Birmingham Gig Guide - News and Reviews

The son of Bo Diddley's touring guitarist, DeLuca spent most of his youth touring with dad, and jamming with the band. Hardly surprising he’s into the blues. Having cut his teeth playing support slots to the likes of Taj Mahal and John Lee Hooker, he then met up with Kiefer Sutherland who was sufficiently impressed to sign him to his brand new label and occasionally even serve as roadie.

I doubt he’ll be humping the amps for tonight’s gig, but you do get the chance to hear DeLuca and his band do their stuff from I Trust You To Kill Me (Polydor), a debut album that shows the man to be a pretty nifty guitarist, a warm voiced vocalist and to have influences that extent into the rootsier side of the blues, the poppy single Colourful calling to mind Led Zep with a slide guitar while the country flavoured Mystified hints at Dylan and, with things like Bus Ride, Gift and Dope would certainly find favour among John Mayer fans.

Those looking to hear some blistering bottlenecking licks rocking out won’t go wrong with Swing Low, How Fast (more shades of Plant here) and the scorching thumper Gravitate either, suggesting that this low key gig outing is just the start of bigger things to come.

Back in action after well documented health problems, although he’s penned an album of classical piano pieces and there’s been a Broadway musical based around his songs, Joel’s not actually released an album of new material in over a decade, the last being a decidedly iffy River of Dreams. Still, judging by his recent shows at Madison Gardens, while the creative well may be parched, the performing fountain has a renewed vigour.

Out this week is 12 Gardens Live (Sony), a recording taken from that series of gigs which should provide the blueprint of what to expect from these shows. Although disappointingly Captain Jack, Say Goodbye To Hollywood and, surprisingly both Just The Way You Are and Uptown Girl, are absent from the album’s set and his voice clearly isn’t quite what it was (listen to the off notes on Scenes From An Italian Restaurant!) there’s no denying the sheer musical muscle and sheer energy packed into these performances.

In line with the album, this Greatest Hits tour, his first UK arena dates in 12 years, seems likely to deliver a useful snapshot of his recording career, even digging back into his debut album for Everybody Loves You Now alongside staple classics such as My Life, Only The Good Die Young, The Entertainer, Innocent Man, She's Always A Woman, We Didn't Start The Fire, New York State Of Mind and, naturally, Piano Man.

On form, he’s a great live entertainer and while it would be good if he could recharge the inspiration and not become another Barry Manilow writer’s block casualty, these gigs, which find him backed by an eight piece fat brass packed band, will do for now.

Birthed in Tynemouth and anchored in a love of the great rock n roll days of the 60s, the trio set out to deliver a mission statement based on two and a half minute, melody packed pop songs about girls and making a better life. Imagine The Ramones with a brass section given a mini Phil Spector production, and you’ll have a rough idea of recent single You Gotta Look The Parts a romp along flurry of tumbling chords and vocals that almost fall over themselves in a determination to get punters up and bouncing. With much the same blueprint at work on live nuggets like the circling guitars whipping along new single Relax It’s The 80s (Kitchenware), and Super Heartbeats, and with a set designed to showcase the upcoming self-titled debut album and such handclappy, amped-up, hook-riddled soon to be your favourite gems as Go! Go! Gadget Girl, Baby Come Home, (Do You Wanna Be My) Girlfriend and chiming ballads Heart...stop...ing this may not be exactly original but its retro power poppy punk is going to prove impossible to resist.

They not only share the bill with Newcastle lads Kubichek!, but the limited edition vinyl single features them covering the Geordie boys’ track Stutter while they return the favour with their version of We Are Solution alongside their own bassline choogling spiky pop clomper Opening Shot.

Always a welcome visitor with his socially aware songs and unpretentious, warmly inviting stage presence, he’ll doubtless be taking the opportunity for another reminder of his latest album, Deep Blue with its response to the world under Bush and Blair, How Did We End Up Here is forthrightly referencing prisoner abuse, rigged elections and the economic agenda behind American foreign policy, his cover of the Dylanesque Six Sixty Six seeing signs of apocalypse among those doing the devil’s work and Yet Still This Will Not Be addressing political self-interest and the ‘nurturing child soldiers with the munitions from our factories’.

Elsewhere he deals with themes of mortality on This Fragile World, concerns of faith and doubt with Turn Me Tender, Some Of Us, and the Coldplayish I Can’t Breath while he even updates his past for Proud Valley Boy, a return to Please Sir’s lament for the Welsh mining industry.

With a set likely to include old favourites This Being Woman and Dic Penderyn alongside his riff on What If God Were One Of Us and his staple live cover of U2’s Stuck in A Moment, this is guaranteed to be as classy as ever. And for those who complain he never does their favourite songs, he’s just put out Martyn Joseph Live, a DVD drawn from two shows in Milton Keynes, that includes Working Woman, The Great American Novel and yes, even Dolphins Make Me Cry.

Tuesday July 11

Simon Fowler/Oscar Harrison

Having caught their breath after Ocean Colour Scene’s acoustic tour supporting the Live At The Jam House album, Messrs Fowler and Harrison adopt their duo routine for this folksier one off unplugged local date before getting down to recording the new studio album. Doubtless they’ll be dipping into the set of band material these two man outings usually draw on, among them such numbers as The Day We Caught The Train, Better Day, Robin Hood and It’s My Shadow, as well as even more stripped back versions of the new Jam House material. A great chance to hear Simon’s tremulous vocals in their purest form and, who knows, maybe Oscar will be persuaded to overcome his shyness and treat you to a rendition of My Time.

8pm. £12. Glee Club

Tuesday July 11

Lorraine

Don’t know why they’ve chosen to call themselves after a girl’s name, but Norwegian trio Ole Gunnar Gundersen, Anders Winsents and Paal Myran-Haaland certainly make attractive synthpop in a Pet Shop Boys stylee, the vocals a relaxed fusion of Tennant and Morrissey. They cracked the Top 30 with their dreamy fresh sounding pop debut major label single I Feel It and now look to improve on that with the follow up, a creamy Transatlantic Flight (Waterfall) that could well see them proving their country’s next A-ha, albeit with less bombastic anthemics.

7.30pm. £5. Little Civic, W’hampton

Wednesday July 12

James Hunter

He may be a white boy from Colchester, but Hunter sounds just like Sam Cooke on the reggae inflected title track of his aptly titled debut album, People Gonna Talk (Rounder) while the funkier r&b numbers call to mind such names as Lee Dorsey, James Brown and Wilson Pickett. He’s recently supported Aretha Franklin in New York, garnering a sheaf of glowing praise for that and comparisons to an early Robert Cray before he turned slick and dull, making this appearance here with a full band something of a coup booking for the Birmingham Jazz Festival.

He certainly warrants it. Guitars strutting, organ burping and horns parping, he leads a fine hip sliding groove through the likes of No Smoke Without Fire, a chicken scratching Kick it Around and a roustabout Talking ‘Bout My Love while his mellower side’s shown to equally glowing effect on the casual sways of All Through Cryin’, It’s Easy To Say and Mollena. Unlike many who dip into America’s musical past for inspiration, Hunter shows an authentic love of his influences that ripples through his music like the real thing, indeed, if they only had vinyl hiss these could sound like forgotten gems from the vaults of Atlantic and Stax. One not to miss.

Support comes courtesy of Brum based jazzter Lizzy Parks who’ll be dipping into her debut album Watching Space (The Birds) with its influences that range from Carole King to Ella Fitzgerald for a set of chill out jazz (Star, Change Is Made), creamy late night singer-songwriter soul of the Sade variety (Same Old Story), blues (Moral of the Story), torch (You've Changed) and slouching beats slinky gospel funk (Pass Me By). She even does an early hours lush and languid cover of Bjork's Joga. The studio sound’s a little restrained, but you get the feeling that when it comes to playing live she can really belt it out.

8pm. £12. Electric Cinema, B’ham

Wednesday July 12

The Holloways

Now signed to TVT records, it somehow seems appropriate that this North London ska pop quartet’s new single, Two Left Feet, should be produced by Langer & Winstanley, the duo who worked their magic for Madness, another band that didn’t do too badly with a similar sound. Popping fiddle into the dual guitar sound, adds an extra folksy flavour to things, delivering a catchy bounce of hopeless romanticism as Alfie Jackson seeks to chat up some girl despite his terpsichorean disadvantages.

With equally infectious numbers like the soul inflected Great Britain and a lollopping geezer pop friendly I Should Say Something up their sleeves, they bode well for a substantial night of angst-veined nuttiness.

7.30pm. £6.50. Bar Academy

Thursday July 13

Milburn

Cheerfully sporting Sheffield accents, they made their Top 30 debut with Send In The Boys, their first single after signing to Mercury, and now look to extend into the upper reaches of the chart with follow up Cheshire Cat Smile, a no less affable slice of spiky guitar pop that barely clocks in at two minutes.

They’ll doubtless be showcasing material from their autumn due album but unless they have something more substantial up their sleeves, their lifespan could well prove as fleeting as the grin.

7.30pm. £8.50. Carling Academy 2

Friday July 14

Plan B

White boy East London estate rap with an acoustic guitar, Ben Drew’s been garnering fulsome praise for his hard hitting angry tales of contemporary urban life, debut album Who Needs Actions When You Got Words (679) an autobiographical trawl through tales of absent fathers, mum’s junkie lover, underage sex, drugs, rape, murder and generally trying to live in the hard knocks world, epitomised in tracks such as Mama (Loves A Crackhead) and the radio unfriendly expletive peppered brutality of Kidz and Sick 2 Def.

Though evocative more of 50 Cent, Mobb Deep and Eminem than The Streets, the album, much of which sweetens the sound with strings and piano, throws up an eclectic set of references that range from The Prodigy and a Hall and Oates sample to Nick Cave and Johnny Cash. Armed with a solid reputation for a dynamic live set driven by guitars and drums, he has to be worth a close look.

7.30pm. £8.50 Carling Academy 2

Saturday July 15

Be Good Tanyas

It’s three years since they last toured here, during which time Trish Klein’s become part of Po’Girl while Samantha Farton and Frazey Ford have lent their talents to a variety of projects. Save for a number on the Because of Winn Dixie soundtrack, it’s been just as long since there was any sign of new material, throwing up rumours that the trio had quietly called it a day.

Not so, a new album’s finally been completed though, unfortunately, won’t be out here in time for the tour. Still, expect them to showcase a decent clutch of the songs while dipping extensively into the backwoods and bluegrass repertoire of the previous two albums, Chinatown and Blue Horse, while nuggets like The Littlest Bird, their cripple creek gospel take on In My Time Of Dying, the wrecked beauty of Horses and folk chestnut Oh Susanna.

7.30pm. £15. mac Arena

The latest outfit from Leeds to break big, they do have a rather confusing track titling system whereby each song is numbered rather than named. Hence debut album Give Me A Wall (Dance To The Radio) opens with Thirteen and runs numerically though not chronologically through to Eleven, which just happens to be track 11, taking in the likes of Twelve, Seven, Sixteen and Fifteen, parts I and II, along the way.

Not too far removed from Bloc Party, they play energetic, melody twisting, hook riddled punky dance thrash while frontman Tom howls out strangled vocals like an animal being garrotted with chicken wire. Noise mongering art rock urchins with a line in emotional volcanics, they’re here on the back of neurotic vibed guitar chimed new single Eighteen which finds drummer Kitty counterpointing with her blank-eyed vocals. But, if the wheel keeps spinning the way it is they’ll not be playing this size venue for much longer, so I’d make the most of your chance to share their sweat and solidarity while you can.

Proving one of the year’s most exciting new names, the Cardiff teen combo take to the road to celebrate the arrival of debut album Not Accepted Anywhere (Polydor) straight into the Top 3, a double whammy after last month’s Top 5 placing for poppily angular chorus friendly second single Monster. You pretty much know what to expect with jerkily staccato melodies, up for it choruses and general sonic riots for disaffected youth spread across tracks like Recover, Rats, On The Campaign Trail and You Shout You Shout with their nods to forerunners such as Cooper Temple Clause and At The Drive In.

On the downside, they do tend to stick to much the same formula which means there’s a tendency for numbers to slide into one chant after another and while that may get the dance floor heaving in the short term they, as did fellow Welshmen the Manics, might want to reconsider their ‘no ballads’ manifesto if they’re planning on being in for the long haul.

That’ll be Justin Warfield and Adam Bravin, an LA duo who, as the brooding bass lines and Warfield’s dark vocals demonstrate, clearly share an affinity for Joy Division, The Cure, Bauhaus, Visage and other 80s goth n gloom merchants. They even have a track titled Tear You Apart! Indeed, their eponymous debut album (Geffen) would sound like a pastiche of the scene were it not for the fact that songs like Red Flags and Long Nights, Out of Control and,oh dear, Broken Promises For Broken Hearts, take themselves so seriously. Given that Warfield used to be a De La Soul type B Boy rapper and Bravin’s a DJ, you have to wonder just how authentic their passions are for the music they’re making these days or whether someone noticed that Interpol were getting decent sales and audiences and thought a trip to the mascara store might be a good idea. What they do they do well enough and the fact that Joaquin Phoenix directed their promo video shows they have fans in high places, but really it’s still a pale (sic) imitation of the real thing.

Having earned herself cult status and a reputation for quirkiness with her last four albums, garnering glowing critical responses for last year’s Mary Ann Meets The Gravediggers, the Russian born chanteuse and friends of the The Strokes has come over all accessible and more musically fleshed out with Begin To Hope (Sire), her first release since inking a major label deal.

But any worries that this somehow means she’s become a watered down version can breathe easy. The opening pizzicato string plucked track Fidelity, piano power ballad Better and And On The Radio, the kick off single with its classic pinch intro and talk of life, love, death and Guns n Roses track November Rain, may all be radio friendly catchy numbers but they’re also true to the body of work she’s amassed.

And if she flies her poppy colours on things like the finger snappy 60s flavoured Hotel Song and the breathily gorgeous skewed love song Samson (told from a sorrowful Delilah’s perspective), she also takes off down more experimental waters with the classical-folk-orchestrapop fusion Apres Moi (part sung in Russian), the serene chamber music influences of 20 Years of Snow and the jerky beats funk Edit while Lady homages Billie Holiday’s torch song smoky jazzed blues cellar territory and That Time rolls up its sleeves for some loose limbed guitar riff rock n roll as she whoops all around the room, recalling both the sensuality of juicy tangerines and the cold shocks of an overdose.

Closing up with the wistfully spare piano accompanied Summer In The City ("means cleavage, cleavage, cleavage"), as with past material the songs are all spiked with striking, often surreal literate lyrics and images that deliver emotional uppercuts when you least expect them, this seems guaranteed to catapult her into the upper echelons of female singer-songriters, part Tori Amos, part Suzanne Vega but wholly individual. Get in now before you find yourself racing to catch her coat tails.

Boy girl electro pop 80s style with a big nod to the Human League, the London five piece follow up eminently catchy Broke with their Glorious, the latest single to be lifted from upcoming debut album This Is Hazelville (EMI). It’s a little less perkily exuberant than its predecessor, more like a sultrier summer evening than a daytime splash round the lido but, as there seems no reason to think it won’t nudge the band a few more rungs up the ladder while album cuts like Hazelville and Evening Light clearly denote they’re here for the long run.

Following on from their epic, grandly glacial single Terra Nova’s account of Captain Scott’s doomed 1912 Antarctic expedition, the Leeds quintet pull back into the station with their mini album Progress Reform (Fierce Panda).

Containing previous single, A Rook House For Bobby, a darkly melancholic song about the troubled life of grandmaster Bobby Fischer that sports the heartbreaking line ‘all I wanted to do was play chess with you’, it builds on their Sigur Ros like love of vast doomed symphonic landscapes with a further five tracks, three making their first appearance on disc, among them No Military Parade, a sort of postscript to Terra Nova.

As with the previous singles, the band do like to get their teeth into a narrative. The Beeching Report (from whence comes the title) is a scathing account of the 60s reforms that pretty much dismantled the country’s rural rail network sung by one of the axed rail workers while Stainless Steel reveals itself as an eight minute murder ballad (‘don’t go into the kitchen, that’s where the knives are and I won’t be held responsible...’) where the cuckolded narrator revenges themselves on their adulterous partner during a three minute sonic guitar and cornet storm. With the swirling noise of Citizen evocative of the vintage days of Ride, they’re an intense bunch to be sure, and even when they pare things back, as on The Accident, their brand of minimalism still towers like icebergs floating over the heart.

Clad in old Victorian rail uniforms and with a stage set that deploys back projection films of trains, snow and the like, they’ve built a sterling reputation as quirky but far more than some eccentric fad. Worth getting a platform ticket, especially if they’re likely to preview one of their catchy new ditties, a song about Spencer Perceval, the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated.

A new bunch from Bushey with ambitions to take on the world, the name might suggest Mod but their Small Talk (Ear Candy) album is much more grandiose than that, with surging rock riffs, spraying guitars and thumping rhythms. The squally Everything I Want has a manic rockabilly beat, like Stray Cats mating with The Glitter Band, Keep It Together evokes Queen, Little Voice erupts with a hint of garage rock stapled to chancer indie pop and Life goes for the big epic sound.

Keep It Together has already given them a No 1 in Bosnia and their vibrant attack, enthusiasm and upbeat approach should certainly keep them on nodding acquaintance with the Top 40 here too. They play support to Nuneaton The Juliana Down with their mix of REM, Oasis, Keane and Blackbud, in a line-up that also includes the debut UK gig by Birmingham outfit Breaker.

The annual gathering of things electronica, spacey and a little odd, there’s a rainbow coloured line up here appearing in both the theatre space and the outside stage. Among the myriad names taking part you’ll find Thrones (the new project from Joe Preston of the Melvins), Isis, Rother & Moebius, the near legendary Michael Gira from Swans, Knives, the Modified Toy Orchestra and High On Fire. What should also prove a highpoint will be a set from Birmingham’s own Broadcast, a timely showing in advance of The Future Crayon (Warp), a collection of EP and compilation tracks released over the past decade. It’s a trip that takes them from the outer reaches of European Library Music to the inner sanctums of 60s psychedelia, Trisk Keenan’s blankly sweet vocals a constant delight in between things like the jerking, brittle post-industrial instrumentals One Hour Empire and Violent Playground or Minus Two’s collaboration with BEAST for cut up and mash samples of the Haha Sound album

Elsewhere you’ll be happy to find the Kraftwerkian electrostrobepop of Still Feels Like Tears (also from the Pendulum EP), the hazed narcotics of a druggily lovely Illumination and the swirling spacey swashes of Where Youth And Laughter Go from Extended Play one and two, the spooky folk B side Distant Call, 1998’s beats clattering Hammer Without A Master, the stormy sonics from the following year’s Test Area, a Morricone influenced Belly Dance and the hard to find pulsing krautrock DDL lifted from 2001’s All Tomorrow’s Parties compilation.

Given the latent melodies that vein their poppier offerings, it’s hard to understand why the band haven’t had a higher commercial profile over the years, but as long as they keep turning out such melancholic lullaby delights every few years the faithful will at least remain deliriously fulfilled.

Fresh from their recent appearance at the Soundstation Fest, the Walthamstow boys are back for a headlining tour in support of debut album No Love Lost (Red Ink). With early singles When I’m Alone and Local Boy having laid out their Jam inclinations, the mod-derivative album doesn’t throw too many surprise curves although, with its hints of reggae, new single She’s Got Standards does conjure passing thoughts of The Clash here and there while One Night Stand draws references to Madness.

Mostly a flurry of stomping guitar riffs, racing rhythms and beats in the service of slice of life narratives that add talk of Arctic Monkeys to a comparison stew that also stirs in the Editors, Strokes and Franz Ferdinand, listen without prejudice and you’ll find a rather good collection of angsty suburban love songs that, if you listen to Narrow Minded Social Club and the jaunty Robin Hood, reveal as much a love for Ray Davies, Squeeze and Billy Bragg as they do Paul Weller.

They may have started out sounding like flash in the pan copyists, but numbers like She’s The Only One, Peace & Queit and the world weary Spend A Lifetime suggest they’ll be up there among the bands of the year lists come Christmas.

An all girl rock crew from Glasgow, they nod more towards a meeting between PJ Harvey and The Stooges than, say the metal riffing of Girlschool or the pop slings of Joan Jett. Having built a decent hometown following, they’re hitting the road to convert the sassanachs with riff pummelling hairy debut single Be My Friend (Measured). They might just succeed too.

It’s been 13 years since the band last toured the UK and although only Axl Rose remains from the original line up, this eight piece version can still be relied on to deliver the sleazy, sweaty, booze-sodden cock rock and crunching riffs with which they made their name.

Assuming Rose turns up on time (he’s not lost a reputation for severely delayed show times), you can pretty much rely on being treated to a lengthy parade through the classics with sets on the tour to date featuring the like of Welcome to the Jungle, Mr Brownstone, Paradise City, Patience, November Rain, Live and Let Die, My Michelle (with former Skid Row warm-up act Sebastian Bach, guesting) and, naturally, their signature Sweet Child O’ Mine. They also seem to be supplying a generous sample of the long delayed but apparently forthcoming Chinese Democracy album, including Better, There Was A Time, Madagascar, IRS, The Blues and the title track, all bunched up with costume changes (Rose now obviously under the impression he’s Diana Ross) and obligatory pyrotechnics. Having already been arrested for a drunken brawl in Sweden, Rose obviously hasn’t mellowed over the years, so a thunder-charged night seems guaranteed.

Founder and former frontman with Ultravox, and a seminal influence on such names as The Killers, Goldfrapp and Ladytron, it’s rare to find Foxx playing live these days, so any opportunity really should be savoured. Even more so since for this gig he’s apparently roaming free and wide over his impressive but sometimes overlooked career, reaching back to the early Ultravox albums (finally being remastered and reissued this month) and electro-industrial solo material like Metamatic through his experiments with machine rock, techno-pop, dance and ambient.

So, devotees long starved of Foxx in action and a new generation only discovering his importance to contemporary music can look forward to hearing such classics as the piano brittle My Sex, swirling synth rock gems The Man Who Dies Everyday, Hiroshima Mon Amour and Slow Motion, the punk flurry Young Savage (patently an influence on Bowie), glacial krautrock Underpass, Burning Car and the ethereal beauty of Europe After The Rain alongside more recent tinkling soundscapes such as the electro-classical Looped Los Angeles.

He’s currently working on no less than three new albums, collaborations with Louis Gordon and former Cocteau Twin Robin Guthrie plus a solo ambient outing titled Tiny Colour Movies, so this looks like being the only brief escape from the studio confines for a while. Don’t miss.

Opening up are Rubicks, a duo comprising breathy voiced Vanessa Redd and Marc Makarov whose debut album, In Miniature (Sharp Attack) paints them as an electro pop Blondie fronted by Bjork with pigments of Siouxie, Aphx Twins, Air and Jesus & Mary Chain. Revamped from a limited edition release a couple of years back, Midas provides the kick off single but it’s likely that the swirly sweet I See You, a feline Just For You and the romping Wish You Were Here and Actress/Model will provide the live highlights.

He might not have the same profile as the late Johnny Cash, but Russell’s as much an outlaw country storyteller as he was, his dust-caked voice spinning his Western Gothic tales and Texicali barroom waltzes about everyday dreamers and losers for over 40 years and twenty albums.

It’s four years since he was last here, so there’s plenty to catch up on, with Modern Art, The Rose of The San Joaquin, cowboy album Indians Cowboys Horses Dogs and his beat poets homage Hotwalkers all having appeared in the interim.

More to the point, he’s just released Love & Fear (Hightone), another potent journey through the heart of America’s bruised, battered and bone weary that, along with regular collaborators Andrew Hardin and Gulf Morlix, sees him joined on several tracks by the luminous Gretchen Peters.

He opens in muscular form with The Pugilist At 59, a strident portrait of a washed up boxer who’s spurred to make it through another day by the ghost of Archie Moore, the boxer who once fought both Rocky Marciano and Muhammad Ali. It is of course, with its ‘phone bills, gas bills, electricity, and the mortgage and the junk mail, one old Father's Day card’, a metaphor for the fear of lost passion and how love will put you on the canvas)

More real life names surface on Beautiful Trouble, bluesman Champion Jack Dupree and fallen matinee idol Sterling Hayden called as witnesses to the hard life of life trying to entertain the people while Russell notes how a pair of sexy eyes can draw you to hell.

Then there’s Stealing Electricity, another affairs of the heart (that go da da da da da da) metaphor, this time symbolised by a dead Mexican on the power lines with images of the ‘poverty of your spirit and the weakness of your flesh’.

The darker alleys of love and relationships form the album’s thematic backbone. On All The Fine Young Ladies he draws on T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock to explore the spiritual bankruptcy and emotional aspergers of a recovering alcoholic while spoken rockabilly blues Four Chambered Heart is a bitingly caustic observation of modern life with ungrateful kids, dysfunctional families, paedophile priests, anger, sadness, hatred, envy, and love destined to consume itself. It’s not cheery, but it’s got a hell of a driving beat.

Elsewhere the album’s populated by lost kids (Stolen Children, ‘faces on milk cartons rolling round in shopping carts’), shattered romance (The Sound Of One Heart Breaking), worn out lives hanging on to what dreams they have (KC Violin), and hymns of defeat and defiance (rousing country rock power ballad Ash Wednesday).

Yet, after all the body blows, acknowledging that, whatever pain may come, eventually It Goes Away, he closes up with Old Heart, a weary cocktail lounge crooning slow dance where the singer drags himself from bed and gets up to face life another day, looking for another dream, another chance of love. I guess, when it comes down to it, whatever rusty nails might have pierced his heart, Russell’s still a hopeful romantic with a bookful of stories you owe it to yourself to hear.

Take yourself back to the golden haybilly days of Hank Williams and Lefty Frizell with this 54 year old Texan who, after life rodeo riding, trucking, training horses and playing to local hometown folks, is now making his way into the bigger musical world with his first widely available album The Truth Will Set You Free (Rounder).

He sounds not unlike Williams, complete with warble, he dresses in trad Western suits and stetson and he sings classic old school country songs about cheating, drinking, hard luck stories and worse luck women. What’s not to like.

George Jones would have killed for Hand’s crying in your beer honky tonker When You Stopped Loving Me, So Did I and, produced by Asleep At The Wheel’s Ray Benson, the album’s packed solid with equally great, self-penned authentic (and slyly witty) country numbers like I’ve Got A Lot Of Hiding Left To Do, In The Corner, At The Table, By The Jukebox, Here Lies A Good Old Boy and If I Live Long Enough To Heal.

I’m Just An Old Man With An Old Song he sings, maybe so but in the often jaded over glossy world of country music, he’s one of the freshest voices around.

As you might guess from their name, this lot play Cuban music fused with Jamaican ska. Described as a meeting between the Buena Vista Social Club and the Skatalites, they mix together reggae, salsa, Brazilian rhythms, Klezmer-style sax and big band brass to infectious results. You get a good idea of what to expect from their Ay Caramba (Casino Sounds) album as Beny Billy and Natty toggle their tonsils through such numbers as the afro-rumba Tabu, ska cumbia No Me Desesperes, the skanking Marianao, flute flavoured Afro-Latin kids song Tungarara and hip shifting merengue Bobine.

You’ll recognise some evergreens here too as they cook up their versions of West Indian romper Natty No Dead (aka Clancy Eccles’ Sammy No Dead), Frankie Laine hit Jezebel, risque calypso Big Bamboo and Tin pan Alley comedy number Istanbul (Not Constantinople), and with Ray Crespo on the double bass with Eddie Thornton and Megumi Mesaku providing the brass and Jesus Cutino on tres, this is going to be a swaying sunshine spectacular whatever the weather.

Bournemouth newbies championed by Steve Lamacq, they fly in on their first national tour to fire up debut single Just Abuse Me (Label Fandango), sounding not unlike early Supergrass with a barrelling piano and romping guitars. Twinned with the more indiepop jerky bouncer Charlotte, they clearly know how to kick up some snottily youthful noise, but there’s nothing sufficiently distinguished to warrant those hottest new names in the world hypes that are doing the rounds.

You can’t keep her away. It seems only a few months since she was last at the venue in support of current album Hearts In Mind with its songs of war and loss and music that harks back to simpler times of back porches and family Bibles.

No complaints though, if she wants to return with second helpings, I’m sure there’ll be plenty there with metaphorical bowls outstretched to hear such highlights as Mountain of Sorrow, Heart of Indochine, Back When Ted Loved Sylvia, gently hymnal inter-ethnic love story Rise To The Occasion and Clive Gregson's wittily sardonic I Love This Town mingling with staple evergreens from across her lengthy career.