along while Breaking Hearts conjures lollopping Neil Young and This Old Dark Machine has echoes of Joni’s Woodstock amid its CS&N flavours. And he catches you totally offguard when From The Woods suddenly erupts in an urgent panic that makes you want to run and not look behind.

It is, though, for the sparse and hushed pastoral ballads that he’s going to be known for the present, beautifully framed in numbers like the airy Hear The Noise That Moves So Soft And Low and the darker shadows of Follow You Down To The Red Oak Tree, haunted folk blues Down The Burning Ropes and the waltzing And If My Heart Should Somehow Stop. Early In The Morning, I’ll Come Calling he sings on the title track closer. I’d make sure you’re at home for visitors. 8pm. £15. Glee Club

Tuesday February 8

Imelda May

Having had both her albums claim the #1 spot in her native Ireland, things looked set to take off over here three years ago when her sophomore collection, Love Tattoo, got a UK release and landed her both a tour slot with Jools Holland and an appearance on Later. Disappointingly, however, its cocktail of 50s swing flavoured soul, jazz, blues and boogie woogie and numbers like Johnny Got A Boom Boom and Big Bad Handsome Man failed to set the tills ringing. However, subsequent high profile exposure like duetting with Jeff Beck at the Grammys and her steady live appearances (including stints here with the Candy Box Burlesque at the Glee) have done a good job of raising awareness and interest.

As a result, her third album (and third Irish #1), Mayhem (Decca), cracked the Top 20 and made her upcoming tour something of a hot ticket.

She will of course, be a familiar face and voice for some around these parts, as she once sang with West Mids based bluesman Mike Sanchez, but newcomers will know her for her blazing brand of retro rockabilly inspired by an early diet of Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran and, of course, Wanda Jackson. Which, you’ll not be surprised to hear, means there’s not exactly anything pioneeringly original about such numbers as a bass slapping Pulling The Rug, the surf guitar twangy Psycho and title track, the honky tonk country sway of Kentish Town Waltz, All For You’s Cab Calloway swing or the vintage hollering rock n roll Sneaky Freak. But then, that’s the point. Recording polish aside, May could easily have been transported straight from some 50s juke joint to give today’s jivers a taste of the real thing. She knows how to scorch a dancefloor and, while Radio 2 might seem her natural audience, her cover of Tainted Love might raise a flutter in the blood of Stray Cats and White Stripes fans alike. 7.30pm. £16.50. HMV Institute

Tuesday February 8

Kassidy

While, like many a Glasgow band, this hirsute bunch have been busy honing their folk influences, they’ve tethered their wagon to the sound of 60s California, building their acoustic guitar sound from a bedrock of Crosby, Stills and Nash, Neil Young, Beach Boys, Grateful Dead and The Doors. Oh, and a bit of The Beatles too. Last year saw the three pronged release of The Rubbergum EP, kicking off with Vol 1 headed up by sea shanty funky blues Stray Cat, followed Vol 2 featuring the Hey Jude descending chords sway of Take Another Ride and the urgent train rhythm chug of The Lost.

This in turn was swiftly followed by, you guessed it, Vol 3, leading off with the jaunty pub singalong indie folk pop Oh My God with its brief burst of saloon bar piano, the gravelly Johnny Cash goes shanty vibe of That Old Song and the Everlys tumbling Gambler Does The Gambler.

They make their first sortie of the year to launch debut album Hope St (Vertigo) which, while it does include five previously available cuts, also features seven new ones. Among these there’s the psychedelic folk Secret Tells A Lie, The Betrayal’s Doors influenced boogie, the big acoustic pop of Waking Up Sideways, the spaghetti western colours of the bells tolling title track and, throwing in another influence, a definite dab of early Dylan on I Don’t Know.

Big on catchy melodies, harmonies and chorus hooks, they sound like a solid live proposition too, though they really should leave the beards and long hair to the Kings of Leon. 7.30pm. £10. HMV Institute

Tuesday February 8

Funeral Party

The East LA quartet caused quite a stir of excitement on their brief series of low key dates last year and accompanying single New York City Moves To The Sound Of LA with its echoes of The Rapture, indie dance floor urgency and cowbells. They return now with a bigger profile tour and a debut album, The Golden Age of Knowhere (Jive). It features a track titled Where Did It Go Wrong, which, in the circumstances, is something quite a few people might be asking. It’s not that there’s anything especially wrong about crashing through a mix of retro garage funk and choppy art punk, it’s just that it’s not especially original or thrilling either. Car Wars looks to ride the same disco groove as the single, it even has 70s wah wah guitars, Finale imagines itself a snotty nosed young version of The Killers while Just Because and the rest of the uptempo numbers all seem to shade into the same noise with Chad Elliot yelling the lyrics. And when they do restraint on Relics To Ruins, they sound totally lost, as if someone told them they needed a ballad on the album but didn’t explain what that actually was.

The title track closer suggests they really want to get into the slow build stadium anthemics and, who knows, perhaps next time round they could prove a more profitable direction. For now though, they’re sound like they’re caught having to justify a hype they didn’t really believe in to start with. 7.30pm. £7.50. O2 Academy 3

Tuesday February 8

Esben & The Witch

Named after a decidedly dark Danish fairytale that entails child cruelty and slaughter, the Brighton trio reflect the titular origins in the broodingly claustrophobic, ethereally eerie atmospherics of their sound and a live show that features such props as alabaster busts, pottery owls and Victorian lamp posts. Citing glaciers and waning moons among their influences, they channel all of this into debut album Violet Cries (Matador), a glowering, sometimes spectral fusion of Siouxsie, And Also The Trees, This Mortal Coil, Killing Joke, Portishead and Nick Cave

Here they stir together folk, goth, electro and trip hop on such icy musical fingers as the quiet-loud stygian textures of Argyria, the six minute Pan’s Labyrinth horrors to Eumenides (the Greek Furies of vengeance, but you knew that), the appropriately spastic turmoil of Chorea (an involuntary movement disorder, again with Greek derivation) and Hexagon IV’s brittle bones.

They do offer some tender moments with Marine Fields Glow, but otherwise it’s the musical equivalent of stepping through the wardrobe and finding yourself, not in Narnia but Hades. I’m surprised they don’t ask you to pay in runes.

Support is Trophy Wife, an Oxford trio who’ve playfully dubbed their sound “ambitionless office disco”, which makes more sense when you listen to White Horses or debut single Microlite which showcase their languid, folk based indie diffidence. 8pm. £7. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Tuesday February 8

Holy Coves

Born around Holyhead on the North Wales coast perhaps, but Let’ Go, the lead track on their self-released The Droner EP, more conjures the sound of angry waves lashing North Sea crags with its throbbing bassline, surging psych blues guitar riffs and distorted vocals. Recorded in the shadows of Snowdonia the sound is equally mountainous, prompting thoughts of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The Black Angels but equally rooted in the late 60s blues rock of The Doors (What’s Happened To Me Has Happened To You) and Canned Heat (Come Alive) while the title track snarls and swaggers along like early Primal Scream behind the wheel of a psych blues steamroller. They make a big noise, but they have the big melodies to go with it and this is just the start of what promises to be a juggernaut journey through the year. 8pm. £5. The Flapper

Wednesday February 9

British Sea Power

After the nosy, experimental and often noisy indie of their first two albums, the Cumbrian outfit announced their readiness to take on the rock mainstream with the Mercury Music Prize nominated Do You Like Rock Music? Now, three years later, they’re running up the flag on its summit with Valhalla Dancehall (Rough Trade), embracins the Arcade Fire flames and stoking further with swathes of Manics and U2 big music dramatics.

Conjuring thoughts of Big Country, the anthemic opening Who’s In Control punches the air with unbridled passion and urgency and they sustain that salvo with We Are Sound and the tumbling 60s inflected pop of Observe The Skies. But, if these and powered ballads like Georgie Ray and Heavy Water are their stadium manifestos, they’re balanced with the sort of more complex work that earned them a following in the first place.

Stunde Null is a punky bustle with a reverberating bassline and Mongk II slips into a storm of distortion while Cleaning Out The Rooms is underpinned by a seven minute drone and bookended by ghostly piano noodling and Once More Now takes it four minutes further into ambient orchestral atmospheres that blow from gentle hilltop breezes to gusts of landscape stripping wind.

Gathering larger audiences without compromising their aesthetics or intelligence, BSP remain one of this country’s most intriguing and rewarding bands, and, as ever, the album comes with booklet sleeve notes that, detailing the creation of the music and referencing Malcolm Lowry, are actually worth reading too. 7.30pm. £13.50. HMV Institute

Wednesday February 9

The Crave

Yet another Brighton outfit looking to make their mark, unlike many of their hometown peers this lot play straight head rock music. Having done support duties to such diverse names as Status Quo, Deep Purple, Shinedown and Buckcherry, they’re stepping out on their own headline tour to plug self-released debut album Breaking The Silence.

There’s no attempt to reinvent the wheel, just heads down rocking guitar riffs, thumping drums and the sort of songs designed to be sung running up and down the stage holding the microphone stand.

Cooking In The Kitchen, Weight Of The World and Breaking The Silence show they know the value of a shoutable chorus hook, Something Beautiful nods to a crunchy Queen influence, All Of You carries the guitar solo credentials and Spinning Wheel, Truth Hurts and Silently Screaming tick the standard rock band contract of having an acoustic time out before launching back into the fray.

There’s nothing here to make them tomorrow’s young rock gods, but they’ll still sell plenty of t-shirts. 8pm. £6. The Flapper

Wednesday February 9

Ahab

Four singer-songwriters from Dalston in London, they began life as a band when invited to perform at the Fanfare festival in Nashville a couple of years back. Since then they’ve made the collaboration permanent, released and EP and earned a rousing reception on one of the acoustic stages at last year’s Cropredy. Built around acoustic guitars and mandolin and with the addition of a drummer, they play good time, close harmony strummed alt country folk with influences drawing on the Flying Burrito Brothers, Iain Matthews, The Byrds, and Gram Parsons. Last year’s self-titled EP was an impressive debut and while, other than tempo variations, there may not have been a great deal of musical diversity to the five tracks, the soft burr lead vocals and infections melodies of Run Me Down, Rosebud and Like Roses were irresistible.

Now comes download only single Lucy, another splendid slice of Americana with jangling mandolin, brushed snares and perfect harmonies and, hopefully a trailer for a whole album not too far down the line. If they get the right exposure, they might even prompt a McGuiness Flint revival. 8pm. £6. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Thursday February 10

Sea Of Bees

Not a band but rather Sacramento multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter Julie Ann Baenziger whose musical armoury includes marimba, glockenspiel and slide guitar and sings in a cooing voice that sounds like a splicing of Nancy Sinatra and Nina Persson from The Cardigans with a bit of the Kate Bush falsetto acrobatics.

Debut album Songs For The Ravens (Heavenly) does woozy indie freak folk mingled with electronic throbs, country, ambient thrums, West Coast pop, and squally fuzz as her songs trill about love, infatuation, pleasure and pain, longing and loss.

With titles that include Gnomes, Wizbot, and Marmalade, you’d be right in suspecting a degree of girlish twee (especially when she sings about ‘rosy cheeks’), but there’s depth behind the cute too and, while prolonged exposure to her ribbons and pigtails voice might prove irritating, such tracks as the twinkling Willis, a drone based Won’t Be Long, itchy shuffle Sidepain and the beguilingly lovely butterfly chasing hum of Skinnybone are more than worthy of the gathering, ahem, buzz.

Support comes from labelmates Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou who’ll be previewing new material from their eagerly anticipated follow up to last year’s eponymous debut with its acoustic folk and country blues nostalgia for a lost bucolic England. 8pm. £5. Hare & Hounds. Kings Heath

Thursday February 10

Go Team

The third Brighton act in a week, following a lengthy hiatus in the wake of 2007’s Proof Of Youth, the sextet are back to get the party restarted with Rolling Blackouts (Memphis Industries). In case you’d actually forgotten what they sounded like, they’ve obligingly done little to change the shape of their pop, soul, hip hop and freestyling sound, all served with unbridled exuberance and the sort of sunny optimism that makes 60s American family sitcoms seem like Tolstoy.

Fittingly, T.O.R.N.A.D.O. blows away the cobwebs with Ninja’s brat rap delivery and a bling of brass before they bust into the giddy sugar rush summer Secretary, Ready To Go Steady 60s Motown girl pop, the brass, bells and whistles of Bust-Out Brigade, Buy Nothing Day’s sherbet fountain and bubble gum cascades with guest singer Bethany Cosentino and The Running Range’s meeting between Morricone and something from a Step Up score.

You have to admire the sheer exhausting energy of it all, but, rather like the everything and the kitchen sink title track, at the end of the day, when you finally crawl home from the party, you know you’ve had a good time but you can’t remember anything about it. 7pm. £12. HMV Institute

Friday February 11

Deaf School

Put together by a bunch of Liverpool art school students in the mid 70s, Deaf School failed to achieve any notable commercial success, but the critical praise, fan devotion and influence was undeniable. Tongue playfully in cheek they released three albums prior to disbanding, 2nd Honeymoon, Don’t Stop The World and Working Girls, a cocktail of glam, vaudeville, and art/punk/pub rock featuring such underrated nuggets as What A Way To End It All, Bigger Splash, Rock Ferry, Golden Showers, English Boys (With Guns) and Ding Dong. The latter, an early single, clearly illustrating their influence on a bunch of nutty boys who would go on to form Madness. To cement the link, when the band finally called it a day, singer Bette Bright aka Anne Martin went on to a short-lived solo career before becoming Mrs Suggs.

She wasn’t the only member of the band to have more success after they left. Guitarist Clive Langer became one of the most successful producers of the next two decades with such acts as Morrissey, Bowie, Dexys and, yes, Madness, co singer Steve Allen, better known as Enrico Cadillac, formed The Original Mirrors with Ian Broudie, Ian Ritchie produced Roger Waters album Radio Kaos, played sax on Wham’s Club Tropicana and wrote The Lonely Planet theme, while bassist Steve ‘Mr Average’ Lindsay had a hit with The Planets and keyboard player Max Ripple was reborn as John Wood, currently professor of design at Goldsmiths College.

The band got back together for a live show and album in 1988, repeating the reunion in 2006, 2007 and 2009. Clearly, they enjoy working together, thus this latest get together (though sadly without singer Thomas Davis (Eric Shark) who died last year. This time, though, as well as playing the best of their past albums, they have new material too.

Tying in with the tour is Enrico+Bette xx, a self-released studio mini-album featuring five new songs, headed up by the single U Turn Away, a choppy retro pop number that’s part Beatles part Northern soul.

The other four numbers all feel as though they could be part of some jack the lad pop opera set in the 50s or 60s East End. With a punchy chorus, The Enrico Song’s advice on how to wear ‘that whistle right’ for maximum cocksure style has spoken passages and Langer channelling Bowie, I Know I Know’s a jerky hiccuping old school soul number with funky rhythm and Bright taking lead while Goodbye To All That’s a seven minute bluesy piano ballad with shifting time signatures and tempos and some fat tenor sax from Ritchie and Scary Girlfriend rolls out the cockerney cabaret barrel to cross Ziggy Stardust and Kurt Weill with Chas n Dave.

They’re unlikely to find themselves pulling in today’s younger audiences, but long time fans, Madness devotees and anyone who appreciates witty, well crafted and well played grown up pop should ensure their name’s on the register. 7pm. £14. O2 Academy 2

Saturday February 12

Shockwaves NME Awards Tour

It’s an eclectic line up for this prelude to the actual NME Awards, but it does rather underscore how rock music has been overshadowed by electronics and beats over the past year. Which is perhaps why, despite enjoying having the biggest buzz at present and coming third on the BBC’s Sound of 2011 list, the sole representatives of the genre on the bill, The Vaccines, get the job of warming up the crowd.

Still, if musical prejudices can be put aside for the evening, they should do a good job of getting the night into gear with their channelling of The Ramones, the Mary Chain and 60s rock n roll on such playful, upbeat and effervescent numbers as Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra), recent hit Post Break-Up Sex and the forthcoming re-recorded reissue of If You Wanna. The debut albums due shortly with several numbers getting previewed tonight in advance of their own headlining dates and, hopefully, more of a promotional push.

Next up and sporting their new grey and blue boiler suits are Everything Everything, the Mancunian electro pop quartet fronted by the falsetto vocals of Jon Higgins. They’ll be showing off their Man Alive (Geffen) album, an urgent and often rather irritating affair that sometimes sounds like an ADD version of Godley and Creme.

There is, admittedly, something very catchy about the stabbing staccato and vocal whoops of MY KZ, UR BF even if it does come over like Howard Jones’ hyperactive cousin, the fast handclapping QWERTY Finger, and the hip hop indie disco undercurrents of Schoolin’. But the longer the album goes on, whether on the dreamier ballads like Tin (The Manhole) or the jerkier Come Alive Diana, the more mannered they sound and the more Higgins’ voice wears on the nerves. Suffragette Suffragette suggests they might fancy themselves a 21st century Sparks, but like the name, they’re in danger of becoming very repetitive.

Third on the bill are Magnetic Man, a much feted union of dubstep producers and DJs Benga, Skream and Artwork, though, unless you’re really into the genre, numbers like Box Of Ghosts, Ping Pong and Mad on their self-titled debut album (Columbia) are going to sound like a collection of boring beats, tired thin synth electro and directionless burbling grooves.

They fare better when the guest vocalists step up, Katy B injecting some interest into Crossover and Perfect Strangers and John Legend providing genuine soulful class with Getting Nowhere, though Ms Dynamite sounds like she was in as much a hurry to get Fire over with as anyone listening to it.

Those who made their excuses and went to the bar might just about be tempted back by headliners Crystal Castles, even if only to see if Alice Glass is still having to perform on crutches after her ankle injury. If the crowd’s hung around, it would seem only charitable for the Toronto duo not to subject them to the more extreme squalls of their eponymous debut and, while perhaps permitting the odd sonic outburst with Baptism or I Am Made Of Chalk, send them home in a trance state with the ethereal cascades and swirls of Empathy and Suffocation. 7pm. £16.50. O2 Academy

Saturday February 12

VersaEmerge

Since they were last here a couple of years back, the Florida five piece has shrunk to a trio of singer Sierra Kusterbeck, guitarist Blake Harnage and bassist Devin Ingelid, though the live show’s likely to feature a keyboard player as well as the somewhat necessary drummer. Not much else has changed though between their three EPs and last year’s debut album, Fixed At Zero (Fueled By Ramen) which comes with muscley guitars, big hooks and urgent vocals that straddle a post-grunge/emo sound somewhere between Paramore’s pop sensibilities and the operatics of Evanescence.

As such Figure It Out and the title track pretty much define the parameters with the band clearly setting sights on reaching out to arena crowds with the big chorus ballads of You’ll Never Know and Up There while even the title of Fire (Aim Your Arrows High) has stadium roof ambitions, though Harnage’s breathy vocals sound a bit of a liability in that direction.

What they need now is a little self-discipline. The closing seven minute Lost Tree drones on long after the seats have emptied and while Mythology starts off promisingly neither it nor any of the uptempo songs manage to deliver that get it and get out punch that a breakout single needs. They have the promise, they just need to find the right kisses.

They could do worse than study Florida power pop support outfit We The Kings, whose Smile Kid (S-Curve) album displays a keen appreciation of infectious hooks and catchy melodies.

You might, of course, fear the worst from a band who have a lighters aloft power ballad, We’ll be A Dream, that features Disney Channel Camp Rock star and former Jonas Brothers girlfriend Demi Lovato but, while the lyrics never progress beyond the teen romantic angst level, the romping guitars and chewy pop of She Takes Me High, Heaven Can Wait and Anna Maris (All We Need) are guaranteed to have the crowd bouncing along and buzzing round the brain after they leave.

With rumours that they might be collaborating with You Me At Six on their third album, they might also surprise with a harder hitting edge live, too. 7pm. £12.50. O2 Academy 2

Saturday February 12

Florrie

A songwriter and drummer who’s provided the sticks for the likes of Pet Shop Boys and Girls Aloud, Florrie Arnold decided to take the solo plunge last year. Pulling together a cocktail of 60s influences, contemporary beats and electronics, she’s been making her recordings and remixes available as free downloads.

Given the response to early releases Call 911 and Panic Attack, she’s found a keen audience and her debut EP, Introduction, released last November, provides a useful snapshot of what to expect, embracing the driving Blondie-esque surf pop of Call Of The Wild, dance club pop Summer Nights and the Eurythmics influences of Left Too Late.

The test is to see how this translates into pulling in punters, though a set list that apparently only features nine numbers, one of which is the opening drum solo, seems a bit scant for a headlining tour. 7pm. £5. HMV Institute

Sunday February 13

Teddy Thompson

After three albums (one, a country covers collection) that reaped critical praise but little commercial success, Thompson finally made his chart debut with 2008’s Top 10 gem

A Piece Of What You Need, an album of 60s influenced country tinged folk rock and wry, witty lyrics that drew comparisons to Springsteen, Roddy Frame and, especially, Roy Orbison and saw him step out of father Richard’s shadow once and for all.

Not a great deal has changed for the follow-up, Bella (Verve Forecast) except that, disappointingly, he’s broken with tradition and not included an old Everlys song, hidden or otherwise. Still, it’s hard to hold this against him when he’s delivered such a terrific collection of confessional songs and moods.

Just as In My Arms kicked off the last album in airplay friendly catchy style, so this does with Looking For A Girl, a tongue in cheek list of his ideal woman’s attributes (drinks, smokes, takes drugs, sense of humour, good in bed) that combines his Orbison style twang with the country pop bounce of The Mavericks.

It’s a style and sound that hallmarks several tracks; the strings swished swayer Delilah, I Feel’s rolling country rock, Jenni Muldaur duet Tell Me What You Want and the strings soaked ballad Take Care Of Yourself with its soaring Orbisonesque falsetto. On the jaunty The One I Can’t Have he declares he suffers from “chronic hard to please”, and pretty much all of the songs here are regretting the relationships he’s screwed up, although on Over And Over he does so in a moodier, bluesier affair with violin and rumbling drums while Home is stripped back to just string quartet, clarinet and vocal.

Another outstanding release that again shows the apple’s not fallen far from the family tree, it’ll be a great gig too, though he’d better throw in at least one Everlys cover if he knows what’s good for him. 7.30pm. £15. Glee Club

Sunday February 13

My Chemical Romance

It was always going to be hard job following up multi-million selling breakthrough album, The Black Parade. So perhaps going for another concept album might not have been the best idea. Danger Days: The Four Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys is a sci fi concept set in 2019 California with the band adopting the alter-egos of Party Poison, Jet-Star, Kobra Kid and Fun Ghoul, four rebels with designer shooters fighting the evil Better Living Industries Corporation led by Korse with pirate radio DJ Dr Death Defying providing the narrative. Setting out to rescue the girl kidnapped by Korse, the outgunned quartet get killed, but not before taking a stand and providing an inspiration of defiance against the odds. And, as on the Ballroom Blitz aping Vampire Money’s jibe about doing a song for the Twilight movie, against record labels who want you to sell out.

Those old enough to remember will have scary flash backs to when Kiss attempted a similar superhero thing with the disastrously ill-advised TV movie Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park. Thankfully, the music’s considerably better, but it’s also all over the place stylistically, shifting from the punky stomping Na Na Na and chugging Ramonesy singalong Bulletproof Heart through aggressive Nine Inch Nails nihilism rock rap Destroya and hard riffers Planetary (GO!) and Party Poison to pop ballad Summertime while S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W and The Kids From Yesterday provide the sort of stadium anthemics Black Parade devotees would expect.

Unfortunately, very few of these have the memorable melodic hooks or lyrical strengths of anything on that album and while they may indeed give the live set a more rocking than theatrical edge, none are likely to produce that moment you want to take away and remember. Just hope they don’t decide to wear alter-ego costumes. 7.30pm. £26.50. LG Arena

Sunday February 13

Chapel Club

For those not old enough to have caught Echo & The Bunnymen first time around, now the Editors have gone more electronic this London based five piece have obligingly decided to recreate the aural experience with debut album, Palace (Loog). Indeed, there’s times (notably on All The Eastern Girls) when singer Lewis Bowman sounds exactly like Ian McCulloch. Still, if you’re going to court comparisons, there’s worse ways to go about it than recreating the swelling, brooding and majestic days of Heaven Up Here or Ocean Rain. Nor are they exclusive in their influences, the album also embracing big chunks of Joy Division, My Bloody Valentine (though big guitar riffs), U2 and, as Bowman shifts approaches, the Morrissey echoes of O Maybe and Fine Light.

Fortunately, they do it all well enough and with more than enough heartfelt conviction to carry it off without being overly diminished by the comparisons, Five Trees, Blind, White Knight Position and the shoegazey anthemics of Paper Thin testament to their musical and songwriting abilities while, whatever legal nightmares it might have spawned, their use of lyrics from Dream A Little Dream Of Me (written by Gus Khan, not the Mamas and Papas) as the chorus of the dark brooding Surfacing is as positively inspired as Vanilla Fudge’s reimagining of You Keep Me Hanging On.

They may need to not lean so heavily on their record collections next time round, but for now it’s an impressive debut that warrants taking out at least temporary membership. 7pm. £8. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Sunday February 13

Three Bonzos and a Piano

Founded in 1962, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band were a bunch of art student musical pranksters with a fond if not necessarily reverential affection for very English vaudeville as well as keen interests in jazz, psychedelia and the avant garde. Their name a combination of 20s cartoon Bonzo the dog and the Dada art movement, the original line up of eccentrics included Vivian Stanshsall, Rodney Slater, Neill Innes, Vernon Dudley, Martin Ash (later rechristened Sam Spoons), artist’s son Roger Ruskin Spear, ‘Legs’ Larry Smith and, briefly Bob Kerr, who would leave to form his own Whoopee Band.

Just in case anyone had a problem remembering the line up, their first album, Gorilla, included a deadpan track called The Intro and the Outro in which each individual member and instrument was introduced as the tune gathered momentum, along with more unlikely additions as Adolf Hitler on vibes, Princess Anne on sousaphone and Casanova on horn. Stanshall later reprised the idea for Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells

As is inevitable with music comedy/parody albums, not every number was as amusing in reality as it might have seemed during recording, but the 1967 debut did contain more than its fair quota of inspired gems, among them The Equestrian Statue, Jollity Farm, calypso spoof Look Out There’s A Monster Coming, the deliberately inept Jazz, Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold and, a title that may ring a few bells with today’s indie fans, Death Cab For Cutie, a song they performed at the end of The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour.

Dropping the Doo-Dah, second album, The Doughnut In Granny’s Greenhouse, was less fertile but did contain Can Blue Men Sing The Whites, a send up of the British blues boom, Trouser Press, a 12 bar blues featuring a solo on, yes, a trouser press, and the psych folk blues Rockaliser Baby. That same year they scored their only hit single with the whimsical I’m The Urban Spaceman which in turn found its way on to Tadpoles, their third album which, along with a cover of Monster Mash, included their two arguably greatest moments, the crunchy freakout pop Mr Apollo and, single B-side, Stanshall’s abusrdist Elvis talking ballad pastiche The Canyons Of Your Mind.

Things went downhill after that, with the decidedly patchy Keynsham leading to the band splitting up at the start of 1970 only to be contractually forced to reform for a final album, Let’s Make Up And Be Friendly, which featured few of the classic line-up and is notable only for the inclusion of Rawlinson End, a song Stanshall would spin-off into a whole saga, embracing album, book and film.

All of these, along with debut single My Brother Makes The Noises For The Talkies, Alley Oop and other oddities, are gathered together in the 3CD box set A Dog’ Life (EMI) and several of the classics will resurface in tonight’s show which brings together Ruskin Spear, Slater and Spoons along with pianist Dave Glasson and guitarist Andy Roberts.

They do, however, also have their own new album to plug, Hair Of The Dog, which (somewhere between Tadpoles and Keynsham in terms of inspiration) continues the Bonzo (and spiritual heirs, Monty Python) tradition with comedy pastiches of rock n roll, country, jazz, and music hall on playful numbers like the Alzheimer’s swing of Senior Moment, Flies, Ginger Geezer, gypsy kletzmer Biscuit, baldness ode The Follicle Song and a cover of 20s jazz standard The Sheikh Of Araby that patently nods to the Spike Jones version.

Counting Stephen Fry among their fans, they do require a very certain type of comic sensibility but, if you’re on the wavelength this will be unmissable. 8pm. £17.50. Warwick Arts Centre

Monday February 14

Clare Maguire

Although she’s a local Irish girl from Solihull, this is her headlining hometown gig and her debut album, Light After Dark (Polydor), is out next week, the label’s promotional machine declined to make it available for preview. So, all there is to go on is past form and new single.

The former includes her first single, the moodily dramatic Celtic tinged Ain’t Nobody, the electro tinged soul of keyboards ballad The Strangest Thing and You’re Electric, and her tremulous cover of Antony And The Johnsons’ Hope There’s Someone while the latter’s represented by new Michael Jackson inspired single The Last Dance which rather worryingly sounds like she’s been guided more towards 80s Bonnie Tyler than self-confessed influence Rosetta Tharp or Annie Lennox.

Whatever, coming fifth on the BBC’s Sound of 2011, she’s got a powerhouse set of lungs that can belt out an epic rock torch ballad or burn up gospel, soul and blues in a way to send Amy Winehouse scurrying for cover. She deserves to be seen and heard, if only her label thought the same way. 7.30pm. £7.50. O2 Academy 3

Monday February 14

White Lies

They didn’t quite manage to emulate 2009’s debut album, To Lose My Life, by starting January off with a #1, but sophomore release Ritual (Fiction) only fell two places short with its second helping of dark, echoey majestic songs that again make little attempt to disguise such influences as Joy Division (Is Love, Holy Ghost), Interpol (Bigger Than Us), Ultravox (Come Down), Scott Walker (Turn The Bells) and Depeche Mode (Bad Love). On Holy Ghost there’s even surely a touch of Gary Numan

Nothing quite matches the epic power of A Place To Hide or Nothing To Give, but the steadily building anthemic The Power & The Glory certainly comes close and is likely to reduce fans of the second Editors album to puddles. Bound to be a night of big crescendos and bursting hearts, but they might want to bring a little variation to the game plan next time around. 7.30pm. £16. HMV Institute

Monday February 14

The Saturdays

Apparently having to make ends meet by playing private birthday parties for rich kids, like their name the five piece seem to have proven the weak end of the recent flurry of girl groups. It all started out to well too with debut album Chasing Lights actually been hailed by many as pop album of the year and spawning four (if you count Comic Relief’s Just Can’t Get Enough on the reissue) Top 10 singles.

However, the fifth single, Work, failed to make the Top 20 and, while its lead single, Forever Is Over, peaked at #2, follow up album Wordshaker dropped out of the Top 30 after one week, never to be seen again. Well, that’s not strictly true since, in desperation, last year the label lifted the two hit singles and repackaged them on Headlines (Fascination), a mini-album that also included a remix of One Shot alongside new numbers showing a more bleepy electro dance pop direction with Missing You, Higher, Karma and Puppet.

It did well, giving them their highest album placing at #3, but, perhaps worried about keeping the revived impetus going, it too was repackaged and reissued in a cynical attempt to make fans pay twice for the same thing by adding three more tracks from Wordshaker and a remix of Higher with added Flo Rida. It stalled at #39 and disappeared. The gig’s not sold out. 7.30pm. £24. W’hampton Civic Hall

Wednesday February 16

Tina Dico

The Danish songstress doesn’t do anything by halves. Her excellent A Beginning, A Detour, An Open Ending, written while touring the Count To Ten album, was a three disc trilogy of 20 songs, starting out acoustic sparse and hesitant, then introducing strings, electric guitar and folky flavours before getting slightly beefier with a more Sheryl Crow/Stevie Nicks rock edge.

Then, having written the score for a Danish film called Oldboys, she turned them into songs and wrote a few extra for what became The Road To Gavle. Now comes Welcome Back Colour (Finest Gramophone), a double disc set compilation of her best songs. Except, that would be too simple and not offer the fans sufficient value.

So, the first disc, Welcome Up, features 11 previous airplay hits, including Warm Sand, Sacre Coeur, Count To Ten, Goldhawk Road, New Situation and On The Run, alongside three new recordings; the dance based title track which recalls her Zero 7 days, Norah Jonesy swayer Instead and the rocky, Fleetwood Mac-ish Paper Thin with its twangy noir guitars.

The second CD, Welcome Down, is mixes together old and new material in stripped down acoustic recordings, Back Where We Started is revisited from her debut and Room With A View and Break Of Day off Notes alongside versions of such other past favourites as Rebel Song, Glow and even a lovely folk blues rework of Home from Zero 7’s When it Falls.

Ode to her new hometown, Copenhagen, and the intimate Americana coloured confessional Watching Him Go are both new songs while she also includes two duets sung with the writers, Teitur on Let’s Go Dancing and Waltz by her regular live backing singer Helgi Jonsson.

The opening night of her UK tour, she’s playing with a four piece band so, given her work ethic, it’s pretty much a given that, along with the ‘hits’ she’ll be including full arrangements of the new acoustic numbers too. 7.30pm. £11. Glee Club

Wednesday February 16

Shaun Ryder

Fresh from being rehabilitated in the public eye as a likeable grump with a hidden soft heart courtesy of I’m A Celebrity, Ryder’s sensibly cashing in on his revived profile with a tour that draws on the best of his days with Happy Mondays (that’ll be Kinky Afro, 24 Hour Party People, Step On and Loose Fit) and Black Grape (that’ll be Fat Neck and Reverend Black Grape) as well as punky autobiographically vitriolic solo album Amateur Night In The Big Top (that’ll be a bit harder, since hardly anyone ever heard it). Chances of another duet with Stacey Solomon seem slim.

Support comes from hometown lads The Twang who, it would seem, have been dumped by their label after their underperforming second album, and have released new EP, Guapa as a download only via, presumably their own, Jump The Cut Records. No promo copies were available, but samples of the urgent title track, acoustic country inflected ballad February Snow and the heartfelt Whoa Man suggest they’re back on form with a whole new musical maturity. 7.30pm. £18.50. O2 Academy

Thursday February 17

Good Charlotte

Making their breakthrough back in 2002 with The Young And The Hopeless and associated hit singles Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous and Boys And Girls, the Maryland five piece are steady and reliable rather than genuinely exciting. Chronicles Of Life And Death gave them another UK success, spawning three Top 30 singles, including I Wanna Live, while 2007’s Good Morning Revival kept the ball rolling, adding another hit single in the form of Keep Your Hands Of My Girl though the follow-up, Dance Floor Anthem, failed to chart, which seems rather ironic since that pretty much summed up their dance oriented brand of Blink 182 rock.

Switching labels from Sony to Capitol, last year’s Cardiology also saw them dumping the dance elements to focus back on the guitar driven pop punk aspects of their original sound. The likes of Counting The Days, Silver Screen Romance, There She Goes and the acoustic 1979 are solid and catchy enough, but there’s little here to set them apart from the rest of the crowd plying similar fare, which would doubtless explain why none of the singles charted and the album failed to even make the Top 50 as disenchanted fans voted by staying away.

With a lot of ground to recover and little support from the label, the response to this tour’s going to be a significant factor in their future.

Support comes from Framing Hanley, another workmanlike but undistinguished punk pop outfit with buzzing guitars and chugging rhythms whose current album, A Promise To Burn (Silent Majority) has catchy enough songs in Back To Go Again, War Zone and Wake Up but neither they, the album or the band have anything varied or individual enough to distinguish them.

Strongest bet on the package will be Massachusetts crew Four Year Strong, their 2009 album, Enemy of the World (Defacto), a collection of raging riffs and air fisting choruses, spraying sweat as they surge through the likes of What The Hell Is A Gigawatt, This Body Pays The Bill$, Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride and the tongue in cheek It Must Really Suck To Be Four Year Strong Right Now. A new post-hardcore album is apparently in the offing with the chance of the odd taster tonight. They’ll be the ones you want to make a return visit. 7pm. £16. O2 Academy

Friday February 18

Jason Derulo

Known to his folks as Jason Joel Desrouleaux, this is his first - and curiously low key - UK tour in the wake of a Top 3 hat trick of dance pop singles that began with Whatcha Say and continued through the #1 In My Head and Ridin’ Solo, the last two of which still seem to be incessantly on the radio. Subsequent releases haven’t fared quite as well, syrupy ballad What If stalling outside the Top 10 and the Chariots Of Fire sampling The Sky’s The Limit failing to chart at all while the self-titled album’s so far not managed to climb higher than #8. That’ll probably change once the tour begins if his performance lives up to reports about impressive dance moves (he trained at ballet) to go with a selection of dazzling outfits and, of course, the voice and music that slides easily between urban pop and r&b. Not to mention ripping off his shirt.

Given he’s not yet got a back catalogue, he includes the entire album in the set list (and I’d be surprised if either the poppy Love Hangover or Take That styled ballad Blind didn’t turn up as a tie-in single), but also throws in a few unexpected touches with a stripped down acoustic version of Solo and at least one cover version, past choices having included Prince's When Doves Cry, Sexy Back and Billie Jean, complete with white hat and moonwalk. In a genre that’s thrown up several that are likely to prove short lived wonders, Derulo is here for the long haul. 7.30pm. £26. W’hampton Civic Hall

Saturday February 19

Vittorio Tolomeo

Maybe it’s the fact that his only gig outside London is a free show at a venue that’s not exactly the hub of Birmingham’s live scene that makes the Italian singer-songwriter look so miserable on his promo photo. That he’s also a total unknown will probably mean the bar staff outnumbers the punters, but those that turn up, either out of curiosity or because it’s their regular watering hole should find something to smile about.

The set list will be taken from Prize Day (Audio Fidelity), a debut solo album which the press release says combines folk, rock and soul but which is actually more psychedelic garage blues rock with shades of funk that, at different times, calls to mind both the late Gary Moore and Hendrix.

He’s got one of those moody, dark and swarthy voices that’s occasionally, as on the opening galloping riff Love Insane, a bit like Jim Morrison while the violin solo and brooding desert noir feel of Migrant Soul would go down well with American Music Club and Giant Sand admirers and the bass throbbery Sauve Moi Mon Amour comes over like an older brother of The Strokes.

He’s definitely into the shadowy musical corners of 60s psychedelic soul, New Star To Start Again reminiscent of the queasy fug of Three Dog Night’s Mama Told Me Not To Come and You Don’t Stop borrowing a Velvets riff though the bass heavy rhythm lines of things like Soul Music and Crawling Art wouldn’t be too out of place on a Joy Division album.

He could do with a little more light and shade, the numbers tending to get a bit tonally samey, but there’s more than enough going on here to warrant a bigger, higher profile platform on his next visit. 7.30pm. Free Wagon & Horses, Bordesley Green

Saturday February 19

X-Factor Live

Another year, another collection of finalists and already signs that the shine’s wearing off and public interest waning in those that didn’t make the finish line. As well as getting together for Heroes, as is usual the finalists all get to do their turn, reprising their best bits from the series, though in the case of comedy relief Wagner that may be a bit hard to call. Hopefully they’ll get him out of the way early on rather than having the threat looming over enjoyment of the others. Among those that took an early bath Paije Richardson should probably be slotted in as a get the party started warm-up since he never really suggested the vocal depth to sustain attention.

Having swapped her Wurzel Gummidge hairdo for the cropped whipped cream look, the vastly annoying Katie Waissel (who Cowell saved rather than Trayc Cohen because he said she was what the public would want to see next week, a decision hardly born out by the actual votes) will hopefully treat everyone to another fantastic display of tears and maybe even do We Are The Champions with all the words.

Moving up a gear, Aiden Grimshaw can be relied on to supply some quivering, tremulous emotional intensity with his version of Mad World doubtless included, though future career prospects are looking doubtful after his solo tour had barely been announced before it was cancelled.

Young girls in the crowd will probably drown out the third placed One Direction, which may not be a bad thing as, rather than the next big boy band Louis Walsh kept calling them, they’re a decidedly ordinary poppy five piece whose harmonies can bedodgy. They’re apparently readying a single, but you can already hear the clock ticking and bets being taken on how long before spare part Zayn gets the elbow.

There to keep older audience members happy, Mary Byrne seems set for a solid career on the Jane McDonald circuit belting out powerful Basseyesque renditions of such ballads as No Regrets, I Who Have Nothing and It's a Man's Man's Man's World, though she’d be advised to not give Never Can Say Goodbye a second chance.

The real excitement though starts with Cher Lloyd, who may have been a bit of an irritating brat but is clearly thrillingly talented, her stunning rendition of Stay proving she’s a real singer as well as a cocky rapper. Her album’s eagerly awaited and, as her routines showed, she has natural stage presence and charisma. She could yet take on the world.

Runner up Rebecca Ferguson was described as having the perfect recording voice, and she indeed is someone whose album you’re likely to have on repeat in the car and around the house, her versions of To Make You Feel My Love and Candle In The Wind positively spine-tingling. She’s obviously not comfortable moving around on stage, so big production and choreography pieces are out but when she just stands there and sings, she’s phenomenal.

And album’s due later in the year, hopefully featuring Distant Dreamer, the song which would have been her single had she won.

Which brings us to winner and headliner Matt Cardle, the likeable, unassuming, modest bloke in the cap who received the most votes every week bar the first. Armed with an acoustic guitar and a fine ear and voice for ballads, his emotional version of First Time Ever I Saw Your Face was jaw-dropping while Nights In White Satin eclipsed even the original. That When We Collide was going to be #1 was never in doubt, but he’s going to have to judge the follow up and album carefully to avoid becoming pigeon holed as nice but slightly bland Radio 2 fodder. 2.30pm/7.30pm. £32.50. LG Arena

Saturday February 19

James Yorkston

A bit of a different show this time from the Scottish folk singer-songwriter. There’s no new album to promote, but there is a book. So, appearing solo, he’ll be dipping into his catalogue of self-deprecating, melancholically romantic rustic songs and traditional tunes alike, throwing in a couple of new numbers and punctuating these with readings from It’s Lovely to be Here – The Touring Diaries of a Scottish Gent, a series of tour diaries written with deadpan humour and philosophical bemusement about life on the road for a modern day troubadour. 7.30pm. £12. mac

Sunday February 20

Maroon 5

Essentially presenting themselves as a latter day Hall & Oates, the LA five piece seem to have little problem playing to two different audiences. The current album, Hands All Over (A&M) opens with Misery, Give A Little More and Stutter delivering the sort of slick, polished funky soul that fans bought into with such early hits as This Love, She Will Be Loved, Makes My Wonder and If I Never See Your Face Again. But, having mellowed them out, that’s when they turn attention to ears that prefer poppy AOR rather than club grooves.

Hands All Over cranks up the sleazy guitar noise and riffs, I Can’t Lie steers into Marvin Gaye soul, Just A Feeling and How are classy pop ballads, the latter surely destined to have Take That fans swooning, while Get Back In My Life has a choppy wah wah groove that recalls classic INXS and Out Of Goodbyes finds them going country bossa nova in a duet with Lady Antebellum. Having flirted with the sound of Queen hangbinbg out with Prince on the title track, they also have fun with a good rocking acoustic cover of Crazy Little Thing Called Love. They’ll never convert the critics, but they seem to have no problem satisfying the crowds.

Opening the show is piano playing singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles who previously toured with them in 2008 on the back of her international hit single Love Song and accompanying mega-selling album Little Voice, released here as Silent Cry. Although released in America last year, where it debuted at #1, follow-up Kaleidoscope Heart (Columbia) doesn’t hit UK stores until tomorrow, so this seems a perfect sales platform.

She lacks the quirkiness and darker undercurrents of Regina Spektor but as a crossbreed of Billy Joel and Shania Twain, her jazzy soul piano pop has much to recommend. Notable stand outs would include the doo woppy melodic cascades of the bitching put down King Of Anything, the Southern gospel a cappella title track, a finger-clicking jaunty Gonna Get Over You, Not Alone’s alleycat jazz blues, and the breathily dreamy Bluebird, but there’s nothing here that won’t sound good on radio or stage while the syncopated major chords of Uncharted’s failed relationships anthem is surely her next Top10 single in waiting. 7pm. £23.50. O2 Academy

Sunday February 20

Ray Lamontagne

It must have come as a bit of a shock when fans of his previous albums heard the first track on God Willin' & The Creek Don't Rise (Columbia), his first to also bear the name of his touring band, The Pariah Dogs.

Repo Man is a thick blues groove with LaMontagne growling out the lyric (which includes him talking about spanking his bad girl) while the band lay down Famous Flames style funky fat riffs and rhythms. However, having false footed the faithful, the rest is pretty much raspy business as usual, commencing with the achingly wearied New York City's Killing Me, a dusty country flavoured lament that conjures thoughts of Ted Hawkins.

And it's the country side of the blues that informs much of the rest of the album too; from the Van Morrison seasonings of the Southern soul title track and a Tim Hardinish chugging

Beg Steal Or Borrow through the plaintive acoustic Are We Really Through? and the more late night samba jazz mood of This Love Is Over.

Ever reluctant to talk about his influences he may be, but there's no disguising the echoes of early Neil Young to the banjo-jogging autobiographical Old Before Your Time, even if the melody line is pure Don Williams. He reaps Young's Harvest too on For The Summer with its here Crazy Horse style guitar work and LaMontage wailing into the harmonica. As indeed he does on six minute Like Rock and Roll & Radio, a wistfully clever number that compares a broken love to the relationship between rock and roll and contemporary radio.

However, having lulled you into grainy reveries, the album reverts back to its initial blues impetus for the closing Devil's In The Jukebox, a r&b foot stomping leg slapper that sounds like it might have been written for a street corner one-man band with its blowing harp, strummed guitar, clanking drum and tambourine and a lyric of repeated line verses. A guaranteed live stomper that should shake the dust off the ceiling.

Opening act are The Secret Sisters aka Alabama siblings Laura and Lydia Rodgers who would seem to have been weaned on a diet of Doc Watson, the Everlys and the Louvins. Their eponymous debut album (Beladroit) is a cooked to perfection 60s country covers collection with their harmonies bouncing off steel and banjos.

Country legends George Jones (Why Baby Why), Bill Monroe (The One I Love Is Gone given a slow, dark Gillian Welch feel), Buck Owens (My Heart Skips A Beat) and, naturally, Hank Williams (Why Don’t You Love Me and a beautiful prairie hymn reading of House Of Gold) are all in there. But they make less obvious choices, too.

There’s a cover of Frank & Nancy Sinatra hit Something Stupid while I’ve Got A Feeling is a faithful note for note revival of an obscure 1963 single by the then 15 year old Nancy Baron. All About You and Do You Love An Apple are both traditional numbers, the former an Andrews Sister style hoe-down, the latter a folk tune previously recorded by Rufus Wainwright.

They’re not just about other people’s songs, though. Their self-penned lilting Tennessee Me conjures thoughts of early Emmylou Harris while the other original, Waste The Day, could easily have come from the vintage days of Patsy Cline and Wanda Jackson. There’s several young artists doing retro country at the moment, but after this it’s an open secret who’s among the very best. And, they have cool cred too, their debut single, a rowdy version of Johnny Cash’s Big River, was produced by Jack White who also plays squally guitar. 7.30pm. £25/£22.50. Symphony Hall

Sunday February 20

Black Atlantic

It seems an unlikely venue for a gig by a Dutch acoustic outfit fronted by the former singer of an American metalcore outfit, but nonetheless here they are, making their Midlands debut on a brief tour to promote the UK release of Reverence for Fallen Trees.

Revolving around themes of remembrance, grief, family, love, and disenchantment, it’s a minimalist affair with spare use of guitar, drums and keyboards to underscore Geert van der Velde’s often bruised and ethereal vocals and the multi-layered harmonies.

Though nothing like as orchestral, numbers like Heirloom, An Ocean and Peril and Old, Dim Light draw favourable comparisons to the dream pop of Sigur Ros while Walked On Wood, Madagascar and the playful Dandelion easily earn a place alongside the ambient melancholic folk of Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes. And if you want to talk beauty, then I Shall Cross The River and the title track suggest what might have resulted has Brian Wilson written Pet Sounds in an Appalachian woodside cabin.

You really ought to make the effort to hear them now, so you can be part of the groundswell as the buzz begins to build, but if not then you can download the entire album for free from their website (www.theblackatlantic.com) and spread the word from there. 8pm. £7. The Public, West Bromwich

Sunday February 20

Mona

The Nashville based quartet’s influences are deeply rooted in the visceral 50s sound of Elvis, Jerry Lee and Cash but channelled through a punk attitude and swagger. Having kicked off with driving, swaggery debut single Listen To Your Love (where perhaps a twinge of New Order’s also evident), they’re giving a helping hand to the equally urgently raw, gospel-blues and rockabilly guitar chiming recent follow-up Trouble On The Way. With the self-titled debut album due in May and getting early previews tonight, they’re definitely ones to watch.8pm. £7.15. Slade Rooms, W’hampton

Monday February 21

Andy McKee

Photo: Christine Porubsky

Apparently regarded as one of the finest acoustic guitar soloists in the world, the Kansas born fingerpicker is yet another YouTube success, his cover of Toto’s Africa notching up over nine million hits while signature tune Drifting amassed a phenomenal 36,000,000.

Five albums in he’s also been reaching out to the real world with several world tours though this, as far as I’m aware, is his first visit to these parts. It coincides with his latest release, Joyland (Razor & Tie), a collection of eight self-penned tunes alongside covers of Layover by fellow virtuoso Michael Hedges and Tears For Fears’ Everybody Want To Rule The World.

He’s a little bit jazz, a little bit blues and, as the percussive Hunter’s Moon and the arpeggios of Blue Liquid show, highly technically adept. But he’s not a John Williams or a Paul Brett, and unless he’s good between tunes raconteur this could prove rather soporific. 8pm. £15. Glee Club

Monday February 21

Spokes

Formerly instrumentalists, Manchester’s post-rock quintet have found their voice for debut album Everyone I Ever Met (Counter). Well not strictly their voice, as they seem to have borrowed considerably from the likes of Arcade Fire and Polyphonic Spree for their lush choral harmonies not to mention the shimmering melodies, percussive guitars and strings.

Sun It Comes offers a spare (and frankly boring) acoustic ballad and Give It Up To The Night doodles around the piano notes before putting on a coat and stepping out into the evening, but otherwise the album’s dominated by either the chilled shoe gaze of the title track or the psych-euphoria of We Can Make It Out with some tracks stretching over fine minutes and some just feeling a lot longer.

They play well but they also seem to be playing for themselves rather than an audience, which, unless you’re just looking to drift away to the sonic swirl, hardly seems the recipe for a memorable gig. 8pm. £5. The Rainbow

Tuesday February 22

Pete Lawrie

At the club around five months ago with the All That We Keep EP, the raspy voiced Welshman returns to preview his debut album, A Little Brighter. Advance copies weren’t available, but it’s a fair bet that it’ll include previous tempo shuffling single In The End as well as the current folk-soul gospel rocking release, Fell Into The River (Island).

With a voice and style that can’t help but draw comparisons to Hothouse Flowers or Chris Rea while Half As Good worryingly sounds a lot like Glibert O’Sullivan. One for the over 25s. 8pm. £6. Glee Club

Tuesday February 22

Cold War Kids

With its tales of the terminally ill, low lifes and suicides, debut album Robbers & Cowards was one of 2006’s best . No cheerier, follow up Loyalty To Loyalty struck slightly more spooky and aggressive notes with things like the staccato Something Is Wrong With Me. Now the California quartet return with album number three, Mine Is Yours (Interscope), the production reins handed over to Jacquire King, the man behind the desk for the Kings of Leon’s breakout albums.

He’s looking for the same arena crowds with this, the band ladling on the big music anthemics for Out Of The Wilderness, Finally Begin, Flying Upside Down and the title track, warbling frontman Nathan Willett clearly having spent some time listening to Bono. However, they seek to steer clear of generic predictability with some angular rhythms, electronic beats, sharp stabs of piano and guitars that force you to listen rather than just wave your arms aloft while Cold Toes On The Cold Floor a spooked, discordant number that seems to marry Jim Morrison and the Plastic Ono Band.

At the end of the day, though, it’s an album more likely to confuse than excite the fans while the band too often seem to be fighting against their own inclinations, meaning it’s the older material that’s going to be what carries them through the gig and, hopefully, pushes them back into taking responsibility for their own sound.

Support comes from the more experimentally minded grooves of Wild Palms, offering a preview of upcoming Into Spring album in advance of their headlining tour next month. 7.30pm. £11.50. O2 Academy 2

Tuesday February 22

James Blunt

He took considerable stick for the ubiquitous You’re Beautiful (voted most irritating song of all time) and debut album, Back To Bedlam, but with millions of copies sold of both he could afford to take the knocks and jibes with a pinch of salt.

However, when sophomore album, the relatively under-achieving All the Lost Souls, saw a backlash from the fans as well as the critics for its ‘poor me I’m famous’ songs and while 1973 was a hit, subsequent singles performed poorly, Blunt obviously decided that he’d stop whining and get back to perky songs about love and romance.

So, enter Some Kind Of Trouble (Atlantic) with its first single, the breezy strumming Stay The Night about chatting up some girl at a party in Californ-i-ay. So far so bouncy. Then along came the aptly titled Best Laid Plans and, as the image of Elton John rises unbidden, you suddenly realise that, rather than return to sounding like James Blunt from the debut album, he’s so lost touch hanging around with pop stars and models he has no idea who he actually is.

Thus Dangerous comes on like a thin Hall & Oates, No Tears is another Elton piano ballad foray, Calling Out Your Name is sub Bon Jovi stadium anthemics, the awful Superstar is ill-advised Fleetwood Mac and If Time Is All I Have simply reinforces claims that he’s a poor man’s Chris De Burgh.

There’s plenty of melodies but absolutely no soul and, if anything, his current lyrical prowess now makes You’re Beautiful seems like a Shakespeare sonnet. The only good news is that the promo copies of the album didn’t include the forced handclappy fun of I’m You’re Man or the embarrassing let’s get sleazy Turn Me On. If he’s looking to keep the crowd till the end of the night, he’ll keep THE hit for the encore. 7.30pm. £29.50. W’hampton Civic Hall

Wednesday February 23

Jamie Woon

Fourth on the BBC’s Sound of 2011, Woon’s uncle was Hugh McKenna from Scottish rock legends The Sensational Alex Harvey Band and his mother the critically respected, though criminally undervalued, folk singer Mae McKenna. You can, perhaps hear traces of the latter’s influence, but the4 27 year old’s own music is firmly groove-led electro soul, influenced by 90s r&b as well as the dubstep persuasions of his sparse, atmospheric beats.

Numbers such as Spiral and the hypnotic Blue Truth are mood pieces, but recent single Night Air (Candent) curiously conjures thoughts of a spooked, spectral Phil Collins. An album’s due later in the year,. so this is an early chance to see if the BBC know what they’re talking about.

He shares the night with Ghostpoet, real name Obaro Ejimiwe, the Coventry born, London based rapper who came up through the grime scene and eschews the usual hyper-energy of hip hop for a delivery that makes Mike Skinner sound like he’s got ADD.

While there’s itchy scuffed beats on debut album Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam (Brownswood), the dominant mood is one of enervated trip hop, languid, late night jazzy vibes and dubstep filtered through a heady narcotic fume. Numbers like Longing For The Night, Survive It, Us Against Whatever and Cash And Carry Me Home occupy an introspective twilight world of paranoia, dread, anxiety and desolation that feel as much informed by Coventry as was Ghost Town.

Comparisons inevitably lean towards the talk-tap of Roots Manuva but influences that range from Badly Drawn Boy to Fela Kuti can be heard there too, and while you might find it a little hard to dance to him, closing your eyes and listening might work wonders. 8pm. £7. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Wednesday February 23

Rock Sound Exposure

Sharing a bill with Japanese Voyeurs, who’ll be flagging up imminent debut album, and Leeds’ Foo Fighters wannabes, Dinosaur Pile-Up, Glasgow outfit Xcerts will be making noise to give a push to recent sophomore album Scatterbrain (Xtra Mile). They’ve beefed up the guitars, inflicting a barrage of riffery with Tar OK and Hurt With Me, but still offer familiar chugging indie pop on Young (Belane) and the quiet/loud approach of Distant Memory. Coinciding with the tour, they’re also issuing Stairs To Noise (Xtra Mile), an EP headed up by the album’s title track with its angry riffs and thumping drums alongside four new tracks, the atypically Beatlesesque acoustic ballad Say Yes, stadium swellers Tear Me Down and Run, and, a real eye-opener, the strings backed baroque pop of Mannequin Champion that opens up a whole new future landscape. 7pm. £7.50. O2 Academy 3

Wednesday February 23

Panda Su

Portuguese-Scottish, raised in the forests of Fife and named Best Newcomer at the 2010 Jockrock Scottish Music Industry Awards, Skins viewers may be familiar with Su Shaw from Eric Is Dead which featured in the Season 4 finale but an even wider audience looms with the April release of the I Begin EP (Peter Panda).

The simple music box clockwork rhythm of Bee Song (listen and you’ll hear a spring whirr in the background) sets the mood of slightly unsettling intoxicating electronica with I Begin building from a guitar pulse and darkly nonchalant Zooey Deschanel-like vocals to a choir of schoolchildren repeating the chorus line.

Favourites of her shows (where she performs with multi-instrumentalist Adam Philip and apparently wears panda makeup), the intriguing Spektorish Alphabet Song and the more folksy pop Facts And Figures complete the package and, while videos suggest she’s considerably more ramshackle live, are more than enough to warrant checking her out before the hype begins to build. 8pm. Free. Tower of Song, Cotteridge

Thursday February 24

Tinie Tempah

If his appearance on Graham Norton is any indication, he could always make a living doing stand up if the music flopped. However, having been the most nominated artist at the Brits and walking away with both British Breakthrough and Best British Single, both public votes, there seems little danger of that yet.

Born Patrick Chukwuemeka Okogwu, Jr, the Plumstead born Anglo-Nigerian has had pretty much an overnight success since touring with Chipmunk two years ago and landing a deal with Parlophone. Award winning debut single Pass Out gave him his first No.1 with Frisky, Written In The Stars (his second chart topper) and Miami 2 Ibiza all Top 5 hits.

Debut album Disc-Overy (I’m unsure if that’s a reproductive pun) also hit the top spot and has now gone platinum, which might explain with subsequent singles, Kelly Rowland featured Invincible and the frankly not very good Wonderman with Ellie Goulding both failed to crack the Top 10. Though he was back there again featuring on JLS’s Eyes Wide Shut

Having now squeezed six singles from the album, he’ll be looking to find time to put together the crucial follow up and prove that he’s got the staying power. He’s not in the same class as Eminem or Snoop Dog and he may find America a harder nut to crack, but, with a solid live reputation and the Brits impetus behind him, at home, for now at least, he is, as his song puts it, Simply Unstoppable. 7pm. £16.50. O2 Academy

Thursday February 24

Mogwai

It’s likely that a fair few of the Glaswegian post-rock quintet’s fans approached the new album with a degree of trepidation over the title, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will (Rock Action). Concerns that they were in for a blast of thrashing punk noise would not have been allayed by titles like White Noise and Death Rays. However, it turns out such worries were unfounded since, while there are moments of snarl, this is one the their more subdued excursions into sonic instrumental cathedrals of distortion and effects. Indeed, White Noise itself is actually more into floaty space rock while the stately organ sounds of Death Ray evoke memories of Ummagumma era Floyd.

Their rockier side gets let loose with the fuzzy driving guitars and bass line of San Pedro and the glorious Joy Division feel of George Square Thatcher Death Party where they introduce vocals and actual lyrics (though you can barely make them out) into the mix while, appropriately enough, Mexican Grand Prix has a Kraftwerkian surging motorik urgency.

But its the sweeping soundscapes of a pulsing How To Be A Werewolf and the gathering clouds of Too Raging To Cheers that define the album’s mood and, with You’re Lion Richie’s eight minute journey from ethereal drone to desolate lone guitar to distorted riffage in the frame for climactic show closer, quite likely the live set too. 7.30pm. £20. HMV Institute

Thursday February 24

Ben Montague & Leddra Chapman

Two upcoming names share the tour bus for an evening of classy easy on the ear upmarket pop. Montague’s Overcome album is a versatile mix of Rainy Day’s American pop, the 60s soul of Can’t Hold Me Down, Save A Little Time’s funk and the stadium balladry of Haunted and Broken. Prompting thoughts of Robert Palmer and Elton John alike, he clearly has it in him to break into the mainstream. Currently readying his next studio album, he’ll be roadtesting new material tonight.

As indeed will pure-voiced Essex girl Chapman who, having already released a new, fuller shuffling beats version of Edie as a single, is in the process of putting together the follow-up to 2009’s Telling Tales collection of folk-pop where, effortlessly switching between the reflective moods of Wine Glass and the perkier tones of Summer Song, she calls to mind both Dolores O’Riordan and Alanis Morissette. The album makes effective use of strings and brass, but acoustic versions of Easier and Story lose none of the charm with their absence, so it’ll be interesting to see whether the new album goes for more or less. 7pm. £8. O2 Academy 3

Thursday February 24

Yuck

While quite possibly not the most attractive band name of the year, the eponymous album (Fat Possum) is unlikely to produce the same reaction. Featuring former Cajun Dance Party member singer/guitarist Daniel Blumberg and guitarist Max Bloom, the new London four piece have a fond affection for the fuzzie indie pop of the 90s with its guitar feedback, distortion and slacker melodies.

Opening cut Get Away immediately transports you to the world of early Dinosaur Jr, The Wall is Sonic Youth’s pop alter-ego, Georgia imagines a boy/girl cross between Teenage Fanclub and Lemonheads and Suicide Policeman, Suck, Stutter and Rose Gives A Lilly all lean to the drowsily narcotic notion of Galaxie 500 playing the Velvets.

Interestingly, Operation imagines what the Stones might have sounded like if they’d been fronted by J Mascis back in the late 60s while Holing Out plugs into Pavement’s rock n roll side, and they play out with the seven minute grungey distortion drone of Rubber sounding like seasoned veterans rather than eager to impress newbies.

CDP came and went in a flash of hype that saw them implode under the pressure, but hopefully this reincarnation have the determination and the experience to listen to ignore the distracting chatter and listen to their own hearts. Still a rubbish name, though. £8.17. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Friday February 25

The Streets

Mike Skinner comes to the end of his current road with Computers And Blues (679), a fifth and final outing that goes some way to recapturing the ordinary bloke spark of 2001’s Original Pirate Material after its three sequels applied the law of diminishing returns. Skinner’s been through a lot of changes in the intervening decade, so attempts to parade disaffected youth street cred no longer rings true and the fake mockney has become a bit tired. However, Puzzled By People’s observations that “you can’t Google the solution to people’s feelings” carries the weight of experience while Blip On A Screen is a surprisingly touching worried dad’s song to his unborn daughter.

Skinner’s laconic delivery sometimes sounds like he’s more bored than bemused, but several numbers work up a sweat with the garage beats and arrangements. Going Through Hell features squelchy rock guitar riff and punchy female backing vocal, Without A Blink jitters on a tinny synth pop beat as he talks about knowing his exit strategies, Those That Don’t Know nods to Curtis Mayfield influences, and Soldiers has a woozy New Orleans march intro and a bubbling pop melody.

Best of the bunch though is the lazy, soul groove of the final farewell cut, Lock The Locks, where, as he talks about handing in his notice and packing up his desk because his heart was no longer in it, Clare Maguire provides backing vocals on the catchy chorus about smoking one too many cigarettes and hearing one too many lies. It’ll be interesting to see what employment he applies for next.

Support comes from Slough’s much-tipped Brother, a mouthy laddish gritpop quartet with all the swaggering attitude of early Oasis and, to judge by their Darling Buds Of May single and website demos of New Years Day and Time Machine, a fair bit of their sound too, though they do themselves few favours with the affected cockerney accents in which they sing. Bristling with confidence and the sort of noise that makes teenage blokes want to dance around sloshing pints of lager, they could well be on to a winner. 7pm. £17.50. O2 Academy

Friday February 25

The Whigs

Frequent touring partners of Kings of Leon, the Athens trio comfortably straddle an audience base between the Kings, REM and Replacements, with chiming, melodic and at times psychedelic guitar rock. They’re here to get behind In The Dark (ATO), an album that’s big on crowd friendly hooks, rousing choruses and, as on the opening Hundred/Million, vocals that sometimes recall Jagger’s declamatory hellfire preacher delivery. They have an arsenal of big riffs, applied strikingly on the surging rush of Someone’s Daughter, Black Lotus and the ringing, circling guitar of Kill Me Carolyne, a number that sounds like a live powerhouse.

They can do brooding with I Don’t Even Care About The One I Love and a six minute Naked is a solid example of how to build from a whisper to scream, all promising something of a scorching live set.

Fellow Athenians Dead Confederate open the batting with a grungier sound more akin to meld of My Morning Jacket, Nirvana, and Dinosaur Jr, whose J Mascis contributes guitar to psychedelic blues Giving It All Way on new album Sugar (Kartel).

Unlike their compatriots, this five piece favour a quieter, coiled intensity, By Design and the title track both slow padding spooked blues, Run From The Gun swaying like an Oasis ballad with chilled reverb guitar and Father Figure recalling the psych sounds of 67 San Francisco.

However, they do open up and out with the Cobain-ish In The Dark and the noisy My Bloody Valentine riffage of both Mob Scene and Semi-Thought, tending to indicate that the live set won’t actually be one for lying down and breathing in. 7pm. £8.50. O2 Academy 2

Friday February 25

Templeton Pek

photo by Marianne Harris

Birmingham’s punk-metal trio launch their self-released sophomore album Scratches & Scars (Smalltown) with what promises to be a full throttle adrenaline ride, at least if the live performance matches the studio versions. Yes, the influences of Rise Again, Funeral For A Friend and The Offspring are apparent and listening to Made To Waste you can understand why Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson rates them, but that doesn’t take away from the power and passion driving numbers like Headgames, Calculate The Risk or Break The Habit. However, anyone can turn up the volume, slash out riffs and shout. What distinguishes this lot is the way they weave melody into their assault and the more nuanced anthemically striving of such tracks as Rotten In Denmark, Dark Matter and the climactically building Slow Burn.

There’s times when you’re put in mind of the fledgling Biffy Clyro while their charity single 30 Seconds To Far (which runs precisely that long) would have done early Husker Du proud. With their Calvinistic touring work ethic ensuring there’ll be few parts of the country that haven’t been exposed to their music, this could well be the year they find themselves moving up into the bigger leagues. 7pm. £5. O2 Academy 3

Friday February 25

Janelle Monae

Michael Jackson, Prince, James Brown, yes. But the influences of your average r&b star don’t usually also include Bernard Herrmann, the Incredible String Band and Fritz Lang. But then Ms Monae isn’t your average r&b star. The full length two suite sequel to her Metropolis: The Chase Suite EP, The ArchAndroid (Bad Boy) is a full on sci fi concept album in which Monáe's an alien and her cloned alter-ego, Cindi Mayweather, is an android from the year 2719 who, having fallen in love with a human and been designated for shutdown, becomes a messianic figure representing the struggle by the persecuted minority (the androids) by the tyrannical Other.

Self-confessedly based on Lang’s Metropolis, it also draws thematic inspiration from Hitchcock, Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, the Matrix and the work of Philip K Dick (lyrical references to dreaming of electric sheep occur twice) while Debussy, Pink Floyd. Queen and Stevie Wonder all contribute to the musical mix as she variously channels Grace Jones and Lady GaGa in her stylistically acrobatic vocals.

Hyperjumping musically from the Carmina Burana style opening overture through the tribal Latin rhythms and rap of Dance Or Die, the Motown pop Faster, and Locked Inside’s homage to Rock With You she also serves up rock blaster Cold War, James Brown funk with Tightrope, the dreamy r&b summer jazz of Oh, Maker, jumping bass throbbing rockabilly on Come Alive, a quivering vocally distorted Prince like Mushrooms & Rose with the samba rhythm BaBopBye Ya sounding like Bassey belting out a Bond theme song.

It’s an ambitious affair and, if it doesn’t really have the necessary standout number to catch the attention of the mass audience, it works incredibly well as a compete entity. Which, of course, may prove difficult to translate to the live arena, especially as she’ll be needing to incorporate material from the EP and, as it was envisioned as seven suites, quite possibly tasters of IV-VII, in, presumably narratively chronological sequence.

However, dressed in immaculately tailored black with a highly individual look and apparently something of a dance diva with a spot on moonwalk, even if you lose the plot the way she tells it should be eye-popping. 7pm. £16.50. HMV Institute

Friday February 25

Dutch Uncles

The Mancunian art pop funksters list King Crimson, XTC, Talking Heads and minimalist composer Steve Reich among their influences, but it’s only David Byrne and co who really show any evidence on Face In (Memphis Industries), the just released jerky math rock rhythm single, presumably re-recorded for the new label from their self-titled 2009 debut. An album follow in April, so this is an early chance to see if they walk the walk as well as they talk the talk. 8pm. £6. The Victoria, John Bright St

Saturday February 26

Ocean Colour Scene

Hard to believe that a whole generation wasn’t even born when, after three years of music press apathy, Moseley Shoals finally saw daylight in 1996 and, spurred by support from Oasis, Paul Weller and Chris Evans catapulted the band into ‘overnight’ stardom, going on to sell over a million copies in the UK.

15 years later, Simon Fowler, Steve Craddock and Oscar Harrison are celebrating the anniversary by playing the entire album sequentially from start to finish, opening with, arguably their signature number, The Riverboat Song, and running through The Day We Caught The Train, The Circles, One For The Road and It’s My Shadow before eventually climaxing with the soaring epic Get Away.

This is the closing hometown night of the tour and, while a reunion appearance by departed original bassist Damon Minchella is extremely unlikely, there could well be a few surprises in hand other than the encore of other fan favourites from subsequent albums.

Completists and those looking to play catch up should be directed to 21 (UMC) 4 CD box set commemorating the band’s 21 years together featuring all the hits and favourites alongside live, demo and alternate versions, unreleased tracks and the recent titular new single. Despite constant snide ‘dadrock’ dismissals from the press every time they release a new album or tour, the band, now officially augmented by Dan Sealey and Andy Bennett, remain a creative musical force with a fiercely loyal fanbase, and here’s to the next twenty one. 7pm. £23.50, O2 Academy

Saturday February 26

Anna Calvi

Mentored by Brian Eno, she may not have made the final five of the BBC’s Sound of 2011, but she’s likely to be around long after James Blake and Jessie J have faded from memory. Born of Anglo-Italian parentage, she’s clearly inherited the sultry dark Latin passion of her father’s roots. Having said that, both the self-titled debut album’s opening moody guitar instrumental Rider To The Sea and the torch blues of No More Words with its David Lynch atmospherics, would more likely lead you to assume Spanish origins given how her musical and visual imagery seem to draw on flamenco in the use of drama and sensuality. However, get to the noirish rumbles of First We Kiss, Love Won’t Be Leaving and Suzanne And I and her deep, operatic tones coupled with twanging guitar and echoey drums conjures the border town vistas of Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti western scores.

Rather inevitably she’s attracted PJ Harvey comparisons (especially since they’ve both been produced by Rob Ellis), but there’s less of the feral and more of the mystery about Calvi, part chanteuse, part femme fatale whose vocals can both caress and claw.

The soaring Desire and Blackout’s driving big music shows she can kick up stadium rock dust to rival the recent Arcade Fire album while Morning Light is like having your ears licked by a panther and I’ll Be Your Man offers the promise and threat of sex and danger in one snake-eyes package.

Working as a trio with multi-instrumentalist Mally Harpez and drummer Daniel Maiden-Wood, the live shows are reportedly electrifying, Calvi even including a bluesy instrumental version of Cohen’s Joan Of Arc. Catch the intimacy now, she’ll be Symphony Hall material before long. 8pm. £6.50. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Saturday February 26

Frankie & The Heartstrings

A Sunderland indie pop outfit somewhere between the Orange Juice and Haircut 100 with a squeeze and snip of Franz Ferdinand and Arctics funk, debut album Hunger (PopSex Ltd) is a relentlessly bouncy collection of tunes driven along with choppy 80s guitars, jerky rhythmic hooks and the almost tropical vibe of things like Photograph and Ungrateful.

However, while these, That Postcard, the title track and the Talking Heads-like It’s Obvious are sure to get dance floor feet moving, they’re not actually memorable or particularly individually distinctive songs, leaving the album’s stand out number as the six minutes Velvets drone of Fragile which opens with organ and xylophone before exploding into a climax of sonic fireworks.

The surrounding tracks might make them a quick sell in the short term, but if they’re looking to be here for a longer run then that’s the direction they need to explore deeper. 7pm. £8. O2 Academy 2

Sunday February 27

Gruff Rhys

photo by Mark Jones

The Super Furries on sabbatical, their frontman splashes out on another solo project with Hotel Shampoo (Ovni), an album that retains the band’s sense of whimsy and melodic experiments and dresses it in airy summery clothes from the Brian Wilson range, accessorising with brass, strings, and, on Sensations In The Dark, some Motown stitching. Drawing on his recent filmmaking journey to South America, Vitamin K ripples with a samba groove (and seagulls) while a Latin warmth also informs the rhythms of Conservation Conversation and the ballroom waltzing If We Were Words (We Would Rhyme).

His soft smoke voice can be a little insubstantial at times, like some sort of cabaret lounge crooner, but when it fits the groove, as on Shark Ridden Waters, Herb Alpert-ish ballad Take A Sentence and Christopher Columbus where he parallels a relationship ending with the collapse of the Mayan civilisation, then the music can leave you feeling fresh and tingling all over. 8pm. £13.50. Glee Club

Sunday February 27

The Water Tower Bucket Boys

Hailing from Portland, Oregon, the string band may be relative youngsters but the musical traditions they draw upon are as old as the hills, current self-released album Sole Kitchen a stew of bluegrass, Cajun, and blues bashed out with punk energy on guitar, banjo, fiddle and mandolin.

Dancehall and family porch stompers like Fromage, Bread and the frantic fingering of Blackbird Pickin’ At A Squirrel sit alongside the lazy blues of Crooked Road, bayou swayer Goatheads and the old time country of Since You’ve Been Gone and Numb, in a manner that defies you to sit still. With a number titled Sunday Night Roast, they clearly have a thing about food songs, so the between number anecdotes might prove highly entertaining too. 8pm. £7. Kitchen Garden Cafe, Kings Heath

Monday February 28

The Naked & Famous

Taking their name from a lyric by Bristolian trip-hopper Tricky and growing up the likes of Massive Attack and Bjork, the New Zealand quintet have filtered their beats influences into an electro pop that more echoes OMD and MGMT. Earning a place in the country’s record books when the anthemic cascading synths, marching drums and choral vocals of Young Blood made them the first homegrown act to debut at #1 in the Kiwi charts for 16 years, they’re now looking to expand their audience horizons over here.

To which end, they arrive with Passive Me, Aggressive You (Fiction), a debut album packed with polyphonic electro pop and art rock driven by punchy drums, sweeping synths and the breathy vocals of Thom Powers and Alisa Xayalith. They do take time out to blast away the cobwebs with sonic flurries and storms of dissonance now and again (Wolf In Geek’s Clothing, Spank), but mostly this is radio friendly pop music with a touch of shoegaze in its DNA.

Riding a dreamy urgent melody over a krautrock groove All Of This opens the album in cheery form before sliding into the tinkling teen angst of Punching In A Dream’s catchy riff, building their strengths with the heady 80s rush of Eyes, slowly building ballad No Way, and a display of moody space rock with The Sun before climaxing the album with the glorious soaring six minutes Blondie/OMD mix of Girls Like You fading away on a keyboard drone as the band exit the stage to tumultuous applause and demands for an encore.

Having warmed up awareness last year with a small headline tour and his Bowie/Eno/David Byrne influenced pop, multi-instrumentalist Max McElligott aka Wolf Gang provides the support with more tasters from his upcoming album Suego Faults and, following on from Lions In Cages, equally toe-tapping, Wilson brothers influenced summery indie pop new single, Dancing With The Devil (Atlantic). 7.30pm. £7. O2 Academy 3

Monday February 28

Al Lewis

Having toured with Lotte Mullan last year, the Welsh singer-songwriter now follow her into the coffee shop circuit for a couple of free gigs to provide exposure for his debut album In The Wake which is now receiving a wider full releases. If James Taylor and Paul Simon do it for you, then Al’s softly shuffling melancholic acoustic folky sound should slip down a treat with the cappuccino, numbers like Make A Little Room, Tangents, and The Arsonist the chocolate sprinkles on the top. Free. Caffe Nero 2pm Bullring, 4.30pm Harborne