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Hailing from San Francisco and playing psychedelic folk pop, drummer Logan Kroeber and songwriter-guitarist Meric Long’s Visiter (Wichita) album might well be described as a folk version of The White Stripes. Indeed, they certainly share the same Led Zep influences, as readily demonstrated by Joe’s Waltz. But listen to the Kroeber’s inventive percussion, often sounding like tribal rhythms, on the likes of Ashley, Winter Fools and The Seasons and you’ll also hear early Tyrannosaurus Rex while Long’s guitar work on God? and Paint The Rust calls to mind vintage John Fahey, at least until it takes off into swampy slide guitar sonics.

Walking comes dappled with country banjo and female harmonies, new single Red And Purple a Latin flavoured swayer with Kroeber skittering rimshots while Jodi builds from crystal water guitar figures to thundering tumbling clatter. They make a hell of a noise for an acoustic duo and if it’s sounds remotely like this, then the gig should be a stormer. You certainly won’t find anyone else doing what they’re doing. 7pm. £6.50. Bar Academy

Despite debut album Wait For Me xeroxing the Libertines, Kaisers, Arctics, and Strokes on songs that merged into one, the Leeds lads seem to have caught quite a wave, selling out two consecutive shows at the same venue. They’re back with second album Emergency (Dance To The Radio), such a speedy follow up that you suspect much of the material simply didn’t make it on to the predecessor for lack of room. Certainly both I’m A Liar and the rowdy rollicking anthemic Say It Like You Mean It have long bean live favourites.

Although the brief Nothing To Do With You is a stripped down break up ballad, they’ve not set out to reinvent the wheel or alter the blueprint at all from past numbers like I Found Out or Caught In Your Trap. But they do seem to have gained a confidence in the playing in the interim, so that This Is An Emergency, I’m Not Gonna Take This (which sounds like the Monkeys meets the Manics with klaxon guitars), Love You For A Day (is that the intro to Parklife?), a swaggery pub rocking Keep On your Dress and the punchy Don’t You Wanna all sound like textbook examples of indie guitar pop and songs of the ‘women, can’t live with them, can’t live without the, can’t understand them’ variety.

With clarion guitars looking to be The Edge when they grow up driving along potential singles Making Up Numbers (once they change the swearing) and I’ll Be Waiting, their ebullient, good time noise should ensure they’ll be roosting in the upper reaches of the charts for a while yet. 7pm. £13.50. Carling Academy

Having favourably bent ears with recent jangling 69s echoing guitar pop single Talk About You, the Liverpool quintet follow on with Boys (XtraMile). Although the guitars are choppier and the vocals slightly more nasally, it’s not hugely different and underlines their ability to knock together a decent melody with a hint of early U2. Their debut album Promise, is due come autumn, so this is an early chance to check out potential wish lists. 7.30pm. £5. Bar Academy

A solo outing by the vagabond soul Irishman provides a chance to hear songs like Freewheel, Brixton Leaves, Ballad Of A Broken Man, Last Night I Nearly Died and This Could Be My Last Day in a more intimate setting as well as get a taster of stuff he’s working on for the new album. 7.30pm. £10. Glee Club

First surfacing a decade ago with dance pop hit Show Me Love and having Keep The Fires Burning covered by Ben Knight, the Swedish poppet dropped off the UK radar for some years but is back with a vengeance now following the release of her self-titled electro-pop album on her own Konichiwa label.

Scoring a comeback hit with Be Mine! and following up with the No 1 With Every Heartbeat, she’s precisely what you might expect if you took a pinch of early Madonna (With Every Heartbeat), added some Cyndi Lauper (Who’s That Girl), Transvision Vamp (Robot Boy) and Gwen Stefani (Should Have Known) and polished it off with a splash of Kate Bush (Anytime You Like) and then served with some sexual upfront lyrics (see Konichiwa Bitches) and a twist of Eastern flavours (Cobrastyle) sung in an not so innocent little girl voice with a huge pop sensibility. All that and lines like “I'll hammer your toe like a paediatrician”.

She’s recaptured the charts, how she handles things live may determine whether she can hang on to them too. 6pm. £11. Carling Academy 2

An Irish trio with a background in R&B and funk, Danny, Mark and Glen have pulled together to blend hip hop styles with pop sensibilities to create a Celtic soul sound rooted in rock dynamics. It’s a bit like a cocktail of U2, Justin Timberlake, Ben Folds and Simply Red. Not exactly a bad mix, and first single, We Cry (RCA), with its choral like intro and beats and hints of laid back Seal to the semi-spoken lyric makes for an impressive debut.

The self-titled debut album won’t be along until August, but they’ll be showcasing material tonight, giving an early chance to start drooling over things like the off the shoulder Before The Worst which easily kicks Maroon 5 into touch and hints at some classic Michael Jackson in the process.

Elsewhere, the set will doubtless put the spotlight on the glorious classic piano pop of Talk Me Down, the tender acoustic Boyzone + ballads of new single The Man Who Can’t Be Moved and the Spanish flavoured I’m Yours, a heady rush swivel hip pumping electro pop Rusty Halo and If You See Kay, a hip hop ballad that imagines Timberlake working out with Stevie Wonder. They’ll be huge come the end of the year, so get on the page now. 7.30pm. £6. Carling Academy 2

Released two years ago back home in America, the LA outfit are only just introducing UK ears to their You Smash It, We’ll Build Around It (30:30) album. It’s worth playing catch up though as they mix together a whole variety of sounds and styles while staying rooted in a basic rock approach. Opening track Aesthetics has beats driving a prog rock number with ringing space guitars that might have once found its way on to a Rush or Floyd album and is then immediately followed by Life Or Life-Like which could be Interpol doing vaudeville with a punk glam chorus with Eno on keyboards while Why We’re Better Now is a soaring stadium anthem with My Chemical Romance aspirations and Death To Our Enemies whips along like a cross between Duran and The Killers.

That’s just their first four numbers in what’s an interesting if sometimes wearing brew. Elsewhere you get the punky jabbing Sloppy Drunk, In Light Of Recent News, a gentle climax building ballad that envisages Bowie turning emo, a clattering punk pop My Masked Lust and, by way of a total change, Broadway And Hurst, a spoken cabaret number about a bloke overcome with the urge to kill someone that surely suggests they’ve seen a production of Sweeney Todd. If nothing else it promises to be an interesting patchwork of a stage set. 7.30pm. £8.50. Barfly

Recently seem cameoing as Jude Law’s ex-girlfriend in My Blueberry Nights, Chan Marshall is enjoying perhaps the highest and most successful profile of her career to date. Following on from her Mercury Music Prize nominated album, The Greatest, and recovered from the depression and alcoholism that hospitalised her following its release, she’s out on the road promoting Jukebox (Matador), her second collection of covers versions.

She’s chosen material - not necessarily well known - from some of the legendary American singers and songwriters and, working with The Dirty Delta Blues Band, given them a spare soulful blues-jazz interpretation, often drenched in reverb guitar. Her version of Sinatra’s Vegas chestnut New York is nothing less than a work of genius, completely unrecognisable from the original template or any other interpretation, a smoky, prowling strung out jazzy blues seeping through the 3am streets. Likewise, it’s unlikely Hank Williams would recognise his Ramblin (Wo)Man, here recast as a strung out cellar blues with spooked percussion and mournful guitar.

Equally spine-tingling are her readings of A Woman Left Lonely, the song popularised by Joplin, the jazz organ backed version of Joni Mitchell’s Blue, a Weimar cabaret piano trawl through Billie Holiday’s Don’t Explain, a lazy late night country sway n soul treatment of James Brown’s Lost Someone and a slow fire swagger through Dylan’s I Believe In You. It’s he who inspires one of the album’s only two originals, Marshall channelling the master himself on Song To Bobby. The other self-penned number is a revisiting of Metal Heart from her 1998 Moon Pix album, now invested with a muscle and passion that sets the speakers alight.

How much of this will find its way to the set list is hard to say, she’s certainly got plenty of other material to choose from and fans will almost certainly be expecting to hear Could We and Love and Communication from the last album, but hopefully there’ll be room for her simple acoustic stark country cover of Lee Clayton’s Silver Stallion which shows her breathy vocals in fine form and a spine-tingly Cowboy Junkies-like take of Nick Cave’s Breathless. Either way, this is an essential diary date. 7.30pm. £17.50. Carling Academy

A second visit to the region in as many months, Andy Cabic continues to plug covers collection Thing Of The Past (Fat Cat) and its gently wheezing country folk rock songs. It’s an eclectic set of choices, ranging from a faithful version of Loudon Wainwright’s The Swimming Song to Hawkwind’s Hurry On Sundown reimagined it as a moonshiners mountain music stomp, taking in the likes of Iain Matthews’ Road To Ronderlin, Garland Jeffreys’ Lon Chaney, Biff Rose obscurity To Baby and hushed gospel I Must Be In A Good Place Now from See You Later Alligator writer Bobby Charles. It’ a pity Vashti Bunyan’s not around to repeat her stunning duet on the fragile folk lullabying Sleep A Million Years, but I reckon the gig will still sparkle. 7.30pm. £9. Barfly

The Senagalese/Granadan West London r&b and hip hop star released her debut album four years ago, earning a Best Newcomer MOBO. She was then ominously quite for a while, but, now based in New York, she’s making her mark all over again with Shine (Homeschool), her sophomore release that sees her working with such names as John Legend, Wyclef Jean, Will.i.am, Mark Ronson and, on her recent No 1 stormer American Boy, Kanye West.

None of them will be in the tour van, but armed with a voice that can take hip hop, pop, reggae and soul and lift them to new levels and New York summer sprinkled songs such as dancehall party jerker Magnificent, creamy 60s pop-soul No Substitute Love, the beats skittering Wait a Minute (Just a Touch), lovers rock Come Over, the Tamla redux Pretty Please (Love Me) and, underlining her love of Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington, the smoky jazz Back In Love. It’s a curiously low key venue appearance given the recent chart success, but maybe she’s just warming up for bigger things. 7.30pm. £12.50. Custard Factory

They were inspired to get together by Take That and it seems they were inspired to reform by them too. So, Ronan Keating taking time off from becoming the next Daniel O’Donnell, here he is back with the rest of the lads for a tour that will rather inevitably take the shape of a greatest hits run through. So, expect to be swamped with sincerity ballads like Love Me For a Reason, Father And Son, Words, Baby Can I Hold You, No Matter What and You Needed Me, and don’t be surprised if Ronan slips in When You Say Nothing At All and If Tomorrow Never Comes though I’d reckon Stephen Gateley might have to bend a few more arms to get Bright Eyes under the wire.

Opening act will be Laura Critchley who’ll be swirling the skirt or dusting the jeans down to the country pop flavours of her Sometimes I (Big Print) album which doubtless goes down a treat among those who’ve yet to discover Leanne Rimes, Shania Twain or Sheryl Crow. There’ll be stadium power ballads like What Do We Do and Lullaby, easy listeners such as Shoulder To Lean On, the anodyne pop of That Kind Of Love and Today’s Another Day and even the Avril aspirations of Girl Next Door. They’re easy enough on the ear and will doubtless keep the crowds from being too bored waiting the Irish stars, but there’s nothing original here you’ve not heard before or better. 7.30pm. £32.50. NEC

It’s amazing to think that, after over forty years of making fine records and writing classic songs, it’s only now that Diamond’s had his first No 1 album, both here and in the US, with Home Before Dark (Columbia). It’s his second recorded with Rick Rubin, the producer who resurrected Johnny Cash’s career and stripped him back to the core of who he was. And, as with 12 Songs, Rubin’s again worked to cut away the Vegas flash that Diamond had become immersed in over the years.

He’s not been quite that successful, there’s something Teflon about Diamond’s glitzy showmanship that refuses to be rubbed away, though it’s more evident in his stage performances and banter with the audiences than on the songs themselves. Rubin’s also not managed to rein in Diamond’s tendency to carry on a song long after its natural end, thus several of the album’s tracks extend beyond the six minute mark for not good reason, Don’t Go There repeating the title ad infinitum to fade and Another Day (That Time Forgot)’s duet with Natalie Maines have them singing ‘oh no’ at the end for what feels like the length of a whole other song.

That said, singing pretty much exclusively about finding, losing or holding on to love, it’s a substantial set of material, with Diamond’s deep tones in good emotion quivering voice. Indeed, Whose Hands Are These, If I Don’t See You Again, One More Bit Of The Apple, and No Words sound like they could make pretty dramatic live versions while the title track offers a chance for some solo spotlight gentle acoustic work.

But, do they rank alongside say, I Am I Said, Holly Holy, Solitary Man, Done Too Soon, Soolaimon, Cante Libra or Girl, You’ll Be A Woman soon? Almost certainly not. Besides, you’ll probably only get three or at most four from the new album in the set which generally tends to be a crowd pleaser singalong best of with Crackling Rosie, Sweet Caroline, Song Sung Blue and Forever In Blue Jeans there. Fair enough, but it would have been even more to Rubin’s credit if he could have got Diamond to sing these like he used to, with the same heartfelt passion rather than turning them into showtune moments. Indeed, if he could have persuaded him to do Red Red Wine with its old desolate ache rather than the jaunty UB40 arrangement he’s been doing for the past couple of decades, then that would have been the greatest achievement of all. 7.30pm. £70-£50. NIA

Two years ago Joan Wasser bid goodbye to a life as a session player and stepped into her own spotlight with Real Life, an album that sparked comparisons with Debbie Harrie, Carly Simon and Nina Simone with its piano based ballads and feathery, husked vocals. Anticipation has been high ever since, and it’s a relief to say her sophomore release, To Survive (Reveal) doesn’t disappoint.

It’s a lot less orchestrated than the debut, her moody piano melodies often streaked with beats or scratchy guitars, and while she still talks about herself as punk rock R&B, the opening track, Honor Wishes, shows her to be much more about intoxicating smoky cellar bar blues. Recorded just after her mother’s death, it’s inevitably veined with dark moments and, pushing her voice upfront, a personal intimacy, heard to soul shivering effect on Start Of My Heart, To Be Lonely (very classic Brill Building), and the stately, almost hymnal title track.

But she has a spring in the step too on the dreamy To Be Loved where she sounds like she could be a female Randy Newman, the stained glamour of Magpies, and the almost bossa nova Hard White Wall.

And she delivers a punch too, Furious sticking it to political apathy and the closing To America where, joined by Rufus Wainwright and a brass section that shifts mood from mournful to celebratory, she examines the state of her nation.

It’s not, perhaps, as immediate as its predecessor, but after a few plays and sampling the material live, you’ll find it nestling among your most regularly played for some while to come. 7.30pm. £12.50. Glee Club

Ah yes, the rock n roll swindle returns for one last con. The reunion that was never going to happen, happened. Then it happened again. And now it’s become yet another tour. And if you think the sight of 60 year old heavy metal singers still belting out cockrock songs about dirty women and boozed nights is all faintly embarrassing, then what will you make of the 52 year old former Johnny Rotten, a man who said “all we're trying to do is destroy everything” and

whose group once caused councils to ban them from their venues. but has now appeared on I’m A Celebrity, wildlife documentaries and a travelogue of Britain, sneering his way through Anarchy In The UK and God Save The Queen?

Patently in it for the ‘filthy lucre’, as their first comeback tour was billed, (Messrs Jones, Matlock and Cook likely to be in greater need than Lydon), it will naturally have unreconstructed punks digging out the safety pins and torn clothing to relive the days when they thought singing Pretty Vacant and E.M.I was somehow going to cause the collapse of Western Civilisation. Or at least annoy the teachers. Still, given they only ever had a dozen songs, and it’s hard to imagine the others churning out any PiL material, it will at least be over in time to get a few more beers in before bedtime. 7.30pm. Sold Out. Carling Academy

Hailed as the Duffy and Adele of the next young folk generation, the 18 year old songstress goes from strength to strength. Filtering Bonnie Prince Billy through the prism of Joni Mitchell but with a keen hold of her English heritage, her Alas, I Cannot Swim album pins heartbreak with the precision of a butterfly collector. The skitteringly catchy, strings kissed Ghosts having got your attention, she keeps ears and heart entranced on trad hewn ballads such as the bluesy Old Stone and shantified The Captain and the Hourglass, the jogging summer buoyancy of You're No Good where she hints at the young Thea Gilmore, a gypsy coloured My Manic And I and the dark, rumbling fever chills of Night Terror.

With a Philip Larkin poem providing the foundations for Tap At My Window's early hours wearied romance jazzed folk suggesting her library's probably as tastefully well stocked as her CD collection, Failure's compassionate wisdom and the sheer raw unadorned trembling beauty and hurt of her voice on Shine, a song Janis Joplin and Billie Holiday would have killed for, this is patently a remarkable new talent with a future as rich as the past from which she's born.

Out and about plugging new single Cross My Fingers (EMI) as a warm up to Glastonbury, this is the last night of her tour of playing intimate gigs in English churches. If you think I’m going to say it’ll be a religious experience, you’re dead right. 7pm. £10. St Pauls, St Paul's Square

More Scandopop, this lot come from Denmark but are much more about the Cheddar than the Edam. Another of the current crop of electro poppers who cite Yazoo as an influence, they also talk of Chic, B52, Bowie and, er, Men Without Hats as informing their undeniably catchy 80s dance pop.

Certainly Fascination was a relentlessly perky affair of handclaps and Phil Collins drums, not to mention ripping of Billy Ocean’s Red Light Means Danger, while follow up 10,000 Nights continues along much the same lines while adding a dash of Mari Wilson to the bouncy mix.

Now you can get a whole album of the stuff with their self-titled debut (Charisma) where the likes of the synth led mid-tempo Boyfriend (think Stefani meets Lauper), an ELO like What Is Happening?, Fantastic 6’s march beat glam, a glittery Rubber Boots and Don't Go Out Tonight will burrow through your ears and refuse to vacate the cerebral cortex. 7.30pm. £8.50. Carling Academy 2

Formed in 1981 by former Depeche Mode man Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet, the electro-pop duo took the next two years by the scruff of the neck, starting with debut single Only You (still a classic) and following through with Don’t Go and Nobody’s Diary and best selling albums Upstairs At Erics and You And Me Both. Then, in 1983 they split, Clarke going on to form Erasure and Moyet carving a solo career as one of the country’s top vocalists.

She fell out of fashion for a while but her last album found her back at the top of her game and reaping critical and commercial success once again. Which makes the timing of this Yazoo Reconnected reunion all a bit odd, though, it has to be said, Erasure are certainly not the chart force they once were and I’m sure both of them wouldn’t mind an injection into the bank accounts.

With only two album’s worth of material to draw on, the set list probably won’t feature any surprises, but it’ll be good to hear them back together again and, while any permanent reunion or new recording seems unlikely, they are doing some new remixes to go with a box set and a Live CD of the London shows is planned. 7.30pm. £45. W’hampton Civic Hall

There’s not any new material in the wings to follow up the After The Morning album with its Celtic soft folk rock Never In A Million Years and the trad flavours of Streets of Derry and the self-penned The Snows They Melt The Soonest. There is, though, her debut DVD, The Redcastle Sessions, which, along with several fan favourites, including Black Is The Colour, Never In A Million Years and I Am A Youth That's Inclined To Ramble, features a haunting acoustic duet with John Smith on the plaintive If I Prove False that’s been re-recorded with Nashville fiddle legend Stuart Duncan to form the new single.

She’s supported by Sheffield singer-songwriter Helen Boulding whose debut album New Red Dress (Maid In Sheffield) attracted such name co-writers as Chris Difford, the Verve's Simon Tong and former Floyd Rick Wright while none other than Bryan Adams took the cover photo.

But take away the famous names and she still stands tall. The opening Way To Go is a classic slice of the sort of big guitars and swirling chorus lines pop-rock that once lifted Texas to dizzy heights while What A Fool swaggers along on a punchy mid-tempo. Copenhagen, Walk Away, More Than Missing You and IDKWIW check all the boxes for those awaiting the new Maria McKee and I Can't Stop Myself From Loving You is evidence that she's possibly got a few early 70s Carole King and Dusty albums in the collection. As with many first albums, there's a couple of numbers that don't quite measure up to the peaks, but with a seven minuet This I Swear showing she can sustain musical mood and emotion, it marks an impressive calling card that's destined to have earned her a sizeable following and reputation before the year's out. 7.30pm. £13.50. Wulfrun Hall

Another Irish singer-songwriter looking to make a name, Glover hails from County Antrim and apparently spent quite a while listening to Tom Waits and Dylan. Indeed, the opening track of debut album The Weeks The Clocks Changed (Mr Jones) is actually titled No Direction Home. However, he sounds much more like he wants to be a new Ryan Adams or Steve Earle, which is perhaps why his backing band’s called The Earls.

Recorded in Nashville with legendary producer JD Foster, he’s got some heavyweight names chipping, not least Al Perkins, Vince Gill and Buddy Miller, and there’s a definite Americana feel to his Celtic soul. You can understand why they’d want to be involved. Glover’s got a distinctive dusty twang to the throat and he writes strong, melodic songs about love and taking chances veined with memorable, poetic images, certainly ones likely to spent some profitable time doing the rounds of Nashville’s own recording stars.

Both the slow acoustic Atlantic Eyes and, reprised from his debut EP, storysong The Ballad of Carla Boone hint at Springsteen and are among the stand out cuts, but there’s little here that doesn’t measure up. The jauntily upbeat Things Haven’t Started Happening Yet harks to early Steve Forbert, Daybreaker has a similar wearied quality to David Gray back when he was interesting, while Strong Enough For This could stand alongside the Jayhawks, Melodies Of Midnight hints at the early country explorations of the Stones and Tennessee Take Me has that early Earle glow.

But for all the comparisons, Glover emerges as his own voice, and with the likes of the soulful Mercury Is Falling and the organ backed Midnight Scarlett where he conjures a singing Second Street siren who ‘rattles choirs of angels’, it’s one you’ll be wanting to hear more from. 8pm. Free. Island Bar, Queensway

A Redditch four piece who’ve been turning heads and won a recent Carling unsigned bands competition, judging by upcoming single With Or Without Your Help they know something about penning strong hooks and investing muscular emotion. That said, an early demo of Broken Hearts and Broken Dreams and single B side Anywhere also shows there’s a danger of slipping into regulation meat and potatoes pub riff rock of the rock trio variety. A little more work and polish though and they’ll be worth the bookmark. 7pm. £6. Carling Academy 2

Remember him? Big for five years with three albums all making the Top 5 and notching up No 1 singles with Fill Me In and 7 Days and coming close with Walking Away and Sting, he was one of the faces of British r&b. Then things just seemed to fizzle out. He piggy backed into the Top 20 with Kano for This Is The Girl last September and Hot Stuff made the Top 10 two months later, most likely because it borrowed from Bowie’s Let’s Dance but brassy big band disco follow up 6 Of 1 Thing barely scratched the Top 40 and accompanying album Trust Me (Warner) struggled to dent the Top 20.

Maybe the fans missed the goatee, or maybe they just moved on, but there’s been considerably less enthusiasm this time. Which is odd since Kinda Girl For Me does a smoochy job of embracing The Stylistics’ You Are Everything, Just A Reminder is creamy George Michael summer soul, Don’t Play With Our Love sophisticated Latin dance, Awkward classy vintage Motown and Officially Yours pure smoothie end of romance pop. Still, there should be enough loyal fans still clinging to the memories not to make this too embarrassingly low on numbers. 7.30pm. £27.50. Alexandra Theatre

The falsetto voiced singer-songwriter, remains more critics favourite than sales shifter, but he still turns out the material. He’s currently working two albums, Nuclear Daydream and last year’s Let’s Just Be. The former’s familiar mellow pop with numbers like Enough To Get Away, Electrical Storm and Don’t Tell Your Eyes, piano ballad Don’t Give Up On People evoking Lennon while When I Was Running Out Of Time recalls vintage acoustic Bowie.

By contrast, while there’s softer moments in Chicago and Lack A Vision, the material on the newer band album is altogether a more rockier affair; the opening Diamond Ring all very Stonesy r&b, Good Life fuzzing boogie with Bolan shades, Cocaine Feet indulging Hendrixisms, and coming over all psychedelic freakage with Spaceman. Fans of Arthur’s acoustic guitar persona might find themselves drawn to the bar should too many of these surface tonight, though the prospect of hearing advance tasters for this year’s album, Temporary People, along with cuts from the four EPs as yet only scheduled for US release, shouldn’t keep them away for long. 7.30pm. £10. Glee Club

Taking the show on tour for the first time, it’s unclear exactly what the format will be but it’s being hosted by Britain’s Got More Talent presenter Stephen Mulhern and the line-up features all the finalists, Cheeky Monkeys likely to be first on to warm things up with a dollop of cute before bedtime.

Not to knock him and his determination, but it’s hard to fathom how George Sampson got voted the winner given that his street dance never looked that impressive and largely consisted of getting showered, waving his arms around and falling flat on his back in the water. Even harder to understand is how neither Faryl Smith (forget Kathleen Jenkins, she could be the new Kiri Te Kanawa) nor sexily electric string quartet Escala failed to make the final three. Both seem likely to achieve far more in the long term than Sampson (two of Escala were previously in similar classical quintet Wild who were signed to EMI) and both are pretty much guaranteed to bring the house down on the tour.

Choir boy Andrew Muir has a stunning angelic voice, but he’s going to have to pull out the stops to project both that and some sort of live charisma if he’s not going to be lost in the arena.

On the dance front, while Nemesis seem certain to deliver a highly charged routine, the live show may well reveal the inherent limitations to martial arts act Strike while Signature’s marriage of bhangra, Jackson style moves and comedy may prove a bit of a one-trick pony; especially if they continue to end each routine in exactly the same way. And Kate & Gin? It’s a woman with a performing dog. How many times can you see it walk on its back legs and jump over her arm before the novelty wanes? 7.30pm. £32.50/£29.50. NIA

One of the world’s finest purveyors of melancholy Americana, Brett and Rennie Sparks make music that conjures images of dust hung desert nights and Appalachian mountains silhouetted against the evening sky as they sit round the camp fire singing existential but humanist songs of loss, death and damnation.

But you can’t be on a downer all the time, so, their current Last Days of Wonder is a relatively upbeat affair, still singing about a world waltzing towards self-destruction but celebrating the wonders of love and life before the light goes out.

Wandering between hillbilly, tin pan alley, careworn honky tonk and even medieval melodies, the songs visit bowling alleys (Bowling Alley Blues), airport lounges (All The Time In Airports) and graveyards (White Lights), unfold trad style ballads about hunters unwittingly killing their enchanted lovers (Hunter Green) or just find beauty in the sight of shoes hanging on telephone wires (These Golden Jewels).

They’ll be dipping into the melting pot of their sizeable repertoire tonight, but whatever finds its way to the set list you can guarantee to be entranced. 7.30pm. £11. Glee Club (+ Wed 18, 7.30pm £11, Tin Angel, Coventry)

It’s been almost 30 years since the Burton on Trent born Jackson was being likened to Elvis Costello with early new wave hits like Is She Really Going Out With Him and It’s Different For Girls. Always musically ambitious, his interests in jazz, blues and Latin eventually saw him shrugging off his pop skin, going on to record the Grammy winning classical album Symphony No 1 back in 1999.

However, in recent years he’s been rediscovering his early roots, reuniting with the musicians with whom he recorded the classic Look Sharp, Beat Crazy and I’m The Man albums while last year saw in touring Europe as a piano, bass, drums trio with Graham Maby and Dave Houghton. That’s the guitar-free line up on current album Rain (Ryko) and presumably the one for this rare set of UK dates. The album (which comes with a live DVD) finds Jackson melding his pop, soul and jazz influences to shining effect for a sophisticated but firmly accessible collection of the personal and the political that stands among his very best work.

Indeed, listening to King Pleasure Time, the spiky Good Bad Boy and Invisible Man sound as if he travelled back in time to the days of those early albums but with all the musical experience he’d gathered over the years.

It’s packed with classy moments, be they the inspirational swelling show tune A Place In The Rain, the classical piano informed moodiness of Solo (So Low) where he pulls together Satie and Sedaka, a cool vibe Cannonball Adderley channelling The Uptown Train or the stylish 70s jazz-soul ballad Wasted Time where he pulls the falsetto out of the closet. And if Too Tough isn’t a live showstopper, then I don’t know what is. He’ll not be allowed to get away without revisiting fan favourites from the back catalogue, the trio format promising some exciting rearrangements, but it’s really the new material that should be getting your spine tingling. 7.30pm. £23.50. W’hampton Civic Hall

Over from Kentucky, the five piece are essentially your regulation blue collar Southern American bar band, churning out angular dirty riffs and bourbon soaked rock n roll. They just do it better than most. Launching their self-titled debut album (Relentless), they weld together such classic influences as the Stooges, the early Stones, and Guns n Roses as well as evoking thoughts of more recent like-minded practitioners The Strokes and Jet. There’s slide guitar licks, there’s pummelling drums, hell, there’s even cowbells. Plus there’s dynamic frontman Matt Schultz adding his own explosive stage presence to Lincoln Parrish’s volcanic guitar work.

Driving through songs that address social disaffection, disillusion with the government, the working man grind, and, naturally, cutting loose and taking a drink with the devil, they pile on the melodic punch and sheer garage stomp with the likes of the slurring blues Back Stabbin’ Betty, snarling jerk rhythm assault Tiny Little Robots, a steamrollering psychedelic rock fused Soil To The Sun, catchy bar swaggering first single In One Ear and swampy slide and sleazed speak sing follow up Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked that threatens to turn the gig into a massive singalong chorus. Catch them now, they’ll be packing out stadiums this time next year. 7.30pm. £6.50. Bar Academy

Stilling going strong on their 30th anniversary, David Coverdale and the boys hit town with both a solid, bruising new album, their first in a decade, and a career spanning worth of hard rock box set. The former’s Good To Be Bad (SPV), an album Coverdale describes as ‘very butch’. That it is, belting out vintage bluesy ‘snake venom metal on such numbers as Best Years, a hard riff Zep partying Got What You Need, Can You Hear The Wind Blow and air punching Lay Down your Love as well as laying out their quieter side on the acoustic slide guitar blues-folk balladeering ‘Til The End Of Time.

Slicing choice cuts from the new material, they’ll also be doing a good job flagging up the three disc compilation which features obligatory chart stormers like Would I Lie To You, Fool For Your Loving, Here I Go Again and Lie Down...I think I Love You alongside lesser known recordings and a juicy clutch of live numbers that include Walking In The Shadow Of The Blues, Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City and an acoustic version of Deep Purple’s Soldier Of Fortune. Forget the young metal whelps, Coverdale is still a hard rock god.

Co-headliners Def Leppard are also revisiting former glories, though in their case they come with diminished returns on new album Songs From The Sparkle Lounge (Mercury) which simply recycles past riffs and dated hard rock cliches without any added new inspiration. Gotta Let It Go sees them trying on old Blue Oyster Cult cast offs, Hallucinate is cod Bryan Adams, Come Undone wants to be Bon Jovi, Bad Actress sinks to Motley Crue rejects and C’mon C’mon bizarrely sounds like they want to be the Glitter Band. They play like they still mean it, and Joe Elliott is on good vocal form, but it’s hard to imagine too many people sharing the enthusiasm. 7.30pm. £37.50. NEC

Roaring out of the angst traps with You Oughta Know and Ironic, her chart career pretty much peaked here with Thank U, her second and last Top 10 entry. Since when both singles and albums have failed to persuade punters to re-engage interest. Indeed, recent single Underneath failed to even struggle into the Top 40. To further rain on her parade, she also got dumped by Ryan Reynolds who then got engaged to Scarlett Johansson, a body blow that fed into the writing of new album Flavors of Entanglement (Warner) with lines like Tapes’ “I am someone easy to leave, the one they all run from”.

However, instead of her old spurned woman rage, she’s mellowed out and now looks to move on through yoga and meditation. Not surprisingly the new agey Moratorium isn’t exactly another You Oughta Know.

That whiny vocal remains as distinctive as ever but working with producer Guy Sigsworth finds her messing about with dance beats and frequently sounding like Bjork, neither of which seem likely to encourage a run on the record stores. It’s not a total waste of space. The opening Citizen of The Planet has some interesting chill world music textures and metal piston hisses bubbling through the snaked rhythms as she looks to turn herself into some female Peter Gabriel, Underneath is a blatant but promising attempt to revisit her early albums while the emotionally naked (“I miss the thought of us bringing up our kids”) Amos-like piano ballad Torch proves a standout. But then you get Versions of Violence which is just a poor mans Evanescence, and really, who needs that. Not Ryan Reynolds, obviously. 7.30pm. £28.50. Carling Academy

Jangly guitar Scots from Fife, the quartet have been variously likened to The Beatles, the Smiths and the LAs. None of these seem especially in evidence on the material so far released though at a push you might hear a fresh faced Oasis peeking through the 60s pop tunes. Having earned glowing reviews with choppy debut single K’Ok, they follow up with the even more frolicking in the grass summery Sunshine. But they’re both lightweight, breezy tracks and neither Counting Down The Days or the jaunty Away With The Fairies from the as yet untitled upcoming album suggest there’s any more muscle to the band to enable them to fight their way through the crowd. 7.30pm. £6. Bar Academy

Over here last year to cash in on their comeback success with Operation: Mindcrime II, they’ve obviously sussed a way of milking it further. So they’re back now with a full scale prog metal theatrical production of both that and the original, performing them both together for the first time in the UK with a three hour set (complete with interval) that will feature not just the band but a supporting cast acting out the whole storyline. Which, if you’ve not been keeping up, involves political puppet master Dr X brainwashing main character Nikki into assassinating corrupt public figures while his teenage prostitute sister turned nun Mary wind sup getting murdered. The sequel picks things up 20 years later as, released from prison, Nikki sets out to seek vengeance on her killer while the band tell us how revenge can screw up your life. Bet you can’t wait. 7.30pm. £22.50. W’hampton Civic Hall

Saturday June 21

Stone Gods

Rising phoenix like from the ashes of The Darkness after Justin Hawkins jumped ship and was last seen petulantly throwing a tantrum after being deffed out as last year’s Eurovision entry, now fronted by former bassist Richie Edwards the new incarnation is a far tougher proposition. Having instantly sold out their initial Burn The Witch EP with its Slade meets Sabbath title track, they’re in town to launch follow up single Knight Of The Living Dead, a clenched fist of heavy metal in the Sabbath and Maiden tradition that doesn’t exactly set out to push any envelopes.

They’ll be showcasing material from next month’s Silver Spoons And Broken Bones (Integral), a debut album that promises to have fun with the metal axe hero cliches and poses as they swagger their way through fret racing flurry Don’t Drink The Water (imagine a hard rock Mud), Lizzy meets the Faces barroom air punchers Where You Coming From and Start Of Something, the Bon Jovi pop metal of Start Of Something and Wasted Time and the surely Bryan Adams terrace anthem fan letter to a boozy good time (“we won’t stand for early hours, we won’t stand for closing time”) Oh Whereo My Beero.

And, just to show they don’t have to amp it up all the time, Magadalene Street is a fine and smartly written Ronnie Lane style folksy ballad that should prove a set favourite and the jangle guitar soaring Lazy Bones, both numbers that should have Hawkins tearing his hair out in jealous envy. “We don’t want people shouting for Darkness songs,” says Edwards. With one of the year’s best albums under their belts, chances of that should be slim. 7pm. £12. Carling Academy 2

Sunday June 22

Goldfrapp

Anyone expecting to get a repeat of the electro beats of the duo’s Supernature album will have been much bemused by follow up Seventh Tree (Mute), a floaty, pastoral affair with dreamy orchestral ballads, acoustic guitars and Alison G in whispery, sensually breathy mood, crafted in Somerset with ambitions to Wicker Man inspired surreal folk.

New single Caravan Girl is an uptempo poppy affair with a driving piano riff and jubilant melody, but everything else is languid and blissed, shaded in summery and autumnal colours. The intro to opening track Clowns (a song about breast implants!) hints at the Beatles Don’t Let Me Down before drifting into lazy gossamer clouds, Little Birds is a mellatron wheezing psychedelic folk song that Syd Barrett would have loved, Happiness all skipping ropes and meadows that belies lyrics that may be about dubious alt-therapy cults, while A&E is probably the loveliest song you’ll ever hear about taking an overdose after the end of a romance. There’s more than a touch of classic Kate Bush to Some People and the heart ache of Eat Yourself while Cologne Cerrone Houdini sounds like an audition for some Spanish chill out movie, all coming together to make this a fabulous aural answer to aromatherapy. Just don’t expect this to be the dance heavy night you’d have expected from the likes of Ooh La La, Lovely 2 C U and Ride A White Horse. 7.30pm. £22. Symphony Hall

Sunday June 22

Merz

Three years on from comeback album Loveheart, Huddersfield’s Conrad Lambert returns, still with indie label Gronland, for follow-up Moi Et Mon Camion. Despite the title, it’s mercifully not sung in French, but then the melancholy here probably translates to any language. The last album was partly informed by having got married, this one deals with being evicted and a general sense of dislocation, most directly so on the folksily acoustic title track named for his removal firm and subtitled The Eviction Song just so you get the point.

Elseswhere, he’s musically more into the electronics which doesn’t always suit the otherwise stripped down nature of the material, cases in point being Shun with its drum beats and somewhat messy, cluttered arrangement and Presume Too Much in which he’s simply lost amid the overdone strings and synths. Rather better are the warm and wheezy glockenspiel spiked Malcolm and the fairytale quality eerie atmospherics of the scuffed summery strummed No Bells Left To Chime and the dreamy lullaby waltzing The First & Last Waltz. If he was going to more certain of paying the rent, it could probably have done with a couple more like the short upbeat pop of Lucky Adam, but if having to keep packing the cardboard boxes means he keeps writing things like the under open night skies cosmic folk of Silver Moon Ladders then lets hope he never gets a mortgage. 7.30pm. £8. Glee Club

Monday June 23

The Music

The Leeds nu-rave trance rockers hit the road to large up Strength In Numbers (Polydor), an album that seems to suggest they spent a long time sifting through their 70s and 80s record collections to flesh out the Stone Roses references.

It’s hard not to find yourself playing spot the comparison. The title track, Fire and Vision all offer up Duran Duran while elsewhere they’re channelling Eurythmics (The Spike), Blondie (Drugs even opens with Atomic’s electro riff), Portishead trip hop (Idle), Zep’s eastern flavours (The Left Side), Frankie Goes To Hollywood (Get Through It) and even Siouxie and the Banshees (No Weapon Sharper Than Will).

The good news is that they’re not slaves to their influences, taking from but not simply recycling. So rather than sounding dated, there’s an invigorating freshness and fire to the familiarity, creating a new house party vibe that recalls their debut album but more promisingly looks to a healthy future that’s as likely to appeal to folk raves as much as the glo-stick brigade.

Support comes from Barnsley quartet Exit Calm, whose marriage of ethereal ambience and fuzzed guitar eruptions on recent single cuts Higher Learning and Awake suggests a cross between Spiritualized, My Bloody Valentine and Sigur Ros. They’ll be previewing the equally soaringly cinematic follow up We're On Our Own and material from next year’s debut album, so you can start salivating in anticipation. 7.30pm. £13.50. Wulfrun Hall

Tuesday June 24

Thea Gilmore

With a string of critically acclaimed literate, intelligent, melodic and passionately delivered albums under her belt, it’s hard to understand why Gilmore’s still not the international star her talent warrants. However, it’s hard to see how even the most cloth-eared Katie Melua devotee could fail to be blown away by Liejacker (Fullfill), which may well be her career masterpiece. Which, given the quality of its predecessor, Harpo’s Ghost, is saying something.

Having recently entered the realms of motherhood (last time she played here there was a very real chance she’d give birth on stage), the album’s steeped in a new, deeper maturity, rich in dark emotions and headily textured melodies and arrangements. A fine grained blend of social comment and refletive emotion, she herself has called it 'the lovechild of whisky and heartache', and her most personal album yet.

It’s intoxicating stuff, both deceptively beguiling and subtly insidious. Dave McCabe from the Zutons lends his vocals to the wonderfully wearied, malt and woodsmoke folk of opening track Old Soul, but then Black Letter heads away from what might be seen as typical Gilmore into more Zep blues-folk smouldering, a crooning chorus framed by nerve-scratching strings scraped edginess that echo the experience of depression from which it and much of the album was forged.

It’s a mood to which she returns in a lower register for the spare, percussive rumbling Roll On and its turmoil of love, rejection and resentment while, making use of cutlery, grill pan and chimney hood, The Wrong Side is a clattery burlesque carnival of souls parade down the slopes of self-loathing that surely tips the nod to Tom Waits at his most carny.

Elsewhere, her roots are teased out to understated but seductive effect. A duet with Erin McKeown. the seven minute Cohenesque Dance In New York is a pizzicato slow waltzing of defiance and the refusal to be constrained by compromises imposed by others, And You Shall Know No Other God But Me a folk spiritual about shaking off dependencies delivered in fever-sick hushed and husked voice accompanied by a simple, repetitive spooked dobro phrase.

If the jaunty Rosie contemplates packing bags and running away, leaving behind hairbrush, red shoes and ‘a little boy who looks like you’, the album’s prevailing note is one of survival and catharsis. It may be, as the rolling acoustic blues says, a Slow Journey but both the strummed Breathe with its gathering melodic force and the mandolin led revivalist folk gospel jugband When I Get Back To Shore have faith that the end is within grasp. She even bursts into a laugh mid way through the latter.

There are times when Gilmore’s now well seasoned voice conjures thoughts of Joan Baez, so it seems fitting that the legend herself duets on the closing (save for the bonus folksy cover of You Spin Me Right Round) diamond, The Lower Road which, with fiddle by Steve Wickham from the Waterboys, brings together the personal and political in images of conflict both on foreign shores and deep within, and the faith in endurance. A song that could have come from Baez’s own treasure trove, it sends a shiver down the spine. But then, that’s something Thea’s been doing since she first started singing. 7.30pm. £15. Glee Club

Tuesday June 24

Bon Jovi

Current album, Lost Highway (Mercury) may find JBJ getting in touch with his inner Nashville but it’s still the basic top down, highway cruising FM stadium rock album of which they’re acknowledged masters, even if they’ve not had a hit single here in a decade. They play their best card first with the title track and its line about ‘dashboard Jesus’, twangy guitar and ‘hey hey’ chorus whoop. After that it’s straight into crunchy Arena friendly pop with Summertime, lighters aloft power ballad swayer (You Want To) Make A Memory.

Any Other Day heads back to Garth Brooks plays The Eagles territory and they pretty much then repeat the same formula to the end, roping in Leann Rimes to play Dolly to Jon’s Kenny for some mainstream AOR country cred. Doubtless the highlights here will be taking their place alongside proven crowd pleaser hits like You Give Love A Bad Name, Living On A Prayer, Bed Of Roses and Someday I'll Be Saturday Night. Just cross your fingers they don’t op to include the recent good ol’boys partying We Got It Goin’ On, quite easily one of the most banal empty-headed things they’ve ever recorded. £75-£37.50. 7.30pm Ricoh Arena, Coventry

Thursday June 26

Mystery Jets

Blaine Harrison’s dad may no longer be part of the touring line-up, but the lads don’t need any gimmicky angles to sell themselves or their music. Certainly not in the light of sophomore album Twenty One (Sixsevenine), a marvellously skewed collection of songs that tip the hat to 80s synth pop (Two Doors Down), Syd Barrett era Floyd (Umbrellahead), 70s summery pop soul (Young Love) and, on Flakes, the quivering big ballad emotions of Chris Martin.

The Duran strokes to MJ might be a little overcooked and the slightly Haircut 100 meets The Smiths of Half In Love With Elizabeth could do without the vocal whoops, but the likes of the smartly observed Veiled In Grey and the high-voiced, high-strung suicide themed piano ballad 21 are more than enough to keep on the contenders list for another year. 7.30pm. £10. Barfly

Saturday June 28

The Zutons

For a while there it looked as if the Scousers might be fated to be known best only as the band who provided Amy Winehouse with one of her biggest hits when she covered Valerie. However, new album You Can Do Anything (Deltasonic) shows they’re determined to be noticed for themselves.

Curious then they’ve tried to do that by pretending they’re the Black Crowes on Harder and Harder and bluesy stomping fat saxy Give Me A Reason (which even throws in cowbells and some Skids style guitar skirls), doing old school McCartney rock n roll with You Could Make The Four Walls Cry and sounding bizarrely like the poppier Rubber Bullets side of 10cc for the single Always Right Behind You.

There’s a couple of stabs at countrified pop on Don’t Get Caught and Little Red Door, Put A Little Aside has strains of Scotpop soul while with songs that deal with scroungers, being unfaithful, and violence they clearly have a few things they want to get off their chest about life in contemporary Britain. But take away Abi Harding's saxophone that tramples over most of the numbers, and you start to notice that, while delivered with muscle, there’s not actually much solid bone to the material and while there’s flashes of brilliance, it’s unlikely Amy will be proving any second substantial royalty cheques this time around.

Support’s provided by sunny sea shanty busker folk pop types Noah and The Whale who’ll be providing tasters of the upcoming debut album but who, for some reasons, have opted to follow up the recent Kinks-like Shape Of My Heart by reissuing last year’s whistling Jonathan Richman-ish Five Years Time. Also along will be Dublin singer-songwriter Fionn Regan dipping into tracks from his The End of History album with its various echoes of John Fahey, Loudon Wainwright and Paul Simon. 7pm. £26. Cannock Chase Forest.

Sunday June 29

Kathleen Edwards

Bursting on to the country rock scene fully formed with the whisky fumed tales of bruised love on Failer, the Ottawa singer-songwriter followed up with a more standard issue Back To Me which, while not exactly disappointing, didn’t really advance matters.

She’s here now with Asking For Flowers (Zoe) which shows her honing her strengths and shedding any flabbiness and is confident enough to open with Buffalo’s five minutes of moody meandering blues and folk before hitting you with the more instant attack of the gunslinger guitar rocking The Cheapest Key.

There’s barely a misstep throughout as she weaves infectious melodies and strong storytelling through the likes of Oh Canada’s Neil Young-inflected tale of drugs, murder and racism, the chiming guitars driven Oil Man’s War account of two lovers’ flight from becoming part a conflict in which they didn’t believe, and the spare Alicia Ross which sounds like something from a distaff Nebraska.
The Southern dust coated plaintive Sure As Shit probably won’t be figuring on daytime radio anytime soon, but as long as she keeps coming up with material as witty as I Make The Dough, You Get The Glory or as potent as the six minute, mournful strings streamed Goodbye, California she’ll never want for an audience. 7.30pm. £11. Glee Club

Sunday June 29

The Charlatans

They may not have the same high profile as their peak period in the mid 90s, but it would be foolish to write off Tim Burgess and the boys, especially given they’ve obviously got the pulling clout to headline a gig like this.

New album You Cross My Path (Cooking Vinyl) finds them on reliable form with a clutch of dance friendly, organ driven indie pop and the occasional hint of krautrock and more than a passing touch of New Order. While Oh! Vanity has the makings of a glorious pop hit single and Bad Days throbs like a bass beast, there’s probably nothing here to bring in new audiences that will restore them to the days of former glories and things do slump around The Misbegotten and a dreary A Day For Letting Go. But those who’ve stuck with them over the years will be elbowing their way to the front to call out for the likes of the New Order hugging Mis-takes, the summery Bird/Reprise and the anthemic stomping This Is The End.

Support’s provided by the brilliantly named Glasvegas, a Glaswegian four-piece who fuse the Jesus and Mary Chain with Roy Orbison and side orders of Spector, the Velvets, and Proclaimers into soaring, anthemic four minute bursts of pop like current single Geraldine (Columbia). They’ll be huge. 7.30pm. £26. Cannock Chase Forest

Monday June 30

The National

Here last year promoting recent album Boxer, Brooklyn’s finest return in service of The Virginia EP (Beggars Banquet), which, while offering little new, gathers together demos, B sides and a couple of live recordings to take the track number up to a dozen.

Originally the B side to Lit Up, You’ve Done It Again, Virginia sees them join forces with Sufjan Stevens for a rolling piano and brass Tindersticks style slice of mid-tempo folk Americana, while, taken from Mistaken For Strangers, the train rhythm Blank Slate does their New Order meets Ian McCulloch bit and Santaclara is a lovely lugubrious wallow.

There’s one new recording, a cover of Bristolian anti-folker Caroline Martin’s Without Permission, and while of the demos, both Tall Saint and the mournful Forever After Days would be worth taking to the next level in future. The remainder consists of an excellent radio session of Lucky You that shows Matt Berninger’s baritone to good effect, plus three live recordings; the backwoods cover of Springsteen’s Mansion On The Hill, an eight minute About Today and a spine-tingling Fake Empire which is probably the only number here to figure in a set list more likely to emphasise other Boxer highlights like Ada, Apartment Story and Start A War. 7.30pm. £14. Carling Academy

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