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Sun July 1

The Dunes

A guitar based alt-rock outfit from Canada, the Dunes make music that probably sounds good when you’re surfing the wavebands as you drive and happen upon one of their tracks, but don’t quite have the necessary qualities to persuade you to go out and buy their Socializing W/ Life (Curve Music) album. Hurry Up and Sunflower Eyes have echoes of big ballad earnest U2 while Calling All Cars, Rio Grande and Do It All The Time show they can do the burning rock tension, but nothing here is distinctive enough to indicate a sustained life beyond their hometown club circuit. 10pm. The Madhouse, Hampton St. Hockley.

Following on Jane's Addiction and Porno For Pyros, this is the latest band project from Perry Farrell, one which sees him getting in touch with his inner Bono, surfing psychedelic grooves and getting with dance rock for debut album Ultra Payload (Sony). Working with guests that include Flea, Peter Hook, Thievery Corporation, Hybrid and even the late Jim Morrison who posthumously provides the previously unreleased vocal track to the electro washed Woman In The Window, it’s an eclectic but not unappealing affair.

Kick off single Wish Upon A Dog Star sounds like some Eastern tinged floor filler from an intergalactic club, marrying Bowie, New Order, Bolan and even Hawkwind, Only Love, Let’s Celebrate is a Led Zep/Prince cross, Hard Life Easy loads a funky sunshine stoner rock groove while The Solutionists is all Lennon on a chunky Plastic Ono tip and Awesome a dreamy strings soaked cosmic surfing ballad.

All very retro sounding, it’s also smoothly fluid and textured, nicely chilled with only the piston thumping Insanity showing signs of punking out, evoking a whole new summer of love vibe. That the gig’s been downgraded to the smaller room suggests the word has yet to reach beyond the loyal supporters to those who’ve lost faith or haven’t found themselves curious enough to investigate. Their loss. 7.30pm. £16.50. Carling Academy 2

A new name out of Ontario, the indie rock quartet of former school mates made their recording debut last year with A Lesson In Crime, a mini-album that earned them comparisons to the early Strokes. It also earned them a UK deal with Memphis-Industries for whom they now fly in to promote new bouncing punky pop dancing fool single Your English Is Good. 8pm. £6. Barfly

Much respected, critically acclaimed and highly influential for their fusion of jazz, rock, R&B and pop, Becker and Fagan were responsible for some 70s classics, among them Reelin’ In The Years, Rikki Don't Lose That Number, Do It Again, Deacon Blues and Haitian Divorce. Drifting apart during at the start of the 80s to pursue solo projects, none of them particularly commercially successful, they got back together in 1993, finally releasing a new album seven years later with the multi-Grammy winning Two Against Nature, following up in 2003 with Everything Must Go, the first band album to feature a track with Becker on lead vocals and, so far, the last new material they’ve released.

Since when, they seem to have overcome their old reluctance to tour and become something of a regular on the nostalgia act circuit. Unfortunately, they can be pretty much of a hit and miss live experience, far too often sinking into self-indulgent muso poses, failing to invest any real fire into the now heavily jazz infused performances, rendering even the crowd pleasers tired and sluggish. Sometimes they don’t even bother to include their hits. So just keep your fingers crossed you don’t leave wishing you’d just stayed home and dug out the albums. 7.30pm. £45/£40. NIA

Fresh from putting the inaugural paw print on Broad Street’s new Walk of Fame, Birmingham’s favourite addled buffoon returns to crank up some noise in support of Black Rain, his first album of new material in six years. The fact he can’t actually sing and, on ballads, now often sounds like a dog in pain (thereby making a suitable partner for daughter Kelly on inexplicable No 1 Changes), doubtless explains why the bulk of the record relies on guitarist Zakk Wylde to churn out the metal riffs in an effort to disguise shortcomings elsewhere.

It doesn’t really work though, and while it’s nice to hear Black Rain harking back to the Sabbath days of War Pigs, Ozzy’s gummy vocals and clunky social protest lyrics don’t do it any extra favours.

With so much of it sounding routine metal (I Don’t Wanna Stop could even have come from a Judas Priest cast off) or standard Osbourne heavy pop, material that rises above the mediocre actually stands out like diamonds, so that the swaggering riff of Not Going Away, a battering 11 Silver and Countdown’s Begun seem like minor classics.

Not, of course, that any of this is going to matter to the headbangers who hang on his every slur who’ll be down the front soaking up these and old favourites alike. Mind you, even they might be praying he doesn’t decide to revisit the recent covers album and send everyone fleeing to the hills with his versions of In My Life and Working Class Hero. 7.30pm. £35. NIA

Having enjoyed his biggest UK commercial success to date with the Top 20 placing of current album Cassadaga (Polydor), Conor Oborst should be in high spirits for the tie-in tour. The follow up to the simultaneously released I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning and Digital Ash In A Digital Urn, it was always making a musical bid for crossover appeal with tracks like the fiddle bouncing Four Winds (though the downbeat lyrics might have given those who actually listened pause for thought before opening up the airwaves), the current marching beat alt-country single Hot Knives or the biting indictment of the music biz that is the swayalong Soul Singer In A Session Band. Likewise, for those who don’t listen to closely to what he’s actually saying, Make A Plan To Love Me is a dreamy slow waltzing ballad made to be played under starry skies.

Of course, with songs that talk of desperate housewives, drying out, dog eat dog worlds, misguided religious fervour and suburban scandal he’s not exactly spreading uplifting tales of joy and hope, even if he does, ultimately, maintain faith humanity’s potential to rise above its shortcomings. But, even such sober musings he couches in the beguiling melodies of songs like No One Would Riot For Less, the quiveringly hymnal If The Brakeman Turns My Way, a Latin swaying Cleanse, the REM-like Middleman and the Middle-Eastern hued Coat Check Dream Song. Which means you’ll more likely go home humming the tunes that wanting to revolutionise the word. Which is, ok, actually. 7pm. £17.50. Carling Academy

A swift return for the folk-pop Scousers who fancy lazing on California beaches or sun-kissed festival fields with the music of Brian Wilson floating through their iPods. Debut single Hold On (EMI) is a pleasant enough summer breeze, but unlikely to give them much of a tan. 7pm. £5. Bar Academy

On the face of it a collaboration between Spiritualised guitarist Jason Hart and Paul Tucker, songwriter for the Lighthouse Family, sounds an unlikely musical marriage. However, if advance word is to be believed, the result promises an album’s worth of widescreen, epic pop soul laced with big melodies and songs of despair and salvation, blending together such influences as U2, Radiohead, Echo & The Bunnymen and Stone Roses. Judging by piano led debut single Click Your Heels, the Verve’s a potent reference point too, although you could actually also imagine Lighthouse’s Tunde Baiyewu singing it as easily as Richard Ashcroft. It’s a persuasive debut, all they need do now is prove there’s more and better where it came from. 7.30pm. £6. Barfly

Not doing too badly for a 62 year old with platinum discs and a CBE knocking round the house, after the series of American Songbook standards Rod recently made his first rock album in eight years with Still The Same. Okay, so it was yet another set of cover versions but the lad was in good voice belting out the likes of Have You Ever Seen The Rain, It’s A Heartache, Day After Day, Love Hurts and Missing You even if you might be encouraged to push the skip button and avoid Father & Son, Lay Down Sally and, oh dear, If Not For You.

Quite what he’ll be rummaging through for the set list here is anyone’s guess, that chances are it’ll mix up some tracks of the new album, a few of the Songbook choices and a fair smattering of the old hits like Maggie May, Tonight’s The Night and Sailing though not, since he now wisely feels a bit embarrassed singing them, Hot Legs and D’Ya Think I’m Sexy.

But whatever he picks up, he’s a classic old school entertainer and, eve if he’s stopped playing footie on stage, you can guarantee this is going to be a proper singalong friendly night.

Given the current album also includes a cover of I’ll Stand By You, it seems appropriate enough that his guests are The Pretenders, though whether they’ll be tossing up backstage to see whether he or Chrissie Hynde does the honours - or whether it features as a duet, you’ll have to wait and see. 7.30. £65/£50. Ricoh Stadium, Coventry

Big music merchants from North Carolina, the quintet sail close to the likes of Flaming Lips, filtering in Beach Boys, Polyphonic Spree, Radiohead, Arcade Fire and even Aphex Twin on the debut Be He Me (Virgin) album. It’s an odd beast, musically packed with lush melodies but also liberally laced with left field jokiness, antic arrangements and all manner of style grabs that turn the songs into mini sonic adventures. It can, as witness Chase You Off, Dry Clothes, the tropical/African jazz/prog hued The Bull And The Goat, and the jumbles of weirdness that are Sway and Bleary-Eyed, prove an exhausting listen with even something as relatively straightforward as the tumultuous Brother or the cosmic pop of Mama defying you to even attempt to sing along. But, with everyone swapping instruments on stage, you suspect that the live experience is going to prove a remarkably heady affair.

Support’s provided by Newquay based singer-songwriter Ruarri Joseph back on the road now his debut album Tales Of Grime And Grit (Atlantic) is in the stores, a refreshing cocktail of reference points that embrace names as diverse as Pete Atkin, Django Reindhart and, on the shrugging clanking lope of Patience, Tom Waits.Basically retro acoustic folk pop with jazz and blues colours, there’s plenty worth exploring here, highlights including the vaudeville-like Won’t Work, acoustic blues shuffle Blankets, piano ballad Early Morning Remedy with its meeting between Randy Newman and Richard Digance, the Leon Redbone style Hawaiian lullabying Relying On Lying and More Rock N’ Roll, which sounds like his rework of Richard Thompson’s I Wish I Was Simple Again. See him now, he’ll be headlining larger venues before long. 7.30pm. £8.50. Bar Academy

The Australian siblings are back again, plugging their bluesily narcotic EPs, Heart Full Of Wine and Chocolates & Cigarettes, the latter of which also provides current single Private Lawns, a late night jazz blues soaked affair with Julia prowling around a nicotine stained sax and drunk on Bourbon lurching rhythm. 8pm. £6. Glee Club

Five months pregnant, the Birmingham songstress arrives to give birth to her new self-titled mini-album (Gravel Road), the follow up to 2003’s Rhyme Or Reason which saw her reaching out beyond the Christian music market in which she’d made her name. Once again it’s a collection of soulful, rootsy pop that ably showcases her silken, cloud floating vocals, opening ‘plug’ track, Last Of The Hopeless Romantics, a dreamy radio friendly summer day confection that should warm the hearts of those regretting Nelly Furtado getting in touch with her inner disco diva.

Elsewhere Safe House is a sax tinged late night smoky jazz cellar torch ballad that part borrows a melody refrain from Slowhand and, once more raises thought of the young Diana Ross were she raised on folk records while the lightly orchestrated Come And Find Me keeps sure-footedly to the caressing soul pop balladry path. A live acoustic recording of the liltingly folksy The Other Side of Winter offers a good idea of the sort of quality she serves up in the flesh, which, in tandem with past nuggets such as her lovely ballad Snowbound, the anthemic chorus pop of Stay True and the simple heartfelt voice and piano Sing To You, promises a night of musical conversion whatever your chosen religion. 8pm. £7. Glee Club

Three days of free music can’t be bad, but when it comes with some top headline names and sterling local talent it’s even better. The opening day ‘s headlined by long serving 80s electro pop stalwarts The Human League while the local quotient’s superbly represented by Coventry’s superlative Two Giraffes.

They’ll be showcasing their eponymous debut album with its eclectic collection of material ranging from the dark swaying rhythms of Flamenco Lovers) to the chirpy ska jerking poppy Bad Poetry, the country ripples of Lake of Hazy Silver and t Here She Comes summoning comparisons to Alabama 3. Also homegrown are The Juliana Down, another folksy indie pop outfit whose catchy new single Cold (Horus Music) should slip down nicely with Keane, Guillemots and Travis fans while Hidden Agenda is an all together darker, rockier affair more in keeping with My Chemical Romance. 5.30pm-10pm. Free, Memorial Park, Coventry.

Another day, another fest. This one has the emphasis firmly on folktronica with headliners being Glaswegian instrumentalists Mogwai serving reminders of last year’s album Mr Beast with its gathering guitar storms, riffs and distortions mingling among calmer, even country, waters and delicate sonic whispers.

They’re joined by Tunng who bring the spirits of Nick Drake, Dr Strangely Strange, Incredible String Band, John Renbourn and Aphex Twin to bear on their beguilingly lovely Comments Of The Inner Chorus with its songs of women transformed into hares, wind-up birds and murdered lovers imagining their killer’s future life.

The real gem though has to be Birmingham’s very own Shady Bard, the environmental friendly alt-folk five piece who can lay claim to one of the albums of the year with From The Ground Up (Static Caravan) and the achingly world weary campfire melancholy of such numbers as Memory Tree, Summer Came When We Were Falling Out and the transcendentally soul-tingling, frost-lined Penguins which rivals the very best of Sigur Ros. Noon-late. £30. Custard Factory, Digbeth.

Day two and The Ripps, Coventry’s meeting point between The Jam and TwoTone, take up the local band running alongside pop punk fellow Weller fans The Enemy who’ll be tearing up the sky with their just released bristling energetic debut album We’ll Live And Die In These Towns.

Arriving from slightly further afield will be Wakefield’s The Cribs showing off their Strokes and ska pop colours with new single Moving Pictures (Wichita), Brooklyn’s orchestral pop outfit The Silent League, blues rock trio The Noisettes with willowy Amazonian lead singer Shinhgai sounding like a cross between Siouxsie Sioux and Billie Holiday on amphetamines and, definitely one to watch, the much acclaimed Maps aka Northampton bedroom genius James Chapman whose We Can Create (Mute) debut is an electro-pop wander through the eclectic landscapes of Flaming Lips, Daft Punk, Massive Attack, Sufjan Stevens, Jesus & Mary Chain, Sigur Ros and My Bloody Valentine.

As part of the contemporary folk line up there’s an appearance by warm voiced Fife singer-songwriter James Yorkston while to top the day off with something of a coup, you get to see Welsh cult heroes Super Furry Animals without having to pay a penny. It’s like all your Christmases came at once. Noon-10pm. Free. Memorial Park Coventry.

The final day is a rather more uneven mix of talent. On the plus side, heading in from Birmingham is rising singer-songwriter Chris Tye whose soft Buckleyesque voice and shades of Van Morrison, Paul Simon, Dylan and John Martyn have him marked down as the new Ed Harcourt.

Rather less worth getting excited about are Mr Hudson and the Library who pop by with their love of David Bowie, Sinatra and Noel Coward wrapped up in Picture Of You (Mercury) from their wine bar soundtracking A Tale Of Two Cities album while Newton Faulkner will be trying to persuade audiences he’s not the third division James Morrison/Paulo Nutini/whatever sensitive male singer-songwriter you care to name that his I Need Something (Ugly Truth) would suggest.

Mercifully then, the day’s saved by an appearance from Cambridge graduate and literate songbird Polly Paulusma who’ll be entrancing the ears with tracks from the just released Fingers & Thumbs (One Little Indian), an album much informed by the two miscarriages, ambivalent feelings about her music career and the eventual birth of her daughter that fed into its making.

There’s chilling tales of murdered children in the leafy dank folk flavoured The Woods and metaphorical piano murder ballad Matilda while This One I Made For You is a bittersweet song of motherhood twinned with images of war and Day One sees her country tinged little girl vocals drawing metaphors of her body as infertile land.

Elsewhere there’s the domestic violence of a bluesy Ready Or Not, the giddy joy of Where I'm Coming From and, on the marvellous Godgrudge with its drone-like backing and guitar riffs, a commentary on middle-eastern religious and political conflict.

Amazingly, it’s more uplifting than it sounds while, edging beyond the folk flavours of her debut into more electric sounds, Paulusma adds Beth Gibbons, Victoria Williams and Aimee Mann to the obligatory Joni Mitchell reference point. Well worth camping out to grab a place down the front for. Noon-7pm. Free. Memorial Park, Coventry

Apparently having ditched the eyeliner, the chaps are gearing up for the release of much anticipated sophomore album The Sun and the Moon, heading out on their first full UK tour in two years. The likelihood is that much of the set will still be weighted in recalling favourites from their eponymous debut with the likes of An Honest Mistake but they will be throwing in a fair few previews to show how sharply they’ve been reshaping and refining their sound and formula, Believe a slow steamrollering bluesy number while first single Time Won’t Let Me with its teeming hooks and soaring vocals was clearly built with stadiums in mind. 7.30pm. £12. Carling Academy

A fairly quick return to the venue by the LA’s boy girl quartet for another helping of the Carnavas debut album with its alt-rock and shoe-gazing melodies and songs of anger, angst and revulsion. It’s also the day they release first single, the dark veined Well Thought Out Twinkles (Sire), so it’s a fair chance that will be marking the centre piece of a set designed to stir the souls of every sullen misunderstood teen. 7.30pm. £6. Barfly

The seemingly unstoppable Fuelled By Ramen label continues its assault with this teen-friendly hip hop rock crew, a band so aware of their demographic they’ve structured sophomore album, As Cruel As School Children, in terms of the school day, complete with Lunch interlude and Detention.

Having recently scored a major UK single hit with Cupid’s Chokehold with its lifts from Uptown Top Ranking and Supertramp’s Breakfast In America, they’ll be looking to give a little more poke to the album after it failed to dent the Top 20 and rapidly vanished from sight. The release of their cover of Jermaine Jackson’s Clothes Off should safely seem them class favourites again while such beats stroking wit-laden songs as the jittery Queen And I, the Eminem flavoured slow rap slouch Shoot Down The Stars, Latin R&B flavoured ballad Viva White Girl and the naggingly catchy Biter’s Block and the needy New Friend Request promise a serious live workout. 7.30pm. £11. Carling Academy

Recovered from their stint at the Godiva Fest, they now heave the flight cases back to Birmingham for a slightly more intimate evening plugging Picture Of You (Mercury), the latest underachiever to be lifted from the A Tale Of Two Cities album.

Opening proceedings is hometown boy David Garside, another addition to the ranks of sensitive singer-songwriter here to launch his debut EP, Mr Wise (Crockett). The blurb cites the usual litany of references points with McCartney, Mitchell, Drake and The Beach Boys, but the title track’s summer breeze sample of classic old school songwriting more tellingly evoke Gerry Rafferty and Randy Newman. Elsewhere Soulful Numbers suggests Richard Hawley and Ed Harcourt in while, with rather less cool, Don’t Be Scared and Someone Else’s Someone both recall the 80s synth pop of Howard Jones; not perhaps a direction he should be encouraged to explore further. There’s nothing too impressive here, but, joined by string and horn sections in addition to his full band, he might fare better live with real musicians and instruments behind him. 8pm. £9. Glee Club

Here’s something of a coup for the club. Back in 1979, the beret-wearing Jones released her self-titled debut album, had a hit with Chuck E's In Love and found herself variously hailed as the new Joni Mitchell and the female Tom Waits for her brand of beatnik jazz pop. However, despite picking up a couple of Grammy awards along the way nothing she's released since has quite matched that early success. Dropped by Warners 10 years ago after a succession of indifferent releases, there looked to be a return to form back in 2003 when she signed to V2 for The Evening Of My Best Day. But nothing really transpired, so here we are, four years on signed to American indie New West. This time though things could shape up rather differently.

For a start The Sermon On Exposition Boulevard (New West) is her first real rock album and it's the best thing she's recorded since Pirates. It also happens to be an album about Jesus. No, hang on, not some God bothering collection but rather an attempt to rescue Christ from the TV evangelists and right wing politics and set his teachings in an everyday context of spirituality and wisdom..

The album opens with Jones sounding uncannily like early Melanie on the Velvets-like drone of Nobody Knows My Name, a tremulously quivering but full-lunged comparison that applies equally to Gethsemane, loose limbed art-blues Falling Up, the country flavoured Elvis Cadillac and the spare, bluesy eight minute I Was There.

Elsewhere though the Velvets-like Circle In The Sand has her coming on like a female Lou Reed and It Hurts is a treble toned Patti Smith while devotees who yearn for those old Waits parallels will be beside themselves with joy on the rumbling Eastern jazz blues of Lamp Of The Body and Donkey Ride and the clanking clattering of Tried To Be A Man.

If your luck’s in she should be prominently featuring selections tonight along with the obligatory career resume, it’s certainly a Sermon that deserves to be heard from every pulpit available. 8pm. £23. Glee Club

An uninspiring name isn’t really compensated for by Sheffield soundsystem guru Jon McClure’s music; competent but workmanlike electro funk with roots in old school garage soul and memories of Happy Mondays, packaged into debut single Heavyweight Champion Of The World (Wall of Sound). Like the accompanying 18-30, it’s decent enough disco dance floor fodder for those frightened by Franz Ferdinand but you’d be better off seeking out Birmingham’s own Players to give the limbs a workout. 7.30pm. £8.50. Carling Academy 2

Discovered busking in Leicester Square and signed to Mercury, Devon songwriting brothers Neil and Ed Ormandy clearly don’t envisage a career playing to the younger demographic. Certainly not if tasters from upcoming debut album River Of Gold are any indication, the title track single and You Want My Love firmly rooted in the country rock of The Eagles while mid-tempo number Alone harks back to the harmonies of Simon & Garfunkel and America, filtered through 60s West Coast melodies. Pleasant enough, but they’d best set their sights on America if they don’t want to find themselves passing the hat around again. 8pm. Free. Living Room, Broad St

Being tagged the new Emily Dickinson must put a lot of a pressure on a girl, but Jones certainly rises to the occasion for her breakthrough third album, My Remembrance of You (Newsong).

Adopted as an infant and raised in New York, at 15 she went in search of her roots. She eventually found them in Eastern Tennessee, explaining why, when her school friends were getting into Michael Jackson, she was more tuned to Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris.

As may be expected the album's steeped in the music of the Appalachians, drawing comparisons with Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, and Iris DeMent for her open, honest songs and strong, deep and pure voice. A strong sense of loss, not belonging and insecurity runs through many of the songs, not least the heartbreaking Pony, a 20s set story of an Indian child taken from her Dakota reservation and parents to live among whites.

The bluesy tribal rhythms of Cold Grey Ground asks to be buried back among the family hills, the trad American folk flavoured All My Money On You finds a gambler looking for the big win so he can go home again, the old-tyme country weeping title track speaks for itself, Up In Smoke waltzes through a marriage fallen apart, while the bluegrass dappled Pretty Girl is a bar room girl's aching wish not to be the one all the good old boys want to take home.

It's not all downbeat moods, though. Driven by scraping fiddle, the perky Fever Moon finds her hoping to bewitch the man she's fallen for, slipping into throaty vocals folk-blues A Hold On Me is a defiant refusal to let go the earthly ties and Willow Tree is a Southern spiritual about finding grace in accepting God.

Brushed with the smell of old wood and ancient hills, warmly lit like rays of afternoon sun dancing through mountain cabin windows, and heady with the sense of deeply ingrained life, Emily Dickinson would be proud to be spoken of in such company. 7.30pm. £10. Tower Of Song, Pershore Rd South, Kings Norton

Always a guaranteed good time at Sounds In The Round, if you’ve not yet discovered this lot they’re basically a bunch of musicologists who restyle rock numbers as bluegrass tunes. They started out reworking an album’s worth of AC/DC but have since expanded their horizons to take in the likes of Kiss, Zep, Queen, Motorhead, and Sabbath as well as throwing in some original rockgrass material of their own. Their new live album, Weapons of Grass Destruction, casts the new even wider to reimagine hits from Cliff (Devil Woman), the Beatles (Strawberry Fields Forever), Scissor Sisters (I Don’t Feel Like Dancing), the Stones (Paint it Black), Status Quo (Down Down) and, with a dreamy backporch Holidays In The Sun, the Sex Pistols. What better way to spend a balmy evening. 7.30pm. £16. mac Arena

Debut single The Photos On My Wall having presented a dodgy union of Jilted John and Pulp and choppy staccato follow up Never Meant To Hurt You conjuring The Cure, the Merton art pop combo rarely manage to transcend their basic blueprint. Indeed, new single Morden (it’s where they hail from, folks) and most of the Think Before You Speak album’s songs about mundane suburban life all come with similar stuttery rhythms and identikit vocal phrasings, hinting at XTC and Wedding Present influences to go with the Gang Of Four. The Celt-folk of Nazarin, All In My Head’s punky pop and a spiky Blue Eyes tease a few changes, but ultimately the footwear seems to only come in one fitting. 7.30pm. £7. W’hampton Civic Hall Bar

Sometime singer with Broken Social Scene and touring chum of Peaches, the past three years have seen Leslie Feist carving her own solid solo career. Having made an impressive debut with Let It Die, she returns with her second, Reminder (Polydor), a fine blend of old school torch, soul-jazz, indie folk and sunny dappled creek pop.

Her love of Nina Simone is to the fore on a great handclapping gospel cover of Sealion (as in See-Line Woman) but also evident in her own spiritual slow burn Honey Honey, the snake-hipped, skittish My Moon My Man and the lazily gorgeous piano soul ballad The Limit To Your Love.

But she ranges wide too, drizzling in things like vibraphone and banjo, crooning mellow and seductive but also occasionally baring teeth to bite rather than smile. Brandy Alexander is a lovely, finger-clicking backporch soul-folk number as warm and creamy as the drink with which it shares its name and should be served with ice as you lay back on a sunny afternoon, I'm Sorry opens on an acoustic samba sway, Intuition shows off some delicate finger-picking as Feist's voice rises and falls across the simple melody line, Past In Present switches to chugging train rhythm pure pop and Southern mint juleps mode just as I Feel It All does jangling folk-pop with descending vocal scales as she sounds like a marriage of Sheryl Crow and Dory Previn.

Best of all though is the insanely infectious 1234, a simple dismissive lovers' rhyme with banjo, handclaps, doo wop backing, parping brass and rolling piano that all comes together for a euphoric, barefooted giddy dance around summer lawns. A reminder's unnecessary, one you've heard these heady joys you won't forget them. 8pm. £10. Glee Club

Two years on from their eponymous debut, the Liverpool outfit once dubbed the 21st Century Specials return with follow-up Time To Take Sides (Deltasonic), still melding ska and combat rock Clash and still waving the slogans but, road-tested and recorded in America, sounding much more melodically direct. Released next month, they’re out on the road showcasing the new material, headed up by jangling guitar chords first single Stand Up which, like the equally barricades storming Bolt Of Steel suggests they might have been soaking up a bit of Alarm. Jam and Springsteen too.

With the likes of the Strummeresque Beat Generation, a thundering Dull Towns, the tense and taut Last Train Home, the voodobilly tinted All Over By Midnight and the 60s garage rock throwbacks of Liar and Desert Son, they’re a far harder hitting, tougher steeled proposition, so expect the gig to be equally sweatily muscular. 7pm. £8. Bar Academy

New Zealand garage beat pop rock in the manner of The Strokes and co, with throaty riffs and Ed Knowles’ tumbling rasp of a voice, this serves as an early taster for the upcoming Hunting Whales album. No idea what the rest of the material sounds like, but first single Take Me There (Full Time Hobby) rattles along with squealing guitar stomps, throbbing basslines and blowing harmonica they call to mind the early days of Manfred Mann and the r&b moods of the young Stones. A reasonable recommendation, you’ll agree. 7.30pm. £5. Bar Academy

Off the radar since their 2005 support tour with System Of A Down, the loss of their major label deal has also meant the Brighton outfit haven’t released any new material in three years, since which time guitarist Andy Huxley left to be replaced by Rich Fownes.

However, having bitten the bullet and decided to go it on their own, they now look to make up lost ground with a flurry of dates built around back in action EP, In The Garden (No Death). Described by frontman Guy McKnight as “the heaviest surf music ever made crossed with an ugly opera”, there’s no major surprises in store, the band still playing paranoia driven rock n roll with the title track sounding like a meeting between Bauhaus, The Doors, and The Cramps while You Say You're The Doctor, But I Know You're The Mister is a thundering dose of speed psychobilly, Horses Can Swim and Terrible Night spewed juddery nightmarish trips into hardcore thrash.

With a backlog of as yet unrecorded songs piling up, they’ll likely be unleashing a fair few on bleeding ears tonight, though the gig’s more likely to be clarion call to the faithful with renewed vows being taken to the sound of old friends like Mister Mental, Celebrate Your Mother I Could Be An Angle. 7.30pm. £7.50. Barfly

Looking to put Leigh-on-Sea on the musical map (they even named their second single after it), the quartet herald the arrival of third release Graphs, Maps & Trees via new label Kids. A flurry of indie ringing guitar pop with singer Gavin Dwight sounding breathless keeping up, it’s not exactly ringing any changes on its predecessors and doesn’t suggest anything that might lead you to expect them to be still going in two albums time, but they do sound like a perky gig’s worth of bounce. 7.30pm. £6. Little Civic, W’hampton

Despite having failed to come over as more than some third division Cornwall surf scene Paulo Nutini with ginger dreadlocks and Shaggy style chin-whiskers on I Need Something, things might look up now the sun’s come out and his inventive guitar style and gentle croon sounds more in tune with the weather. Follow up single Dream Catch Me (Ugly Truth) shows him to be actually much more akin to Jack Johnson and the soft pop melodies of Crowded House while debut album, Hand Built By Robots, which gets showcased tonight, ripples out into the laid back shuffling To The Light, the jazz-blues scat sung snaking UFO and the sunkissed vibes of Feels Like Home and Lullaby. Plus, of course, there’s his showstopping reinvention of Massive Attack’s Teardrop as a slow blues. Live he’s got a reputation as a quick comic wit with his between song banter and audience repartee while he’s also been known to drop in covers of the Spongebob Squarepants and Ice Age themes, so even if there’s not a curl or breaker in sight, you might well be recommended to get on board. 8pm. £10. Glee Club

As you might guess, 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. Still plugging the Ay Caramba album, Beny Billy and Natty will doubtless be cranking up such numbers as the afro-rumba Tabu, a ska cumbia No Me Desesperes, the skanking Marianao, and hip shifting merengue Bobine.

You’ll recognise some evergreens e too as they cook up their versions of Frankie Laine hit Jezebel, risque calypso Big Bamboo and Tin Pan Alley comedy number Istanbul (Not Constantinople). A sunshine special whatever the weather. 7.30pm. £12.50. mac Arena

Choirboys, eh! Alex Davies and Ed Minton have come a long way since singing hymns in York Minster. These days they head up this pop-rock outfit, pulling together their classical training and influences that run the gamut from Green Day to Jeff Lynne. The latter’s certainly in evidence on new single Jessica (Repossession), a romp along dose of driving rock guitar, thumping drums and sweeping orchestral arrangement dedicated to Fantastic Four star Jessica Alba. An impressive follow up to Parallel Worlds that bodes well for the eventual album and plenty of bouncing around at the gigs. 7.30pm. £6. W’hampton Civic Hall Bar

Resurfacing in 2001, the Birmingham born mavericks remain as splendidly difficult as ever with new mini album What’s Not To Love (Caroline True), Plenty of Spare opening in full on Captain Beefheart mode with Robert Lloyd intoning in oblique spoken word about his ideal woman (“maybe not too keen on mushrooms or bananas”) over discordant jazz n rockabilly guitar and skittering drums.

Things remain defiantly individual with the clattering punky surge of Eleven Fingers. Lloyd’s monotone sounding positively breathless. He takes a break for Bang Out Of Order, guitarist Matt Wood taking over vocals for a rattling dose of train rhythm rockabilly punk pop that itches the soles of your feet.

Then it’s into a marvellously deconstructed drunk in the desert cover of Nancy Sinatra ‘hit’ Drummer Man, a riff pumping ramshackle Overreactor and, finally, the splendidly off its head Wot No Blog? which begins with Egyptian snake-dance swaying tones before crashing into scratchy punk and a mid-section that sees Lloyd’s voice possessed by some howling Armenian or similarly Eastern European shaman. What’s not to love, indeed.

Equally prone to shards of discord, but generally more traditionally tuneful, support comes from visiting Brooklynite duo Christy & Emily, as in classically trained pianist Emily Manzo and guitarist, sometime pop punk musician and occasional video filmmaker Christy Edwards.

Having caused a few ripples on the New York scene, they’re here to raise consciousness for their rather fine if oddly titled debut album, Gueen’s Head (The Social Registry). The moment the reverberating guitar riff for Thunder & Lightning emerges from the speaker, it’s easy to spot the Velvets influence, but this is both twinned with a certain 60s folk feel and undercut by Manzo’s avant garde flourishes.

Nothing else is quite as likely to scare the horses, but they do have a knack for catching listeners off-guard with musical mood switches, as with the opening Ocean which lulls you into a dreamy folksiness before opening into a Pandora’s musical box lullaby that gives way to a military marching beat crescendo with the girls crooning behind like a faerie world answer to the McGarrigles.

Other little gems to listen out for in the set would have to include the hushed and oddly hymnal Noah, the playfully skewed Carter Family meets Brian Eno at a gypsy campfire of New Years, the tropical hula swaying Island Song where you almost expect a Harry Belafonte sample, and the all together lovely and vaguely Christmas in the Appalachians flavoured backwoods country folk that is Birds. A bit of treat, really. 9pm. £6. Actress & Bishop