Monday October 1

Jeffrey Foucault

A young but age old voiced troubadour and picker steeped in midwest folk and blues, Foucault keeps his dark veined songs spare and simple as he mines the roots of Americana and its mythology of guilt, redemption and quests with images of  leaving trains, weary souls, dreams turned to dust, and ghosts of the past.

He’s not touring a new album this time around, but he is repromoting Ghost Repeater. Perhaps because he got wed during the writing period, it’s  a slightly more upbeat set than his norm, even containing a  couple of numbers, One for Sorrow and Tall Grass in Old Virginny, about weddings and marriage.

But it’s also still packed with his sharp observations and striking vignettes; the roots-rocky title track concerning America’s networks of identikit bland radio stations without any local presence, One Part Love relocating the familiar American roadsong mythology in the north east of England, and Americans In Corduroys picking up a recurring theme of travel. Well worth exploring, especially if he’s still including his melancholic stripped down cover of Creedence’s Lodi.

 Imagine a world weary blend of Steve Earle, John Prine and Harry Chapin, and you have a rough idea of how Nashville singer-songwriter opening act Stephen Simmons sounds. Raised in a conservative Church that banned musical instruments, his last album, Drink Ring Jesus dealt in themes of faith and redemption with a hefty dose of religious imagery. However, the follow-up, Something In between (Rounder) is more concerned with songs of the bruised heart (Go Easy On Me), broken relationships (Long Road), emotional uncertainties (Down Tonight) and men sitting alone in bars (Don’t Mind Me) and hotel rooms (Cloudy In LA), drinking or crying away their regrets.

Stained with melancholy, but with a muscular melodic edge forged by harmonicas, ringing guitars, and tumbling rhythms to go with his dust-throated vocals, they’re purpose built for reflective sorrow drowning and the occasional sprinkle of self-pity, at their strongest on the plangent New Scratches, the border cantina flavoured Down Tonight and the restless soul road song All The Time I’ve Got. Open a cold one and help sing away the pain.  8pm. £9.50. Tower of Song, Pershore Rd South, Kings Norton

Monday October 1

Amy Macdonald

With her guitar driven amalgam of Celtic tinged folk and indie and emotionally articulate songs, the Glaswegian singer-songwriter’s well positioned to win hearts of  Cranberries, Tunstall and Thea Gilmore fans alike. She’s out and about promoting debut album This Is The Life (Vertigo), a grow on you collection of bouncy, catchy melodies, sharp lyrics and that gutsy honey and gravel voice. Current single LA has been picking up airplay, building on the  buzz laid down by the rattling Poison Prince and the jangling Tikaram-like Mr Rock And Roll, and there’s plenty of equally potent material nestling here in the shape of a moody Dolores O’Riordanish strings-laden Footballer’s Wife, the confident swagger and uncertainly on Let’s Start A Band with its operatic soaring, the title track’s urgent acoustic chugging road song and the tinkling, rhythmically rippling, swellingly anthemic Run that could give Snow Patrol a run for their money. Watch her rise. 8pm. £8. Glee Club

Monday October 1

Lightspeed Champion

Formerly with defunct London new rave art punk noisenicks Test Icicles, Houston born Dev Hynes’ new solo career has taken a very different direction. Now into Gram Parsons-style acoustic country, he’ll be unveiling debut album Fall Off The Lavender Bridge next year, doubtless offering tasters tonight of such titles as Everyone’s Listening To Crunk along with new single, the not that country at all really but a bit indie pop with strings Midnight Surprise (Domino). It does come with a pedal steel version, but then again accompanying demo No Surprise is a touch Bright Eyes and The Flesh Failures is a reworked strummed alt-folk version of Let The Sunshine In from Hair. So, who knows what to expect, really. Except, no screams.  7.30pm. £7. Bar Academy

Monday October 1

The Stars

Montreal’s electro pop quintet haven’t been around these parts for four years, since which time a third album has come and gone and they now arrive with a fourth, In Our Bedroom After The War (City Slang). They still sound like an amalgam of Human League, New Order and Saint Etienne with hits of The Smiths and Broken Social Scene, but this is by far the most accessible example yet of their airy pop.

 Opening tinkling instrumental The Beginning Of The End sets the mood, romantic yet edgy, quickly consolidated with the contrasts between The Night Starts Here’s nocturnal, starry sky shimmer and the walking bass line New Order meets U2 The Night Starts Here with its diseased lyrics. It’s back to the bedroom eyes lounge for the whispery samba-tinged My Favourite Book  and Amy Millan’s whispery voice, but as Bitches in Tokyo, Midnight Coward and the lonely hearts ad of Personal all clearly demonstrate, affairs of the heart are not necessarily sweet and smooth sailing. But if you’re going to swallow bitter pills, these mellifluous bubbling tunes make them easier to slip down.  Big piano ballad Barricade even gives its end of love tale a wry twist by having the emotional cost of radical politics cause the break-up.

There’s some misteps here and there, the falsetto disco strut The Ghost of Genova Heights all rather ersatz Bee Gees and sub Prince, Life 2: The Unhappy Ending sagging under its cinematic imagery and the title track working a little too hard to be soaring romantic symphonic grandeur and lush strings in search of a Broadway musical, but a few too years too late for Rent. But, even so, they’re well coming out at night to admire the way they shine. 7.30pm. £8.50. Barfly

Monday October 1

The Checks

They’ve been compared to the Strokes, but this New Zealand garage beat pop rock outfit are far more in thrall to the early r&b days of the Stones and Manfred Mann. Having won over ears earlier this year, Ed Knowles’ brings his tumbling vocal rasp back to town with the rest of the guys to launch debut album Hunting Whales (Full Time Hobby).

As with the opening blue-soul wail of Mercedes Children with its Jagger slurs and Little Red Rooster groove, there’s no frills here, just your down and dirty squealing guitar riffs, throbbing bass, stomping percussion and vein-bursting harmonica. As the title track readily makes clear, Led Zep get a substantial bluesy look in too.

There’s a hint of Delta country to the stabbing chorus rousing Tired From Sleeping in much the same manner as Wild Horses, 60s beat shufffling Terribly Easy tips the wink to the first album days of Ray Davies, new single What You Heard stomps to a Black Betty riff, Where Has She Gone sways woozily in the cheap seats while the sidewalk prowling See Me Peter melds Dream Syndicate and the Doors. Sweaty, tattooed arm, beer-drinking stuff, but the lazy, languid blues Memory Talking shows they can caress as well as kick. You’ll be wishing you’d seem then now come this time next year. 7.30pm. £5. Little Civic, W’hampton

Tuesday October 2

Damien Rice

Moving up several notches on the venue league ladder, this brings the Irish self-confessed depressive back for his biggest tour yet. He’ll again be flagging up past classics such as The Blower’s Daughter and Delicate off his debut O alongside  melancholic gems from follow-up 9, such as raw piano ballad Babies, the aural nervous breakdown Elephant and the confessional Celtic soul anguish of 9 Crimes. Unfortunately, their relationship having ground to an ugly halt earlier this year, she’ll not be along to lend her aching voice to its account about foundering relationships. There’ll doubtless be a few samples of Rice’s more squalling side but, as with newly remixed single Dogs, it’s the foetal position most will be here to see him adopt. 7.30pm. £23.50. NIA

Tuesday October 2

The Puppini Sisters

Inspired by the harmony group of old biddies in French animated movie Belleville Rendezvous,  Italian former fashion student  Marcella Puppini put together the trio with college chums Kate Mullins and Stephanie O’Brien three years ago.

Recreating the harmony swing music of the 30s and 40s on songs like Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (of Company B), Mr Sandman and Jeepers Creepers, last year’s debut album, Betcha Bottom Dollar, not only became the UK’s fastest selling jazz debut but even took the No 2 slot on the US jazz charts.

Wary of being tagged an Andrews Sisters tribute act,  sophomore release, The Rise And Fall Of Ruby Woo (Universal), expands things, holding firm to the original musical premise on It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing but also teasing out new grooves. Not least the marriage of swing and hip hop on It’s Not Over (Death or the Toy Piano), the scat and Latin Soho Nights, a slinky Eartha Kittenish I Can’t Believe I’m Not A Millionaire and the cinematic torch of And She Sang, just four of the album’s self-penned contributions.

 Elsewhere, as they did with Wuthering Heights and Heart of Glass,  they put a personal stamp on a clutch of evergreens. Classics IV’s dreamy Spooky has the tempo upped to a  skittish itch,   The Bangles shuffling hit Walk Like An Egyptian is transformed with middle Eastern fabrics and yodelling and here they are purring over a gypsy violin textured Manilow’s Could It Be Magic, taking We Have All The Time in The World out on to the cafe streets of Paris and ripping the mazurka out of Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree.

Others have taken a similar route in the past and failed to sustain the impetus once the novelty value wore off, but hopefully this lot have the steam to keep those juke joints jumping. 8pm. £9. Glee Club

Tuesday October 2

Turin Brakes

Never more than a poor man’s whiny voiced Starsailor, misery soaked fourth album Dark On Fire (Source) paradoxically seeks to escape the rustic pop pigeonhole by toughening up some of the songs to give Stalker a dose of U2 but also throws in the towel with several tracks that sound just like, well, Starsailor. Except that is The Other Side which attempts to be Pink Floyd  playing Americana. It is quite as awful and boring as you might expect.

As with previous albums, there are saving graces. Here they come with the title track’s mournful, cello hued dark folk music, Last Chance’s punchy opening, and the rather lovely pizzicato arrangement of  the otherwise yawnsome and groaningly titled Bye Pod. Otherwise, it’s hard to imagine even their most dogged fans cramming down the front demanding to hear these latest missives, and most certainly not the plodding dull Ghost or Timewaster which more than lives up to its title. And then there’s Something in my Eye which serves to reinforce the belief that new fathers should never be allowed to write songs about babies. If you’ve always meant to see them, I’d do it now. It’s unlikely they’ll be around for much longer. 7.30pm. £16. Carling Academy

Tuesday October 2

Jakobinarina

The latest name to emerge from the Icelandic rock scene, this lot are a rather different proposition to the familiar cinematic soundscapes. Which might be a good thing if you happen to be wondering what a Nordic Fall might be like. Actually, that’s a bit unfair. While they experiment with rhythms and tend to be a bit shouty,  The First Crusade (Regal) album is a more punkily melodic affair than most of Mark E Smith’s ever-chaging crew have managed. The guitars are snarly and urgent, the drums thump along and whiney singer Gunnar Ragnarsson has clearly boned up on English New Wave singers and their way of spitting out lyrics. But not all of the time. While His Lyrics Are Disastrous, Monday I’m In Vain (which begins with cascading guitar symphonics), 17 and This Is An Advertisement would have been at home in the peak days of the Vortex, End of Transmission No 6 is a surf rock jam, Sleeping In Seattle could be Iceland’s Boomtown Rats and I’m A Villain is all mockney ska-punk. Bright, angry, dive against walls noise for folk a little too fired up to be blissing out to Sigur Ros. 7.30pm. £5. Little Civic, W’hampton

Wednesday October 3

Ray Quinn

Blimey, is it really almost a year since Merseyside’s Bobby Darin was a bright eyed hopeful on The X-Factor. But while he’s taken his time, at least he’s finally getting out and doing the live thing while Ben Mills’ tour collapsed and cancelled and, holed away recording the album, Leona Lewis hasn’t been heard of since A Moment Like This was last Christmas’s No 1. Both released in March, Quinn’s self-titled album (BMG) also reached No 1, leaving Mills trailing two places behind and (unjustly) vanishing into the bargain racks.

 As was to be expected, it was packed with his interpretations of songs mostly made famous by either Darin or Sinatra. However, while Fly Me To The Moon and The Way You Look Tonight fare well enough, it also reinforced the fact that, at least on disc, he’s frankly too young and lacking in punch to sing things like That’s Life, My Way (particularly thin), Mr Bojangles and Summer Wind. Live, he’s got enough effervescent personality to sock them across and deliver an entertaining show, but if he intends to sustain a recording career he needs to find a sympathetic producer who can either beef up his vocals or find a way to disguise their shortcomings. 7.30pm. £23. Symphony Hall

Thursday October 5

Athlete

Three albums in since they broke big with Wires, and they’re not looking to change the blueprint of melancholic, downbeat lyrics, major chords and radio friendly melodies. Unfortunately, as listening to Beyond The Neighbourhood (Parlophone) attests, despite the promise of the title, they’re not looking to improve upon it beyond adding some new electronic clothing.

There are aspirations to the epic and portentous, as denoted by opening with a scene setting ambient instrumental, In Between 2 States and the fact that The Outsiders (a song about English complacency) would very much like to be Pink Floyd while Hurricane addresses global warming over a choppy sub-Sting groove If this hasn’t given you cause to worry, then try Best Not To Think About It, a  track inspired by the documentary about those who jumped from the WTC on 9/11 and featuring the chorus singalong line ‘it’s a long way down from here’. Mmm. And, oh dear, is that a stab at electro Samba on It’s Not Your Fault

There are bright moments; the driving beat and soaring skies of Tokyo, a delicate pulsing Flying Over Bus Stops, and the spooked frayed nerve Airport Disco which is far better than its meeting between Radiohead and Phil Collins would suggest. But, at the end of the day - and at the end of the album with the resigned This Is What I Sound Like - you can’t help but feel it’ll be the old neighbourhood sights audiences are going to want to revisit tonight. 7.30pm. £16. Carling Academy

Friday October 5

Brum Rocks

And so it is that finally, after what feels like an eternity of prevaricating, rebudgeting and political netball, the old venue finally reopens, renovated and refurbished and, one hopes, with much better acoustics. And what have we got to celebrate this auspicious occasion? Something to signify the forward momentum of the city’s burgeoning musical scene in all its multi-cultural dimensions. Er, well no, it’s a bunch of old Brummie popsters actually. Basically a tarted up retro night, there’s Bev Bevan’s Move  featuring old hand Trevor Burton though, unless ruffled feathers and lawyers hackles have been smothed, without any guest appearance by Roy Wood who, let’s face it, was the band’s driving force.

Then there’s fellow 60s outfit The Fortunes, a close harmony outfit whose You’ve Got Your Troubles and Here It Comes Again are minor pop classics. They’re still fronted by founding member Rod Allen but he’s the only one from the good old days. Then there’s the Rocking Berries who, with numbers like Poor Man’s Son, He’s In Town and What In The World's Come Over You, were once touted as the UK’s answer to the Four Seasons. Again, original singer, falsetto voiced Geoff Turton still does the honours (and occasionally pops up in The Fortunes too), but he’s the only link to the past. Also due to appear, but you’ll  note the ‘subject to availability’ proviso are Dave Pegg, Jasper Carrott and Robert Plant, with Steve Gibbons also likely to show his face. I daresay, it’ll be all jolly fun and there’s certainly some great songs in their joint repertoires, they may even have a communal knees up at the end. And it’s all for children’s charity, too. The reopening fest runs for two weeks with a diverse set of concerts and events with local talent emphasis, but really, you can’t help being all just a little underwhelmed. 7.30pm. £50. Birmingham Town Hall

Friday October 5

The Cribs

After four years and two previous albums, the Wakefield trio finally garnered wider attention with Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever and its a punky indie pop variously calling to mind the likes of The Jam and The Strokes, showing of their softer side on Shoot The Poets but generally characterised by the art rock likes of My Life Flashed Before My Eyes and Men’s Needs. They’ll be previewing the new single Don't You Wanna Be Relevant (Wichita), a non-album track that comes with bonus new material My Adolescent Dreams and Kind Words From The Broken Hearted as well as album favourite Our Bovine Public.

Support is eye-linered fringe cult hero Bobby Conn whose jazz, Latin, metal, pop, prog and glam cocktail album  King For A Day pokes a dig at the Paris Hiltons with Twenty-One, takes a nip at scientology with Anyone and features an eight minute instrumental that includes both birdsong and Latin chant while the sashaying Love Let Me Down is one for the weirder members of Mika’s fanclub. 7.30pm. £11. Carling Academy

Friday October 5

Laura Marling

A new teenage singer-songwriter from Reading way, the darkling-voiced Marling’s been making quite an impression on people in the few months since her name started getting bandied about. Jamie T personally invited her on tour as his support act, she’s guested on a track by The Rakes and is back in town  Sunday supporting the Maccabees.

Meanwhile, toting trusty guitar and piano, she’s getting the solo spotlight to unveil her new EP, My Manic And I (Virgin), a four tracker that evokes thoughts of Suzanne Vega, Dory Previn, Mary Hopkin, Tanita Tikaram and early Joni with its stripped down bluesy alt-folk. She’s a more than capable unsentimental writer and an even better singe; lead track New Romantic details a young girl’s jumbled thoughts about love and relationships while squeezing in a reference to Ryan Adams, the haunting Night Terror offers a spooked tale of nightmares and a protection, the title track takes an affectionate gypsy waltz through male doubt and delusion and, piano ballad Typical addresses arrogance, jealousy, heartbreak, love and the general nature of the human condition. Forget your Tunstalls, Meluas, and Norahs, if she’s got more up her sleeve like this, it’s Marling you’ll be still listening to in ten years time. 8pm. £5. Glee Club

Friday October 5

Jack Penate

Having shown his stripes to good effect with the rollicking Spit At Stars and twangy ska pop Torn On The Platform, the falsetto voiced South Londoner and grandson of Mervyn Peake is out on the road with equally breakneck single Second, Minute Or Hour and accompanying debut album, Matinee (XL).

Unfortunately, it’s here things come unglued as the songs tend to stick to very similar form, all of the cheery, upbeat, fast busking nature and ‘street’ vocal around which his live act’s built. Well, not all. Got My Favourite is a rather plodding funk attempt to marry Mike Skinner and Style Council with Weller’s cappucino soul getting another serving on Run For Your Life, stirred with a dash of Dexys. There’s ballads of sorts too on We Will Be Here, My Yvonne and lo fi strummed closing track When We Die, but they only make you want to push the skip button for another bit of Jack the lad’s breathless bouncing. Fine for a momentary diversion, but there’s nothing here to suggest a longer life. 8pm. £10. Irish Centre, Digbeth

Friday October 5

G Corp

If you can get a late pass, this witching hour gig serves to launch Dub Plates From The Elephant House Vol Three (Endulge), the latest work by homegrown production team Robert Cimarosti and Brian Nordhoff, previously of Electribe 101. It is, as the title might give away, a dub album, the duo working with reggae rhythm section Jaff and Conrad Kelly and guitarist Robert Mullins as The Mighty Three. Assorted guest vocalists also contribute, most effectively Flash on the skankingly hypnotic Freedom Or Death,  Ninety with Demon and Steel Pulse’s Selwyn Brown who lends his voice to People Dub.

 A highly accessible - and at times spacy - fusion of electro and reggae that stands comparison with the best of the Wailers, Sly & Robbie and U-Roy, it steams up a sweet smoke atmosphere on limb twitchers such as Wish You Were Here, Almighty Flood and the head-expanding The Avatar of Cyber Bar. For those into the music or willing to open the veins to its infections, this is quality groove. Even better, it comes with a book of yard style recipes from the Tree’s own mamas, some of which will be served up prior to the set. Midnight. £7. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Friday October 5

The Decemberists

Stepping up into major leagues, the Oregon quintet have crafted their best work yet with The Crane Wife (Rough Trade), a stunning collection of electric  folk-rock and enthralling literate storytelling punctuated by bluesy Zep stomps (When The War Came), psychedelic blues (The Perfect Crime # 2) and a 12 minute three part style hopping epic of 70s prog-folk-rock-blues about rape and murder in the shape of The Island that conjures a collaboration between Jethro Tull, Dream Syndicate and ELP.

The album title stems from an old  Japanese folk tale, providing inspiration for not just the opening acoustic warbling marching beat folk of a rueful The Crane Wife 3 but also a symphonic 11 minute The Crane Wife 1&2 that rises to a cresendo before giving way to the rousingly anthemic jogalong closer Sons & Daughters.

This would be incentive enough, but Colin Meloy and his crew have even more diamonds in their mine; visiting the American Civil War with the wondrous Laura Veirs duet Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then), weaving an unsettling lullaby about urban murderers Shankhill Butchers, and trawling through love and death on Summersong and the Romeo & Juliet tragedy unfolded on the perkily poppy O Valencia.

Pain, murder, pillage, blood, rape, drowning, greed, betrayal, death and good tunes, what more can you ask from a night out! 7.30pm. £12.50. Wulfrun Hall, W’hampton

Saturday October 6

Maps

Shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize, breathy-voiced Northampton bedroom synth genius James Chapman may not have walked away a winner but being nominated  certainly hasn’t harmed sales of debut album We Can Create with its electro-pop wander through the landscapes of Flaming Lips, Daft Punk, Massive Attack, Sufjan Stevens, Jesus & Mary Chain, Sigur Ros and My Bloody Valentine.

Working as a quartet for live shows, they’ll be offering more beefed up incarnations of such summertime skitterings as So High, So Low, You Don't Know Her Name, Lost My Soul, the trip-hoppy It Will Find You and new single To The Sky. Euphoric on disc, it’ll be interesting to see what changes stage flesh and blood wring. 7pm. £7. Carling Academy 2

Saturday October 6

John Foxx

It’s 27 years since the former Ulrtravox singer released his debut solo album, Metamatic, which, with its synths and rhythm machines pioneered the whole genre of industrio-futura electronic music - or ‘late 20th Century urban blues’ as he described it - with such tracks as Underpass, He’s A Liquid and Metal Beat.

Retiring from pop in the mid 80s, Foxx turned attention instead to graphic design (under his real name of Dennis Leigh), a capella ambient music and, later, excursions into trip hop and dance. Resurfacing a  decade ago for a new approach to his synth pop, he’s been making regular live appearances and solo and collaborative albums, a project with Robin Guthrie due to surface next year.

He’s also decided to revisit his groundbreaking influential masterpiece, an album now cited as visionary by The Klaxons, reissuing it via Edsel with a bonus disc featuring debut single Burning Car,  B sides, previously unreleased alternative takes (including the poppy Like A Miracle from The Golden Section), and reconstructed versions of  two 1979 cassette recordings, Cinemascope and To Be With You.

On top of which, he’s taking the album out live for a full performance of both it, the singles and  B sides for the first and, most likely, only time. And yes, those sculpted cheek bones are still as sharp as ice. 7.30pm. £8.50. Barfly

Saturday October 6

Fightstar

Driving a further nail into the coffin of any Busted reunion rumours, Charlie Simpson’s post-split outfit resurface from major label fall-out with a second album, One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours (Gut). Unlike Grand Unification, this is pointedly personal, much informed by the collapse of his seven year relationship but, as the opening flurry of 99, We Apologise For Nothing and piano laden stadium ballad Floods ably illustrate, it’s also a lot more melodic while remaining at the harder end of the indie rock spectrum.

Not that catchy melodies are always uppermost, Deathcar has them but it also has hammer through the skull hardcore yowling too. Bleeding ears are also on the cards with Amaze Us, Tannhauser and H.I.P. (Enough) which, if they loom large in the live set, is going to keep audiences on their toes.

Simpson’s not convincing enough to be invited to audition for Napalm Death though, and it’s inevitably the relatively softer numbers that give the album its substantial kick, the gentle, pained loss of Unfamiliar Feelings, a swelling One Last Common Ancestor, and the radio friendly  emotionally urgent I Am The Message all solid testament to the fact they’re looking unswervingly forward and most definitely have a future in their hands.

 Support comes form rising Surrey emo boys You Me At Six, launching debut single Save It For The Bedroom. 8pm. £11. Sanctuary, Digbeth

Sunday October 7

Annuals

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 their 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 Chase You Off, 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, even something as relatively straightforward as the cosmic pop of Mama defying you to even attempt to sing along.

But then, just to catch you completely off guard, current tumultuous single Brother comes with a bonus track of them doing a rather fine backporch gospel swaying version of the old hymnal chestnut Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. They deserve to be huge. 8pm. £7. Barfly

Sunday October 7

The Maccabees

A rescheduled appearance for the Brighton art rock outfit, but by now chances are they’ve missed the bus with the realisation that debut album In Colour (Fiction) is all rather samey with track after track pumping out with nervy guitars, urgent vocals and flurried chorus. Even the slow paced Good Old Bill reverts to type by the time it reaches the end.

They do have some moments that live up to the Jarvis Cocker and Ray Davies references and, individually, Tissue Shoulders, O.A.V.I.P., and Happy Faces are naggingly catchy rompers. But you can only take so many similar exuberant jangles at one go before feeling the need to find something with more shadings. The acoustic calypso lilt Toothpaste Kisses, shows they can vary the diet if they feel like it; if they want to hang around they should have the feeling more often. 7pm. £10. Carling Academy

Monday October 8

Don McLean

Although Vincent may run it a close second, some 36 years after is release, American Pie remains the song by which McLean is defined. Few would also disagree that, while later albums may have individually memorable tracks, it’s the first two, Tapestry and American Pie, that contain his best work with such songs as Castles In The Air, Magdalene Lane, And I Love You So, Empty Chairs, Winterwood and The Grave.

Although, save for the early 90s reissue of Pie,  he’s not troubled the charts in over 25 years, he’s continued to turn out albums on a regular basis, albeit several of them either being Christmas or covers collections. Compilation permutations regularly surface too, and it’s on the back of the latest, The Legendary Don McLean (EMI), that’s he’s here now.

 If you already own the similarly titled Legendary Songs Of, there’s not a huge point adding this to the pile since the track listings almost identical, save that, among the expected favourites, this includes In A Museum, a new track that shows he’s still in good voice and still capable of making relevant socio-political comment.

Of course, the songs included also point up his tendency to the sentimentally twee on something like Wonderful Baby and, while Crying was a deserved chart topper, his ability to turn other evergreens such as Everyday and Your Cheating Hearts into utter dirges. Doubtless the album will also provide the bulk, if not all, of the set list though hopefully he might find room for Superman’s Ghost, a much overlooked tribute to the late George Reeves. However, given the somewhat self-satisfied interview that’s included on the accompanying in concert DVD, let’s also hope he keeps the between song chat to a minimum. 7.30pm. £29.50/£22.50. Symphony Hall

Monday October 8

Mary Gauthier

A welcome regular visitor to the venue, this time she’s back with new album Between Daylight and Dark (Lost Highway), a piercingly intimate affair about letting go of the past and finding the strength to endure the present and embrace the future, a hard won wisdom born of both bitter and tender experiences.

But unlike some of her past work, here the light shines through the cracks. Can’t Find The Way’s aching story of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath talks of the determination not to be beaten down by the odds, I Ain’t Leaving has her defiantly standing her ground and looking firmly in the face of adversity while Same Road sees her reach out to a friend falling into the darkness she once suffered but finding the courage not to be dragged back down too.

She’s not afraid to expose her vulnerability either, the rippling acoustic Please finding her on the road, yearning to be back with her lover.

 Less autobiographical numbers trace the path between despair and devotion, from the suicidal woman on Snakebit to Thanksgiving’s dust coated story of families that return year after year for prison visits.  It may just be one of the finest, most moving songs she’s ever written.

Time and the need to include old favourites means she’s unlikely to allow her to showcase more than a few songs tonight, but be assured you’ll be taking them home in your hearts.   Highly enticing support’s provided by Emily Barker, Australian born singer for Cambridge’s Americana outfit The-Low-Country, who’ll be picking choice cuts from her solo album,  Photos. Fires. Fables (Artswa). A melancholic affair with hints of the Cowboy Junkies and Gillian Welch to This Is How It's Meant To Be and On A Train or Emmylou on Reason For The Rain, there's also old school backwoods acoustic folk country in evidence on things like the ripplingly lovely Blackbird and banjo accompanied folk ballad, Fields of June. If she elects to include unadorned five minute aching folk blues If Love Could Save, you’ll easily understand why many have her on their year’s best lists. 8pm. £14. Glee Club

Monday October 8

Thomas Dolby

Known to his birth certificate as Thomas Robertson, son of an Oxford University Classics professor, Dolby was a leading pioneer of 80s synthpop, perhaps best known for the Magnus Pyke sampling She Blinded Me With Science, a track that cracked the US  Top 5 but only struggled into the Top 50 here. Rather less know is the fact he was the keyboard player on Def Leppard’s Pyromania and was responsible for the synth intro to Foreigner’s Waiting For A Girl Like You. Mercifully, it’s unlikely he’ll be reliving either of those glories here.

He pretty much dropped out of the music scene after 1992’s Astronauts & Heretics, only resurfacing last year, playing his first solo show in 25 years in January. He also embarked on the Sole Inhabitant tour of America, and its likely the set list here will be much the same, featuring Windpower, Hyperactive, One Of Our Submarines, Leipzig Is Calling and the underrated classic Europa and the Pirate Twins.

There should even be a smattering of fresh material since ‘comeback’ EP Live at SxSW, includes wittily catchy new electronic funk pop number Your Karma Hit My Dogma. Be great if he could also be persuaded to resurrect The Jungle Line, the tribal drum heavy Joni Mitchell cover he recorded back in 1981  as Low Noise.  7pm. £12.50. Carling Academy 2

Monday October 8

Kula Shaker

There wasn’t exactly much wailing and gnashing when the band split back in 1999, leaving behind a mixed legacy of cod-psychedelia in the shape of  hits like Tattva, Hey Dude, Govinda (sung, you’ll recall in Sanskrit) and their cover of Hush but also a career that nosedived in the wake of Crispin Mills blathering about mystical swastikas saw them hauled across the tabloids and the much delayed second album, Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts spluttered and died.

However,  with solo ventures hardly setting the world alight, they got back together (minus original keyboard player Jay) three years ago, prompting Mills to finally call a halt to his resoundingly forgettable new outfit The Jeevas, junking a less than anxiously awaited third album mid-way through.

Doubtless due to it sounding not unlike an ELO outtake, the fan frenzy greeting the comeback propelled first single Second Single to the dizzy heights of 101 in the charts while the album, Strangefolk, soared to the bottom end of the Top 70.

It’s actually not a bad noise, the band displaying a tougher edge than before with some hefty riffage on things like Out On The Highway, Super CB Operator, the bluesy Die For Love  and the folk dervish rock Hurricane Season while Fool That I Am take son the Magic Numbers at the Mamas and Papas harmonies game. They even take a stab at social comment with songs saying war and oppressing people aren’t nice things.

But when Narayama and the spoken word title track sees Mills revisiting his Eastern dilettantism you tend to throw up your hands in despair while tongue in cheek glammed rock n roll romp Great Dictator of the Free World begs you not to take them seriously. It’s entertaining to have them back, but no one’s going to be begging them to stick around. 7.30pm. £.15. Wulfrun Hall

Tuesday October 9

Foals

The self-described ‘Korean pop afro-beat minimalists’ (that’s basically bleepy art pop electro to you and me, and actually they come from Brighton ) follow up debut single Hummer with the rather more impressive Mathletics (Transgressive), a solid dose of Bloc Party dance floor clubbing that should get punters jerking around, in a good way. Having recently finished the debut album, due out next March, they’ll be checking to see what moves it has live too. 7.30pm. £6. Barfly

Tuesday October 9

David Ford

The former  quivering voiced frontman with Easyworld, made an auspicious solo debut two years back with  I Sincerely Apologise For All The Troubles I’ve Caused, an album fuelled by his experiences in the business and drenched in the radio friendly vitriol and bitterness of things like I Don’t Care What You Call Me and What Would You Have Me Do?.

Now he’s back with Songs For The Road (Independiente), this time rooted in  the American touring experiences that ensued. He’s not much happier, though. Either with those he met or himself.

The opening track is slowly soaring self-lacerating ballad laden with chamber orchestra strings, sporting the title Go To Hell and a few numbers later he’s coming over all maudlin with 0I’m Alright Now, slipping into early Dylan (borrowing from Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall before erupting into a squall of drums and harmonica) for Requiem’s biting condemnation of political apathy, and painting caustic portraits of southern rednecks (St Peter) and doomed drunks on the bouncy Nobody Tells Me What To Do.

 He’s probably not the life and soul of the party, but fortunately he is a very talented songsmith and singer, mining faltering emotion with Waitsian piano ballad Song For The Road, reaching for fragments of hope and redemption on the Eagles-like Train and leaking compassionate understanding at a friend’s suicide for the closing And So You Fell. Probably not the cheeriest, most uplifting musical evening you’ll have this year, but you couldn’t ask to share misery, anger and self-recrimination in better company. 8pm. £8. Glee Club

Wednesday October 10

Stephen Fretwell

The distorted vocals and drunken, slouching carnivalesque boom chicka boom beat of Coney, the opening track of  new album Man On The Roof (Polydor) may well scare off the casual listener checking out reports that the Scunthorpe lad’s a rising star on the ruminative acoustic singer-songwriter scene. It’s certainly likely to turn Nick Drake devotees pale. But slip over to the following Darlin’ Don’t and it’s immediately obvious why he’s been earning all these plaudits.

The follow up to Magpie, it sports the same blend of dreamy, sometimes Lennon-esque pop (She), jazzy folk (Dead), slow burn Celtic soul (Funny Hats) and skittering shuffles (Scar). Gradually building anthemic piano ballad Now might also send shivers down Coldplay spines.

Lyrically, it explores well trodden ground about troubled relationships, the need for emotional redemption and self-searching but still manages to touch new nerves, notably so on the starkly acoustic The Ground Beneath Your Feet and the brief drowning at the bottom of a dark well spare bluesy mood of Saturday. And how can anyone resist a song titled William Shatner’s Dog, especially when it’s such a battered and bruised reflection on an old flame.

It’s not clear whether this is a solo gig or if he’ll have a band, but either way, full or stripped back, these are songs which, in tandem with first album nuggets such as   Bad Bad Me Bad Bad You  and Run, will have you singing his praises from, well, the roof. 7.30pm. £12.50. Barfly

Wednesday October 10

Maximo Park

Going from strength to strength, the Geordie boys are back in town following the release of piston pumping staccato Girls Who Play Guitars, the latest single lifted from Our Earthly Pleasures (Warp) with its melody laden synth and guitar songs dealing with the downers of modern life.

They might, at some stage, contemplate trying something more with the slower pace of Sandblasted And Set Free, but for now the crowds should be out in force to pump along with the likes of Our Velocity, Books From Boxes and  A Fortnight’s Time. This is Park life lived to the full.

Support comes from electro post punk artrock outfit GoodBooks who’ve finally got round to releasing debut album Control (Columbia) after a string of such middling singles as Leni’s dull mix of Bowie and Supertramp. There’s some sighs of relief here with anti-war English dance floor pop action Passchendael, the choppy literate funk of The Curse of Saul, the Oriental tinkles to Violent Man Lovesong and the hurry along Alice with its English life insights, but at the end of the day their ambition to be a sort of Talking Heads meets Pet Shop Boys doesn’t prove to be a page turner. 7.30pm. £16.50. W’hampton Civic Hall

Wednesday October 10

My Alamo

Moseley (by way of Wales), this is  big, noisy guitar muscle flexing alt rock and vocals. Debut single, 1994, swirled thoughts of Foo Fighters, an association that, throwing in several Nirvana nods, rears its head again on their eponymous album (Seventh Star) where guitars variously snarl, chug, circle and clear their throats on the likes of  a stabbing angular My Friend Said, the hammeringly driven Pornography, a corrosive I’m Not The Enemy with its Cobain vocal inflections, and the hard but melodic indie pop flavours of Arabella’s Dying and The Undisguised. There’s bristling energy here that promises to explode on stage. It may, ultimately, be meat and potatoes modern rock, but it’s made from best steak and King Edwards. You’ll remember the Alamo. 7.30pm. £6.  Little Civic, Wolverhampton

Thursday October 11

Guillemots & CBSO

One of the real highlights of the mostly stolid Town Hall reopening celebrations, this brings together Birmingham’s finest, revisiting tracks from acclaimed debut album Through The Window Pane and a sprinkling of newer material in the company of backing musicians the CBSO. Other than the chance to perhaps hear Made Up Love Song # 43 and Trains To Brazil in full orchestral flood, the evening also offers the tantalising prospect of them collaborating on songs chosen from Fyfe Dangerfield’s list of personal favourites and the world premiere of a new specially commissioned Dangerfield composition. 7.30pm. £20/£17.50. B’ham Town Hall

Thursday October 11

Just Jack

Sometime DJ and occasional Ian Dury wannabe, Allsopp’s found a new lease of life on the back of  the public taking to  Lily Allen, Jamie T, and The Streets and their  urban indie dance, rap, rock and electronica fusion songs about working class life. Tying in with the release of  the new live vibe version of clattery jazz funk Curtis Mayfield throwback No Time, he’s back again for another serving of material off current album Overtones (Mercury), swirling together jazz, Latin, hip hop, ska, funk for things like a Jamiroquai-like I Talk To Much and the flamenco flavoured Hold On. Who knows, he might even throw in his cover of The Cardigans Lovefool that he recorded for the Radio 1 40th anniversary album.

Opening act is  Acton trio Scouting For Girls, looking to quickly capitalise on bouncy debut single It’s Not About You with radio friendly syllable stressing choppy pop She’s So Lovely and their self-titled album (Epic). Trading in upbeat Norf Larndan rock n roll roll with a collision between Supergrass and Pulp influences, they manage to earn a merit badge for the lovelorn breezy Britpop of I’m Not Over You, Keep On Walking, The Airplane Song, I Need A Holiday and Elvis Ain’t Dead, with its suspiciously Supertramp style intro. That they also a love song to Michaela Strachan suggests they don’t take things too seriously, possibly a good idea since, while energetic bouncy fodder, there’s ultimately nothing here that suggests they’ll be earning any Baden Powell awards for pop in the near future. 7.30pm. £12.50. Carling Academy

Friday October 12

Funeral For A Friend

Having taken time off for his excellent Americana side project  The Secret Show, Matt Davies gets back with his Welsh band buddies for their biggest UK tour yet in service of the excellent Tales Don’t Tell Themselves album. Standout numbers such as the chiming Into Oblivion, the New Order rhythmed On A Wire, yearningly anthemic Walk Away and swelling ballad The Sweetest Wave should loom large. But the set list is also likely to call attention to the fact they’re releasing a new mini-album, headed up by The Great Wide Open (Atlantic) but also featuring live versions of all the songs from their first two EPs, among them 10.45 Amsterdam Conversations,  Red Is The New Black, She Drove Me To Daytime Television and The Art Of American Football. Without anyone noticing, they’ve quietly become one of the country’s best band.

They share the night with Glaswegian quintet The Dykeenies whose debut album, Nothing Means Everything (Lavolta) has been picking up some unfathomable rave reviews. There’s nothing exactly wrong with it, indeed those wishing The Killers had remade their first album instead of taking off in new directions, will be more than happy with the likes of The Panic, Waiting For Go, Lose Ourselves and new single Stitches. There’s punchy rhythms, singalong choruses and energetic melodic flurries, as short and sharp efficient as the In & Out track itself, but the jury’s going to have to remain out on staying power until the next album. 7.30pm. £10. Barfly

Friday October 12

Rush

A frightening thought for many, a vision of paradise for prog metal excessives as Geddy Lee, Neil Peart and Alex Lifeson return to the fray with soaring pomp flying at full mast. The trio made their name in the mid 70s with albums featuring lengthy epics full of virtuoso solos and lyrics drawing on fantasy, sci fi and socio-politics and spectacular live shows involving revolving drum kits and assorted pyrotechnics.

Although they fell from grace in the prog-rock backlash, it’s now generally agreed that such album opuses as Fly By Night, 2112, A Farewell To Kings and Permanent Waves have proven influences on names like Metallica, The Smashing Pumpkins and Dream Theatre.

After a lengthy hiatus, they resurfaced five years ago with Vapor Trails and now arrive with follow-up Snakes & Arrows (Atlantic), an album that apparently draws its influences from a mix of Buddhism, Hamlet and the Snakes & Ladders board game with Peart’s lyrics focusing on his reflections on faith during assorted bike trips across America.

Harking back to their late 70s sound, though with mercifully only three tracks breaking the six minute mark, it’s the usual mix of the portentous (Malignant Narcissism,Spindrift), the pretentious (Armor & Sword, The Way The Wind Blows) and the pop (Working Them Angels, Bravest Face), all of which, spiced with old favourites such as Spirit of the Radio, Tom Sawyer and Distant Early Warning should have the faithful in raptures. 7.30pm. £45/£30. NEC

Friday October 12

Happy Mondays

Having collapsed in 1992 amid a welter of internal conflicts and the albatross of Shaun Ryder’s drugs and drink addictions that at one point seemed likely to add him to the rock and roll casualty roll call, I doubt anyone would have put money on any reformation. But then, Black Grape having soured, in 1999 Ryder and Bez briefly resurrected the name with a new line up only to fall apart again in the face of public indifference.

 Then, after a failed solo career, in 2004 Ryder took another stab, again with Bez and original member Gary Whelan among the new roster. Surprises all round then as, three years on with Ryder apparently now cleaned up, they’re still going strong on the back of the well received Uncle Dysfunktional (Sequel) album dragging old and new fans back on to the dance floor. Certainly memories of  Kinky Afro, Step On and Loose Fit are well served by the dubby dirty slinks of Jellybean and Deviants, the Stonesy narcotic groove In The Blood, psychedelic acid double act Dr Dick and Weather  and the slippery, greasy spine-curving electro-funk pop of Rush Rush and the title track. It’s not yet restored their chart fortunes, but it’s certainly putting life back into the clubs. 6.30pm. £25. Carling Academy

Friday October 12

Puressence

Fronted by  choirboy voiced tenor James Mudriczki, the Oldham quintet were once hailed as next big things and the new Simple Minds  in the wake of their self-titled debut album. Unfortunately, no one actually bought it or any of its five fine. Things looked up with the arrival of  1998’s Only Forever, first single This Feeling providing their Top 40 debut. But then, despite Walking Dead providing a third Top 40 single, 2002’s Planet Hopeless sank without trace, leading to the band parting company with Island.

Five years on, now signed to the reactivated Reaction label but minus original guitarist Neil Macdonald, they return with Don’t Forget To Remember, their big swelling sound now having found public favour via the likes of Snow Patrol and Coldplay. 

A fine noise they make too,  burning smouldering heat on the nervy Life Comes Down Hard, circling the rafters on the Minds-like Bitter Pill and the vaulting flamenco stadium rock Burns Inside, throbbing across the early U2 radar for Moonbeam and Drop Down To Earth and wringing out the emotions of softer open-veined numbers Sold Unseen and the title track. Their time is long overdue, but hopefully this is finally their moment to shine. 7.30pm. £10. W’hampton Civic Bar

Friday October 12

Seth Lakeman

Alongside Kate Rusby,  the fiddle and guitar playing Devonian’s one of the few of the Britfolk pack who’s managed to squeeze through the cracks into more mainstream audiences.  Last year saw him opening eyes with his Freedom Fields album marriage of folk tradition and rock sensibility and he’s back on the road now with new EP, Poor Man’s Heaven (Relentless) offering a taster for next year’s album of the same name.

The title track’s a steamrollering chunky rhythm groove of rock guitar riff and fiddle, joined by the gutsy, violin driven Race To Be King, a blistering live version of How Much, and, for the softer touch, trad ballad style ghost song Lillywhite Girl. Appetites should be considerably whetted.  7.30pm. £15. Wulfrun Hall

Friday October 12

Fortune Drive

With My Girlfriend’s An Arsonist, Recent Advances Vol II, and Sparkle having paved the way, the Bristol quintet are busy plugging debut album A Modern Question. Other than how closely From Start To Finish resembles The Smiths, there’s no major surprises here, just solid riffing rock n roll swaggerers about drink and sex.  At times (as with To The Rye) they veer close to routine hard rock while Clown Factory is a lumbering closing time swayalong, but if they put their energies into the Oasis tinged Sparkle,  up and running Said It All and pub rumble punching Girl In Stripes, they shouldn’t have any trouble keeping the crowd happy. 7.30pm. £5.50.Little Civic, W’hampton

Saturday October 13

Editors

OK, with their massive wall of sound and deep vocals, the gloom enshrouded Birmingham based champions sound exactly like a fusion of Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen, But since when has that been a problem? Having already provided one of the year’s finest singles with the Atmosphere-like Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors, And End Has a Start (Kitchenware) is positively bursting its banks with similarly swelling, skyscraping guitar melancholic anthems in the form of Escape The Nest, The Weight Of The World, Bones, Spiders and the momentous title track.

Exhausting stuff, so the closing simple spare piano ballad Well Worn Hand comes as a welcome chance to take a breath and calm down. A guaranteed explosive evening, even more so if they can be persuaded to lighten up and include their Radio 1 cover of  The Cure's Lullaby. 7pm. £15. Carling Academy

Saturday October 13

The Thrills

Their debut album, So Much For The City, was drenched  in a 60s California vibe, drawing on such influences as Neil Young, the Beach Boys, Nilsson, The Band,  and The Byrds for their tales of  broken love, lost friendships and small town melancholy. Then came Let’s Bottle Bohemia, repeating the trick with songs of  regret, loss, rejection and failure couched in breezy falsettos, chiming guitars, sweeping strings and flourishes of brass.

However, for their third album, Teenager (Virgin), the Dubliners are sounding more 80s while there are clouds misting across the sun. As the title might suggest, it takes adolescent angst and issues as its theme. So, memoirs of first jobs, first loves, first drinks, first heartbreaks and confused hormones a go go then, dressed in trademark woozy countrified pop with its warm harmonies, jangling guitars and lush melodies.

This Year, I Came All This Way and The Midnight Choir get the jaunty ball rolling, I’m So Sorry takes a leaf out of the Born to Run book while the title track and Should Have Known Better sway around clutching regrets and missed opportunities. Indulge your melancholic reveries, envy lost youth along with singer Conor Deasy, and raise a glass and sing along to those happy days of backseat fumblings and optimistic innocence.

Kindred spirit support comes courtesy of  Crash  My Model Car, another bunch with a  fondness for 60s California to judge by In Dreams (My Dad), lead track off their single taster for the upcoming debut album. Throw in the alt-country shaded jog of Walking Sideways and Tip Toe’s moody, end of tether atmospherics, and you should be making a point of arriving early. 7.30pm. £14. Wulfrun Hall

Sunday October 14

The Coral

With songs drawn on real experiences (mostly relationships and affairs of the heart), the Scousers take to the tour bus in belated support of  Roots & Echoes (Deltasonic), an album firmly grounded in the retro sounds of the psychedelic and beat 60s. They get off to a good start with Who’s Gonna Find Me, a fine piece of swirly summer of love fuzzy pop that calls to mind a marriage of Love and the Isleys and variously proceed to conjure 60s thoughts of Dave Berry, Jim Morrison, Paul Jones, Scott Walker, Lee Hazelwood, Glen Campbell, Roy Orbison, Noel Harrison and Burt Bacharach.

James Skelly’s in excellent, warm and yearningly bruised soulful vocal form, the returning Bill Ryder-Jones dashes of some glistening guitar while the songs themselves are easily among the best, most melodic and haunting they’ve yet written.

From the jazzy-blues shuffle of Remember Me that sounds like it should be in some 50s beat noir movie and the rain-splashed broken hearted streets of Fireflies (shades of Brel here) through the jangling Merseybeat balladeering of Put The Sun Back and Jacqueline to the hustling early Stones of  In The Rain and the country flavours of Cobwebs, they deliver time after time. There’s a classic feel to the album that suggests it’ll sound just as good in 10 years as it does now, hopefully the band will still be around to bask in its glory. 7pm. £16. Carling Academy

Sunday October 14

Fink

The Bristol disc spinner turned musician made an impressive move from behind the decks with debut album Biscuits For Breakfast that saw him plying a similar soulful folky blues to John Martyn gilded with Jack Johnson mellowness and Devandra Banhart fragility.

And now here he is again with follow up Distance And Time (Ninja Tune), another collection of mood piece numbers about wounded relationships streaked with narcotic smoke and delivered in that chill out blues voice.

If anything he’s actually pared things back,  the songs slowly seeping into the bloodstream rather than knocking you on the head. But while they may not be instant they are insistent; the heavy lidded shrug This Is The Thing from the Mastercard ad, Trouble’s What You’re In’s prowling flamenco menace, the acoustic soulfulness of If Only and Make It Good, the lovechild of Massive Attack and Jeff Buckley, all take up residence in the brain and refuse to budge.

Comparisons to Jose Gonzalez are inevitable, but there’s more funky spirit in Fink’s groove , ably demonstrated on the  pulsating skanking beats and dub of Blueberry Pancakes or the ghostly summer dusk blues of current single Little Blue Mailbox.

Intimate and hushed with a keen understanding of musical tensions, he’s got the potential to become a very important name indeed and, if you get along to the gig, insist that he does his acoustic percussive interpretation of Alison Moyet’s All Cried Out. You’ll be blown away. 7.30pm. £5. The Yardbird, Paradise Place, B’ham

Sunday October 14

The Enemy

They’re basic, they’re rowdy and the Coventry guitar boys have such a big thing for The Jam that he Richard and Judy namechecking Away From Here sounds just like them and album title track We’ll Live And Die In These Towns basically recycles huge chunks of  Going Underground.

 So, what’s not to like. They’ve bashed out the songs from the debut album (Warner) on several occasions over the past few months, but really you can’t get enough of throwing yourself around to the likes of Had Enough, You’re Not Alone, the whirling dervish It’s Not OK, 40 Days And 40 Nights and their marvellously clunky stadium swayer dead end town dreams ballad This Song. Best live noise of the year, quite possibly.

They’re joined on the road this time by The Wombats who’ll be showcasing the upcoming album and serving reminder of current single, the rowdy punk pop and girlie chorus of  Let’s Dance To Joy Division. Also along is current name to drop on the rap and grime beats circuit, Lethal Bizzle with his sampling happy Back To The Bizznizz (V2). I’m no expert or particular fan of his chosen musical genre, but it’s hard to deny that the Ruts sampling Babylon’s Burning The Ghetto, his flurried rap across the Clash’s Police On My Back and collaborations with Babyshambles on the rockabilly drum and bass skittering vocal athletics of Boy and Kate Nash for Look What You Done’s machismo and bling bling riposte are urgent, infectiously thrilling slabs of urban rockrap.

They also point up his sharp lyrics too, certainly something like Selfridge’s Girl On My Space or  the brooding soul Reflecting are far more barbed and insightfully observed than The Streets.

My Eyes suggests he shouldn’t stray near earnest balladry too often, but judging by what else is going down he really should set loftier ambitions than  getting on the cover of NME.  7.30pm. £13.10. W’hampton Civic Hall (+ Sat Oct 20 7pm, £12.50. Carling Academy)

Monday October 15

K T Tunstall

It’s difficult to know quite what to make of the follow up to the phenomenally successful, Eye To The Telescope. It would have easy to just repeat the exercise, but then Tunstall’s not Katie Melua. But ranging too far from the formula might alienate the audience she’d worked hard to build. The compromise, as Drastic Fantastic (Relentless), demonstrates was to have a bit of both. The rock chick image on the sleeve finds expression musically on stomping opener Little Favours, the choppy, handclapping and slide guitar blues single Hold On, the Sheryl Crowe soft rocking If Only and snarly retro beat country pop I Don’t Want You To Know.

But  Radio 2 mellow ears are then well catered for by the easy shuffling chirpy Hopeless, a soaringly defiant chorus friendly crowd bouncing Saving My Face and, reminding you of her background with the Fence Collective, the delicate folkisms of White Bird and the trio of easing on down album closers Beauty Of Uncertainty, Someday soon and Paper Aeroplane.

 Ultimately, it may still prove a little too schizophrenic to rival Telescope’s sales and longevity, but it’s good to see she’s willing to give herself space to breathe rather than just trust to the musical respirator.

Opening the evening is special guest Willy Mason, a rootsy American singer-songwriter  whose dust coated voice has earned comparisons to Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash,  Dylan and, on new single Gotta Keep Walking (Virgin), Bruce Cockburn.  He’ll be making the most of the opportunity to introduce unfamiliar ears to his current splendid album If The Ocean Gets Rough, a polished acoustic collection of songs about family relationships, politics, and  broken lives.

  There’s not a duff number in his repertoire, but particularly worth checking out are the title track’s  Fleetwood Mac echoes, The World That I Wanted’s account of his alcoholic, neglectful late father, Save Myself’s jaunty jibe at American domestic policy, and When The Leaves Have A Fallen’s melancholic lament for the destruction of nature. Doubtless, he’ll be minded to include his certified early classic Oxygen in the list too. You’d be foolish to wait in the bar.7.30pm. £19.50. Carling Academy

Monday October 16

Stephanie Dosen

Hailing from Wisconsin (where she grew up on a peacock farm), Dosen’s been likened to the vocal purity of Sinead O’Connor, the poetry of Joni Mitchell and the melodic pop of The Sundays. There’s an element of truth to all three to which you might also add the warm warble of the McGarrigles, but it doesn’t really give the flavour of her A Lily For The Spectre (Bella Union) album with its hushed, melancholic tunes she calls ‘driving cradlesongs for ghosts gone astray.’
Delicately produced with an ethereal touch by Simon Raymonde of Cocteau Twins fame ands dressed in guitars, strings and piano, it’s gentle, lilting acoustic fayre, hewn from early morning mists over corn ripening meadows and crystal streams.

There’s an aching quiver to her voice on Only Getting Better and This Joy’s  five minute odd opening ambivalent celebration of love and the constellation in her heart while elsewhere she populates her lyrics with images of vampires, birds, landscapes and, of course, ghosts. When she sings of The Lakes of Canada on the album’s only cover, you can almost hear the waters lapping at the grassy banks while the mournful Owl In The Dark conjures exactly the mood the title suggests.

With the likes of the delicately sublime Daydreamers, a beguiling Death & The Maiden, the violin scraping gothic romanticism of the title track and the childhood memories filtering through Vinalhaven Harbor, this isn’t going to be the sort of gig where you can carry on a conversation. But then why would you want to when she’ll leave you lost for words. 8pm. £7. Glee Club

Monday October 15

Pram

Continuing the reopening celebrations, the Birmingham purveyors of waking-dream avant-pop will be filling the air with a cocktail of electronic ambience and breathy soundscapes drawn from both an extensive 15 year back catalogue and their latest musical missive, The Moving Frontier (Domino).

The album opens with one of  several instrumentals, The Empty Quarter sounding like a lost Angelo Badalamenti score for an unseen David Lynch noir mystery before Rosie Cuckson’s metallic whispers join the party for the chilled industrial trip hop Salt & Sand. It’s instrumental time out again on Iske with its gypsy cobwebs and parping brass before Cuskson resurfaces to suggest more excursions into suburban netherwolds with The City Surveyor.

 There’s a definite filmic quality here, conjuring myriad European art house possibilities on such numbers as the spidery Beluga and the jazzy clockwork clicking Sundew while World Cinema’s embraced for the middle Eastern colours of Mariana, the Icelandic frosts of Metaluna and the spacey African caravan lurch driving Blind Tiger which sounds like Tom Waits auditioning for a Bond theme. In fact Waits rears the reference head again on the clanking closing The Silk Road with its snake charmer rhythms and tinkling bells. Should be a suitably astral body liberating experience.

They’re joined by fellow hometown experimentalists The Modified Toy Orchestra who, as the name suggests and their Toygopop album confirms, construct music out of childrens electronic toys. Essentially a vehicle for the versatile musical mind of Brian Duffy, they become a full ‘band’ for their critically acclaimed live performances, collaborators drawn from such like-minded outfits as Plone and, indeed, Pram.

Rather more conventionally, relatively speaking, the night’s rounded out by eco alt-folk outfit Shady  Bard whose From The Ground Up is one of the albums of the year with the world weary campfire melancholy of Came When We Were Falling Out and the soul-tingling Penguins which rivals the very best of Sigur Ros. There’s also the thrilling prospect of them including new number Long Term Solutions To The Seagull Problem, currently only to be found on Static Caravan’s lo fi art compilation Binary Oppositions along with contributions from the night’s fellow performers. 7.30pm. £10. B’ham Town Hall

Tuesday October 16

Ed Harcourt

Seven years, five albums and surprisingly only one Top 40 single in to what deserves to be a lifetime career, Harcourt’s taking a recording breather to issue a Best Of (Heavenly) collection. It’s a useful opportunity to take stock of a catalogue that embraces everything from breezy pop to 40s big band music, aching ballads and clanking beatnik jazz. All generally in the service of dark veined songs about love, loss and death.

Rather disappointingly the collection doesn’t include the violin haunted sadness of The Last Cigarette, the Springsteen anthemics Revolution In The Heart or Good Friends Are Hard To Find’s hymn to hope and endurance off The Beautiful Lie or rare non-album single Still I Dream Of It. But there’s still 16 golden nuggets that include both singles and album cuts, among them Born in The 70s, the Ben Folds-like Visit From The Dead Dog, Fireflies Take Flight and solitary hit All Of Your Days Will Be Blessed as well as Apple of My Eye from his Maplewood mini-album debut and two previously unissued cuts, Here Be Monsters outtake Whistle Of A Distant Train and brand new single You Put A Spell On Me, a piano ballad born to take the bows in a Broadway musical.

If you’re quick, there’s also a limited edition version with 16 unreleased bonus songs that includes one titled I’m Sticking Around. Let’s hope so, music like this is too good to lose. 7.30pm. £12.50. Barfly

Tuesday October 16

Rumble Strips

Not to be dismissed as simply some Dexys Midnight Runners clones just because they play brass enriched blue eyed pop soul with a pinch of ska. Led by Charles Waller, the Devonians have produced one of the year’s most exuberantly enjoyable albums with Girls And Weather (Island), positively teeming with such three minute bursts of jubilantly effervescent dancefloor rollicking as Building A Boat, Motorcycle and the handclappy Motown cum Stax beat of Girls And Boys In Love, Alarm Clock staking its claim as their Come On Eileen.

It’s not all such relentlessly bouncing stuff, Oh Creole, Clouds and Hands showing they can take the tempo down without losing the verve and passion to their tales of romantic ups and downs, but it’s those Geno moments that are going to have the place boiling over tonight.7.30pm. £8. Carling Academy 2

Tuesday October 16

The Cloud Room

Fronted by J Stuart (apparently a relative of Philip Glass) who formed the band after a HIV positive test proved false, taking their name from a prohibition era speakeasy the Brookyln based outfit released their eponymous debut two years ago, killer catchy single Hey Now Now going on to be listed among Rolling Stone’s Ten Best of the year. They’re over here now armed with the follow-up EP, Please Don’t Almost Kill Me with its mix of T Rex, Joy Division, The Cure and David Bowie. The latter’s something of a fan, presumably because he can hear so much of his Ziggy Stardust self in their songs, especially Hey Now Now and the all new The Bomb Is Boring and 24Hr Heartbreak. Not entirely original perhaps, but on the evidence so far well worth a look. 7.30pm. £6. Bar Academy

Tuesday October 16

The Proclaimers

Having enjoyed a charity re-release hit with I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles), Craig and Charlie hit the tracks to remind people they have new songs too, namely those gift wrapped in new album Life With You (W14).

Though opening with the typically upbeat with reservations stomper title track, there’s a fair bit of sober comment here as the twins variously turn their attention to left wing sell outs (a chugging In Recognition), misogyny in music (the bluesy Here It Comes Again), Iraq and the so called war on terror (piano ballad S.O.R.R.Y and  blues-rock The Long Haul), religion (If There’s A God, New Religion) and those who look to blame everyone and everything but themselves (No One Left To Blame).

Even romance is shaded to the dark side with the soulful A Lover’s Face while a shimmering Everly’s styled Calendar On The Wall details surrender to boredom and Harness Pain reminds what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

It’s not all depressing toetappers, Blood Lying On Snow swings along on a hefty folk rock melody (sounding even better on the acoustic bonus version) as the brothers  indulge in some fiery lust love while they take never say die optimism by the throat for a crunchy slow marching cover of Wreckless Eric’s Whole Wide World that sounds like a major live highlight.

And live they’re at their forceful best, a case proven by the bonus disc’s rousing Hogmany show versions of Born Innocent, Hate My Love and Joyful Kilmarnock Blues and guaranteed to be repeated on tour here. 7.30pm. £22.50. W’hampton Civic Hall + Sat Oct 27 8pm, £22.50. Warwick Arts Centre)

Wednesday October 17

Kate Walsh

Not to be confused with the Gray’s Anatomy actress, this is the Brighton songbird, back at the venue for the second time this year, still plugging  Tim’s House (Blueberry Pie) with its wistful acoustic songs about broken hearts, bruised lives and yearning optimism. If you’ve yet to succumb to the charms of such  graceful folksy gems as the slow waltzer Talk Of The Town, cafe accordion shuffling French Song or the warbling enamoured lilt of new single Your Song, then you really need to give Tim, and Kate, a visit. 8pm. £10. Glee Club

Wednesday October 17

Palladium

They mention Pink Floyd, The Police, Stevie Wonder and 70s era Who as influences, but what comes most to mind listening to jolly singalong new single Happy Hour (Virgin) is a ska-free version of Madness. If you really must have 80s pop music as your wallpaper, you could probably do worse. 7.30pm. £6. Bar Academy

Thursday October 18

Mark Ronson

DJ and producer turned performer in his own right, it feels like Ronson’s barely been out of the charts this year, his collaborations with Lily Allen (Kaiser Chiefs nugget Oh My God), Daniel Merrweather (the Smiths meets Motown collision Stop Me ) and Amy Winehouse  (the Zutons’ Valerie) all barrelling into the Top 10. On  top of which the Robbie Williams highlighted The Only One, a Kasabian slouching funky LSF and a brassy funky hip hop cover of Radiohead’s Just with Alex Greenwald from Phantom Planet all airwaves regulars.

All of which has served to keep the accompanying Version (Sony) resident in the album charts’ upper reaches and a regular floor filler around the clubs. His own fat, brassy, piano rolling funky soul fillers (Inversion, Diversion, Outversion) also suggest he could clean up providing soundtracks for  70s Blaxploitation homages and spoofs while  he turns Coldplay’s God Put A Smile Upon Your Face into a clattering Northern Soul groove instrumental with some fat Tom Scott brass.

Whichever way you come at it, Version’s a slinky, spine-slipping little number, as useful on the home listening music system as it is pumping out the club speakers. But how does it work live when Ronson’s stripped off all his big name vocalists who may turn up for a London gig but are hardly likely to schlep round the country in the tour bus. Does he does he carry replacement session singer parts, slip the mix tapes into the deck and add live guitar and organ  with his backing horns and string sections, or, at the end of the day, is still just a DJ with some celebrity friends who owe him the odd favour?  7.30pm. £15. Carling Academy

Thursday October 18

Martha Tilston

It really is about time you caught up with her.  Husky voiced daughter of singer-songwriter folkie Steve, her past four albums, Running, Bimbling, Of Milkmaids & Archicects and the download only Ropeswing have shown her to be well steeped in folk tradition influences but equally adept at world music vibes and smoky pop. With her catchy ditty about the boredom of office clockwatching, Artificial,  just released on single, she’ll doubtless be dipping into all of them for tonight’s set,  which, if you’re lucky, may well include Over To Ireland, the sensual Firefly, and the marvellous Red with its musical images of dank Autumn woods. And, with work in progress for album number five, listen up for the ripplingly reflective Symphonies & Vans as a taster of treats in store. 8pm. £8. Glee Club

Thursday October 18

Jim White

Far too few people in the world are aware of the Florida born White. In his life he’s been a   Pentecostalist snake-handler, fashion model, New York taxi driver, pro-surfer, chef, photographer, and film-maker, all of which has fed into the songs on his past three albums, Wrong-Eyed Jesus, No Such Place and Drill A Hole In That Substrate And Tell Me What You See and led him to host the Arena documentary on the white-trash underbelly of the Deep South, Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus.

If it's Southern Weird you're after, Jim's your man. However, his music’s been nudging ever closer to the mainstream, settling to the laidback blend of country, funk, gospel, jazz and soul that now arrives on Transnormal Skiperoo (Luaka Bop), a phrase he says describes those times when he doesn’t need the crutches of drugs, God or doomed romance to get through the day.

Which doubtless explains the air of grace under open skies that percolates through A Town Called Amen’s quiet acceptance of life and the dreamy musical tapestries that enfold even darker tipped songs like the lilting Blindly We Go’s meditation on the unknowability of God, the magnificently wounded desert night moods of Jailbird and the soft shoe loon shuffle Turquoise House brings to its write celebration of misfits.

  Elsewhere, conjuring the spacy textures that often coil around his music, there’s the ethereal Pieces of Heaven’s song for his daughters that recalls Led Zep’s bucolic pagan folk, the spooked cosmic bluegrass of Counting Numbers In The Air and the ghostly Southern folk he brings to Fruits of the Vine’s stories of lives brought low by desperation and Take Me Away’s haunted story of a preacher’s son who slowly lost his mind faced with the pressure of following in his father’s footsteps and the church’s stifling of his artistic talents.

 Live, it’s going to demand plenty of hush from the audience to really recreate the effect  of White’s observational and insightful storytelling on numbers like these or the bruised Plywood Superman, but the effort’s well worth it.

Opening the set will be Jenny Owen Youngs, a New Jersey singer-songwriter whose Batten The Hatches (Nettwerk) debut mixes together infectious melodies with confessional lyrics that unveil dysfunctional, screwed up relationships, an overfondness for the booze and something of a potty-mouth.

 Intense and given to extremes (she’s been known to actually sit on a member of the audience while uncurling the heartbroken bitterness of F** Was I ), she’s part Joplin, part Beth Orton, clearly believing that if she’s going to drape her hang ups and dirty washing over some nifty guitar picking then she’s sure as hell not worried about making the listener feel a little itchy and uncomfortable too.

There’s much to enjoy about the likes of the jazzy swing Porchrail and the bounce along indie-rock of  Drinking Song, but armed with just an acoustic guitar and shorn of the strings and horns of the album, the songs may find more space to breathe live with numbers as Bricks,  Coyote  and P.S (“I can’t make real life as good as television”) promising to leave you wanting more. 7.30pm. £12. Barfly

Friday October 19

Capdown

Knocking it on the head after 10 years, this is your last chance to catch the punk-ska outfit before they sell the tour bus. Still, at least they go out with heads held high after releasing career high album Wind Up Toys (Fierce Panda) with the steel tipped flurry of punchy, moshing, guitar razoring of tracks like Terms And Conditions Apply, Keeping Up Appearances, the metal grinding Generation Next and farewell dub buzzing single No Matter What. Doubtless there’ll be many live favourites resurrected as a parting gift for the faithful, stirring memories to warm the long nights before the guys announce future plans. 8pm. £10. Barfly

Saturday October 20

Johnny Foreigner

The local trio do their bit for charidee with this Oxjam gig that also conveniently serves to showcase upcoming mini-album Arcs Across The City (Best Before). A  six  track fist of noisy, scratchy art-pop with storming angular melodies, chopping riffs, boy/girl vocals elbowing and colliding into each other, it barely pauses for breath as it charges from Champagne Girls I Have Known through The End And Everything after and Suicide Pact, Yeah to the minute buzzsawing of Sofacore.

Distorted guitar fuzzed anthem cacophony This Band Is Killing Us proves they don’t have to do everything at 80mph and there’s even a hidden, whisper it, tinkling ballad at the end to reveal the can be softies if they want. Unlikely to kick down the doors  to the mainstream, but indie kids looking to bounce off the walls will take them to their hearts. 8pm. £3. Sunflower Lounge, Smallbrook Queensway

Saturday October 20

Sohodolls

Having put their name about with the No Regrets and  Glitter Band stomping Stripper singles, Maya von Doll brings the revamped line up of  Toni Sailor, Weston Doll, Matt Lord and Paul Stone to town to serve up the sleaze-dripping electro-glam of debut album Ribbed Music For The Numb Generation (Agrecords), a  deliciously trashy snake-hipped revisiting of Soft Cell burlesque disco cabaret. Gary Numan and John Foxx poke their  influence through the veils of My Vampire, Prince Harry’s a bubbling swaggerer about the heir to the throne, Right And Right Again is back to the Glitter beat, Bang Bang Bang Bang curls the tongue around a pulsing come hither and Weekender crashes along in a spiked pop promise of sex as Maya sings about not being the type to ‘wash and go’.

I’m Not Cool declares the jazzy Lovecats-like sashay with breathy voice in your ear, but they oh so very much are. There’s a track here offering The Pleasures of Soho. Put on your best mac and suspender belt and enter in.  7.30pm. £6.50. Little Civic, W’hampton

Sunday October 21

Broken Family Band

They’ve moved a long way down the trail since the early alt-country albums, these days they’re as likely to explode in a rowdy stomping Pixies rock storm as they are coat your heart with mournful dust. However, as the thrashy, screaming second half of the eight minute Seven Sisters and the throaty shouting, drum battering moments of Love Your Man, Love Your Woman on new romance (and sex)  themed album Hello Love (Track & Field) prove, this isn’t always necessarily a good thing.

Still, when not scaring off their more timid followers, there’s plenty of things here to match past glories. The jubilant opening country scuffer Leaps, equally bouncy broken-hearted community of So Many Lovers and a Green On Red  rocking Dancing On The 4th Floor kick up the tempo without needing to burst blood vessels while their more world weary  inclinations are well served by a careworn You Get Me and the tearstained, trumpet coloured Give And Take wistful tale of a gulf of romantic expectations.

It’s not their best album and the slightly schizophrenic indecision about quite who they want to be and where they want to go might see a parting of the ways by some of the hitherto faithful disappointed at the waning of the country sound. But, for now, they’re still a worthy live proposition. 8pm. £9.50. Glee Club

Sunday October 21

Justin Currie

It’s not clear whether a label-less Del Amitri are defunct or just on an extended sabbatical, but for now at least their lead singer is busy exploring his own directions. Following on from the pseudonymous Uncle Devil Show collaboration, he’s just released his solo debut, What Is Love For? (Ryko), recorded over the past couple of years without any pressures of having to sound like the band or be custom fitted for live shows.

Which, basically, means it’s a largely acoustic, intimate affair that bears witness to his stated inspirations of Lennon, Young, Simone and Mayfield, with a set of songs that wear a cynical face but carry a romantic heart. It’s also a welcome reminder of Currie’s soulful, folk inflected vocals, heard to shivering effect on the stoical Elton meets Nilsson piano ballad If I Ever Loved You, the Celtic misted countrified Walking Through You, the world weary pedal steel keening slow waltz Gold Dust and,  slightly harking back to the old days, a cello laden, politically bitter No, Surrender.

Taken together, it’s a little samey which, unless he can be persuaded to punctuate the mood with some older material, may make for a live set lacking I light and shade, but as an album it’s a solid reminder that Currie remains an undervalued writer and singer. 7.30pm. £15. Wulfrun Hall

Monday October 22

Richard Thompson

Incredible to think that’s it’s now just over 40 years since the 18 year old Thompson played his first ever gig  with Fairport at a Golders Green church hall. Leaving three years later, he’s now notched up some 16 solo albums, the latest, Sweet Warrior (Proper), being the one getting the spotlight among old favourites tonight.

As ever, it’s a taut, nervy affair that blends his folk and rock influences and comes graced with trademark genius guitar work. Fans might wince slightly at the reggae beat of Francesca, but otherwise there’ll be little argument that it’s one of his best collections, veined equally with the political and the personal.

The former gets potent expression on Dad’s Gonna Kill Me, a bitingly descriptive rockalong number written from the perspective of a soldier in Iraq (Dad being Baghdad, of course), and the trad ballad flavoured domestic terrorism number Guns Are The Tongues. You’ll also find subtle social comment underpinning the likes of  the jaunty Needle And Thread’s tale of being dumped by girls looking for bigger things and Mr Stupid’s wryly  bitter divorce song.

Matters of the heart deliver plenty of musical muscle too, Poppy Red a rhythmic chugging widower’s song, the wistful regrets of opportunities lost that stain Take Care The Road You Choose’s aching ballad, the lost summer romance She Sang Angels To Rest and Too Late To Come Fishing’s melodic vitriol of a man who came second to career ambition. 

And there’s many an old folkie who’d have given their right arms to have penned I’ll Never Give Up’s defiant sea shanty or the Caledonian stomping tale of a ceilidh band musician, the wife back home and mice playing while the cat’s away.

He may only throw in a couple from the album among his extensive catalogue, but whatever the set list, a Thompson gig is never less than an electrifying experience.

He’ll be joined by guest support Diana Jones, a rising American singer-songwriter whose current release, My Remembrance of You (Newsong), prompts comparisons with Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, and Iris DeMent for its Appalachian flavoured songs of loss, not belonging and insecurity. Listen out for  the heartbreaking Pony’s story of an Indian child taken from her reservation and sent to live among whites, the old-tyme country title track weepie, poignant lament Pretty Girl, perky romancer Fever Moon and Willow Tree’s Southern spiritual, and you’ll understand why she’s being called Emily Dickinson with a guitar. 7.30pm. £25.50. Symphony Hall

Monday October 22

Reverend and the Makers

It’s hard to understand quite why self-aggrandising Sheffield soundsystem guru and Arctic Monkeys  mate Jon McClure has been showered with such praise for his outfit’s debut album, The State of Things (Wall of Sound).

 Like hit single Heavyweight Champion Of The World, it’s workmanlike electro funk with roots in old school garage soul and Black Grape gigs, McClure’s John Cooper Clarke sounding vocals and lyrics that run the familiar gamut of humdrum Northern encounters with dead end towns, booze and birds.

It has its moments, most notably so on the annoyingly infectious He Said He Loved Me’s tale of getting knocked up with its Essex cheeky girls chorus, the holiday pop sheen of 18-30, and the swaggeringly urgent title track.

But, save for the rather good self-explanatory tinkling spoken ballad Sex With The Ex and the skip button cod-skanking of Sundown On The Empire, it all pretty much sticks to the same unvaried level and pumping  pace.

As his chums might say, it probably looks good on the dance floor but it’s not preaching to anyone other than the converted. 7.30pm. £11. Carling Academy

Monday October 22

Jack Savoretti

The Anglo-Italian singer-songwriter returns for his last dates of the year and a reminder to put his Between The Minds debut album on the Christmas list. At least if husky voice and emotion quivering self-examining and relationship songs are your thing. If so, then fans of Blunt, Ashcroft, Drake and co will be well chuffed with the likes of Once Upon A Street, Apologies and Killing Man  with Soldier’s Eyes a sneaky pitch at  the Dylan brigade too. 8pm. £8. Glee Club

Monday October 22

Elliot Minor

Former choirboys Alex Davies and Ed Minton return with their third single, The White One Is Evil (Repossession) and, in the wake of Parallel Worlds and Jessica, another dose of  soaring orchestral arrangement, chewy vocal harmonies, tinkling keyboards and driving, even at times prog,  rock guitar the fuses Green Day with ELO.  Rather good, it further whets the appetite for the upcoming album. 7.30pm. £8. Wulfrun Hall

Tuesday October 23

Bowling For Soup

Back as part of the Get Happy tour for another bash at current album The Great Burrito Extortion Case to coincide with download only arena swaying anthem single When We Die, another prime example of their ability to come up with ridiculously catchy sherbet fizz pop that doesn’t quite take itself seriously. Solid punchy power pop, with past nuggets like Girl All The Bad Guys Want and 1985 joining recent tracks such as High School Never Ends, Val Kilmer and the non-swearing fun of  A Friendly Goodbye. Big grin music at its best. 7.30pm. £17. W’hampton Civic Hall

Tuesday October 23

Cold War Kids

One last go round the houses for their Robbers & Cowards, the  narcotic bluesy sound of which has them touted as a cocktail of Beta Band, Velvets, Dylan and Billie Holiday. Fuzzed up guitars, lurching rhythms and soulful vocals are in plentiful supply with  Hang Me Up To Dry, Hair Down, Saint John and Passing The Hat while Hospital Beds conjures thoughts of John Cale and both Red Wine shows off their clattering rock clothes. Thet tour coincides with rumbling blues single We Used To Vacation that also comes in DVD shape with various promo videos. One of the year’s best, the follow up is eagerly anticipated.

Support are Montreal quartet  Patrick Watson whose recent Close To Paradise (V2)  album marks them as Canada’s answer to the Guillemots. Drawing on a background in classical and jazz bands, frontman Watson fills the album with soaring vocals, rippling piano lines, lush strings and  sensual guitars to create a night-time mood on the likes of  Weight Of The World, Slip Into Your Skin, and Bright Shiny Lights. They’re touted for big things in the months ahead and that new Flaming Lips  tag can’t be far off. 7.30pm. £11.50. Wulfrun Hall

Tuesday October 23

Fionn Regan

The End of History, the debut album from the Dublin singer-songwriter, suggest’s he’s spent some time poring over the collected works of Bert Jansch and John Fahey as much as Nick Drake. Reminiscent of Damien Rice, Loudon Wainwright and Paul Simon alike, with songs that draw heavily on rural and rustic imagery, tracks like Snowy Atlas Mountains, The Cowshed and The Underwood Typewriter make him well worth checking out. 7.30pm. £8. Little Civic, W’hampton

Wednesday October 24

Seasick Steve

Who’d have thought that, a couple of months on from his last low key tour, the old dog would be back selling out larger venues with the stripped to the bone Mississippi acoustic/electric blues that make up his Dog House Music album where hard life songs such as Dog House Boogie, Fallen Off A Rock, Things Go Up and Hobo Low are planted firmly in the tradition of  bluesmen John Lee Hooker, Son House and Blind Willie Johnson. Not bad for a grizzled, grey bearded white boy. With a booming voice and a raconteurs live charisma, his tales of the drifter’s life have clearly caught the imagination  and if you were too late to grab a space for this gig, he’s back again next year, But I’d book early.7.30pm. £11.50. Carling Academy 2

Wednesday October 24

Shack

Largely thanks to a string of bad luck, the Liverpool outfit fronted by brothers Michael and John Head never did get the success they deserved, but they remain much loved underachievers and have a big fan in Noel Gallagher to whose Sour Mash label they’re currently signed.

So, long time admirers and hopefully a few new curious ones drawn by the Oasis connection, should be out for this tour of their Time Machine best of collection. Drawn from the overlooked Water Pistol album that finally emerged in 1995 and the subsequent follow-ups, there’s some real lost nuggets here, from the Byrdsian psychedelic folk-pop of  I Know You Well, Neighbours and the more country tinged Comedy to the Love shadings of Meant To Be and Butterfly and the folksy pop Streets of Kenny and a West Coast sunshine Al’s Vacation. Jangling new track Holiday Abroad shows they’ve lost none of their brushed narcotic pop beauty, so if you’ve yet to discover their charms, this is a very good time to start.

Opening act kindred spirit is Orange Lights, the happy marriage of Spiritualised guitarist Jason Hart and Lighthouse Family songwriter Paul Tucker unveiling the dreamy widescreen soul pop of their Life Is Still Beautiful (Blackbird) album where U2, Coldplay, Echo & The Bunnymen, Verve and Stone Roses all wave the influence flag. Recent single The yearning Let The Love Back In and follow up single Click Your Heels set a quality benchmark, so it’s good to report that the lush swirls of What’s Missing In Your Life, Little Me Little You and the swelling title track all keep the standard high. 7.30pm. £12.50. Barfly

Thursday October 25

Wallis Bird

Likened to Ai Di Franco, Fiona Apple, Edie Brickell (with new single Blossoms In The Street) and, in her growlier moments, Janis Joplin, Bird’s an earthy new Irish singer-songwriter with a line in folk filtered angsty acoustic jazz-rock  and a hefty helping of quirk, strangeness and charm.

Given she had to have all the fingers on her left hand reattached after a lawnmower accident, she plays a pretty nifty guitar too. But then she did learn to play it  with her right hand, the strings back to front. Which is an impressive feat in itself. 

Having initially released her debut album Spoons via downloads, she’s now signed to Island and out on the road to support its availability in store. Here you’ll find songs shaving her legs, getting drunk and acting like a dog on heat, all rather unexpected lyrical themes given the fairly  mellow finger-clicking nature of songs such as The Circle, Bring Me Wine, Moodsets. and the possibly Brubeck shaded Counting To Sleep. Definitely one to experience, though don’t be surprised to hear some very unladylike language and between song chat.  8pm. £6. Glee Club

Thursday October 25

The Twang

Having channelled the Alarm on debut single Wide Awake  and then come on like an unlikely meeting between The Streets and The Stone Roses with Either Way, it was anyone’s guess what  the Birmingham crew’s Love It When It Feels Like This (b-Unique) album might sound like.

Well, a bit of both really and a lot of  Britlad baggy, variously put to the service of  Flowered Up meet Happy Mondays dance swayers like Ice Cream Sundae and Loosely Dancing, the vaguely ballad Two Lovers, the dub flavoured Mike Skinner of Reap What You Sow and Cloudy Room where funky walking beats get into bed with U2 guitars. On Don’t Wait Up Phil Etheridge even seems to have been practising his John Cooper Clarke impressions.

The songs are basically about getting blathered, good sex, bad sex and failing to have any sex at all, so something everyone can relate to then. Best experienced with beer in hand.

Presumably tired of playing the same buzz saw pop tracks off their debut album About What You Know,  Sheffield quartet Little Man Tate have been introducing new material into the live sets to complement gig-worn numbers like European Lover, House Party At Boothy’s and Man I Hate Your Band. Prime among them their first stab at stadium arm-waving balladry with new single Boy In The Anorak which will doubtless get everyone practising tonight. 7.30pm. £12.50. Carling Academy

Thursday October 25

Poppy & The Jezebels

The Birmingham renaissance continues with Swanshurst Girls School pupils Mollie Kingsley, Amber Bradbury, Dom Vine and Poppy Twist filtering the punk pop of  We’ve Got A Fuzzbox through the pagan folk of Pooka. An eclectic set of influences includes the Stones, Madonna and Spice Girls but it’s fair to say that the ones more evident on their Follow Me Down (Reveal) mini album are the Slits, Cat Power, Patti Smith, and X-Ray Spex.

Predictably the media have been declaring them the next big whatever and icons of the youth-rock movement. At present they’re neither, but with songs well above the usual third form lyrics, there’s certainly the potential to do great things.

 The Lips of Cleopatra is easily the most seductive of the set, a goblin psych-folk excursion into the cobwebbed woods dank with rotting leaves built over Twist’s steady drum beat and rolling piano as Mollie turns her sneer on some schoolground bullies.

Mind you everything burrows into the bloodstream. Nazi Girls is a tarnished glam stomper with a singalong chorus full of whatevah attichude contrasting to the rumbling strummed acoustic secret romance fantasy balladry of Gracelin sounding like a wide-eyed Nico. Jezebel’s gossamer opening gives way to clattering Bo Diddley drum beat and primitive Hank Marvin guitar,  the naggingly catchy Electro Bitch  has Vine’s synth buzzing like a deranged wasp around Twist’s strident beats, Kingsley’s monotone drone poisonously sweet on the arms swinging chorus, while the title track’s ragged waltz conjuring images of  dark oceans lapping over mysterious, menacing shores while feedback growls in the background.  Being minors - along with many of the fans, this is a half-term afternoon gig, so make sure you have a lunch box packed. 1pm. £5. Barfly

Thursday October 25/Friday October 26

Rufus Wainwright

When  he sings 'do I disappoint you in just being human' on the discordantly orchestrated Do I Disappoint You, or spits out ''tell me, do you really think you go to hell for having loved?'  on the wearied Going To A Town, it's obvious that elegantly jaded new album Release The Stars (Geffen) finds Rufus having a bit of a righteous strop.  And, as Slideshow shows, he’s also prone to bouts of romantic insecurity and bitchy need. But then sex clearly recharges those batteries, affording both the tenderness of on the violin jittered Tulsa and the magnificently lust soaked, funky rocking glittering pop that is Between My Legs.

 Waspish, a bit of a queen and revelling in tortured, diva angst, it's certainly a joy to have him back, cabaret in mood and still infused with the spirit of Judy Garland, summoning images of New York rainy afternoons and  European boulevards with sly gigolos and cafes selling absinthe.

 Unconsummated desire, studied ennui, indolent waltzes and full blooded show tune doo wop, the album’s got the lot and, I daresay, the shows will have a whole load more. Though, hopefully, he’ll not be sporting the lederhosen he wears on the sleeve photo.

Support comes from Wolverhampton’s amalgam of Beck, Jeff Buckley, Ben Harper and Robert Plant in the shape Scott Matthews whose Passing Strangers (Island) debut album is well worth cocking an ear to for its stew of muscular folk, delta blues, rock and world music on such standouts as  The Fool’s Fooling Himself and Eyes Wider Than Before. 7.30pm. £25. Symphony Hall

Friday October 26

Cat Chinn

Yes that’s Carl’s daughter, deep voiced singer-songwriter sister to Tara, whose Night Racing album is a fine set of country and rootsy blues. This is a bit of a tester showcase for material she’s working on towards her own debut album next year and the chance to give up her day job in mortgages. There’s not much to go on, but a couple of demo numbers sound promising with Wonderful Surprise offering warm Latin inflected soul-pop that calls to mind Simply Red circa Fairground and the echoey guitar What I’ve Found more of a late night torchy folk feel that bizarrely sounds like a cross between Dusty Springfield and Purple Rain Prince. Which sounds enticing enough in my book. 8pm. £5. Glee Club

Friday October 26

The Mexicolas

Having taken forever to get round to releasing riff crunching debut single Shame, the Birmingham trio don’t waste any time with the follow up. Lifted from the forthcoming album, Come Clean (InExile) is all guitar rasping blues where Mark Lanegan meets Led Zep and the Chilli Peppers while other blood heated ditties likely to be on the set list include the jerking, guitar stabbing melodics of Big In Japan, a stadium thumping Easy Smile and the rasping Foo Fightersish Falling Into Myself.  7.30pm. £4. Bar Academy

Friday October 26

John Hiatt

It’s hard to remember the last time he played around here, so a welcome visit then from the veteran singer-songwriter who kickstarted his career over 30 years ago. Perhaps best known for hlate 70s/early 80s albums like Slug Line and Warming Up To The Ice Age that saw him touted as America’s answer to Elvis Costello; not least because they sound very alike.

However, it was only in 87 that he finally found real success with his Bring The Family album while the follow up, Slow Turning, the title track spawning his first and only US Top 10  single.

Although he’s had more luck with other people’s versions of his songs (Bonnie Raitt did Thing Called Love and Jeff Healey covered Angel Eyes), he consistently turned out quality r&b tinted rock material  over the years and some 17 albums, the most recent being 2005’s Master of Disaster, so fi nothing else he’s got a pretty hefty back catalogue to choose from. It’s a fair bet that at least one song you’ve heard of but couldn’t place will be in there somewhere. 8pm. £24.50/£19.50. Warwick Arts Centre

Saturday October 27

Ash

Having declared that they’re giving up making albums to concentrate on releasing digital singles, Tim Wheeler and the lads take to the road to encourage a few extra sales of  Twilight Of The Innocents (Infectious) before they bid fond farewell to the format. Of course there’s plenty there that sounds exactly as if they were recorded to be singles in the first place, most especially the rousing seminal Ash sounding guitar storming ringing pop of I Started A Fire, the circling riffs You Can’t Have It All, big indie ballad End of the World, Shadows with its hints of REM and the Byrds, and the rocking garage pop Princess Six. Bizarrely, the orchestra overloaded Polaris, which was the first single, just feels like the sort of album filler that, along with Shattered Glass, Palace of Exess and the dreary Merseybeating Dark And Stormy, Wheeler wants to avoid having to pad things out with in future. Mind you, does that also mean no more six minute kitchen sink epics like the title track? Catch them now before they decide that podcasts are easier to sort out than tour schedules.

Having had sophomore album Time To Take Sides (Deltasonic) put back to next year, The Dead 60s  have a little more time to lay the ground for its slogan-waving melding of ska and combat rock Clash, giving fans time to get juiced up in anticipation of the barricades storming Bolt Of Steel, a Strummeresque Beat Generation, the thundering Dull Towns, voodoobilly tinted All Over By Midnight and the 60s garage rock throwback of Liar. A far harder hitting, tougher steeled proposition than last time round, so expect good things.

Given the job of playing to early arrivals  more interested in getting the pints sorted are Sheffield soul pop boys The Dodgems. Following up debut single You’re Not What You Used To Be, they’re being digital only with Candlewax  (No Carbon), a nifty, perfectly bounceable slice of cabaret clattering indie pop though hardly indicative of their supposed Hendrix influences. Those are more in evidence in the guitar solo in the organ driven staccato garage rock of Come On, but I suspect it’s on stage where the purple patches will really haze. 7pm. £16.50. Carling Academy

Saturday October 27

The Proclaimers

With I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) a reissued hit for Children In Need, Craig and Charlie hit the tracks in support of their new songs, neatly gift wrapped in on Life With You (W14).

Though opening with the typically stomping title track, there’s sober comment here too as they turn their attention to left wing sell outs (a chugging In Recognition), misogyny in music (the bluesy Here It Comes Again),  the war on terror (piano ballad S.O.R.R.Y, blues-rock The Long Haul), religion (If There’s A God, New Religion) and those who blame everyone but themselves (No One Left To Blame).

It’s not all depressing toetappers, Harness Pain reminds what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and Blood Lying On Snow swings along on a hefty folk rock melody about fiery lust while never say die optimism comes courtesy a cover of Wreckless Eric’s Whole Wide World.

Live they’re at their forceful best, as evidenced by the bonus disc’s rousing versions of Born Innocent, Hate My Love and Joyful Kilmarnock Blues, an energy guaranteed to be repeated tonight. 8pm, £22.50. Warwick Arts Centre

 Sunday October 28

Super Furry Animals

Gruff Rhys having recently done his solo thing, he’s back with his mates for the Welsh outfit’s eight album, Hey Venus! (Rough Trade), digging into the Spector vault of sound for soaring 60s flavoured ballad Run-Away, surfing the cosmic funk lanes with Into The Night, playing their quirky indie rock hand on Neo Consumer and Baby Ate My Eight Ball while gathering around a barroom’s drunken piano for the late night woozy torch waltz Let The Wolves Howl At The Moon and hanging out with Brian Wilson for Show Your Hand.

A concept album of sorts that follows the titular small town girl on her travels to the big city bright lights in search of a brief taste of fame and fortune, it could almost be seen as a fable about the band’s own arc, the dreamy Suckers an especially barbed number about overcoming illusions and finding strength in yourself.

Beyond their idiosyncrasies and eccentricities, this is melodic, sometimes (as with Carbon Dating) silkily lush pop music that, having notched up yet another sizeable hit album, once again shows that, on occasion, the record buying public shows more taste than you might expect. 7pm. £17.50. Carling Academy

Sunday October 28

Kharma 45

Quite what the Northern Irish quartet think they’re doing with the Chemical Brothers cum Prodigy style dancefloor beats, bleeps and squelches of Political Soul I don’t know, but it’s a quantum leap of musical genres between that and the single plug side Come On (Warner). This being a wall of sound soaring slice of jubilant anthemic guitar lysergic power pop  that marches along like an all conquering army, spraying Stone Roses and early U2 thoughts at random. Likely to confuse punters whichever side of the band they turn up expecting to find, nonetheless live reports suggest they’ll convert all comers to both persuasions. 7pm. £4. Barfly

Sunday October 28

While & Matthews

Still plugging last year’s best of collection with evergreens like The Light In My Mother’s Eye, Shadow Of My Former Self, Class Reunion and Seven Years of Rust, the duo have no new album out to tie in with the tour, but Chris While’s certainly been busy ensuring their devotees aren’t going hungry for new material. Too Few Songs (Fat Cat) finds her teamed with daughter Kellie for their second collaboration, a wonderful set of English folk and American hewn songs that showcases their individual and harmonising voices to spine shivering effect. Other than 36 Miles Away From The Sea, a While/Matthews number about the building of the Manchester Ship Canal, the tracks are covers, ranging from Ron Sexsmith’s The Words We Never Use and a suitably rowdy reading of Dylan’s Mississippi to  Richard Thompson’s poignant Persuasion and Mike Silver’s Let It Be So. It’s all marvellous stuff, though perhaps the real highlights are their versions of Robin and Linda Williams’ rootsy backporch Don’t Let Me Come Home A Stranger and the Matthews-penned Love Is An Abandoned Car. And, as if that weren’t enough, While’s also just released Rosella Red (Fat Cat),  her first solo album in ten years. Further proof, were it necessary, that she’s one of the finest voices English folk music has to offer, this time the songs are mostly all her own work, the only covers being Australian singer-songwriter Michael Kennedy dark tale of the deserted child’s cemetery on Pennyweight Hill and a lovingly affectionate treatment of Both Sides Now.
Of her own songs, Dark Blue Eyes is a love song to her daughter, Falling Ashes a rumbling lament for the vanished shipyards of  Barrow-in-Furness, Safe In Your Arms a old fashioned country waltz, Walking In My Shoes takes her into bluesy fields and The Promise lays out her environmental concerns for a suffocating planet. Ask nicely and I’m sure Julie will let her slip at least one taster into the set. 8pm. £9. midland arts centre

Sunday October 28

Idlewild

Yet another tour on the back of a best of album, this finds Roddy Woomble and the crew casting an eye back over a decade of making music with Scottish Fiction (Parlophone). Disappointingly their first single, Queen of the Troubled Teens, is absent but  you do a hefty 17 strong set of  highlights, among them the REM influenced Roseability, debut hit When I Argue I see Shapes, the magnificent Stipe-like trembling ballad American English, sole Top 10 single You Held The World In Your Arms and both No Emotion and the title track from the recent Make Another World that saw them getting back to their early hard-tipped guitar rock. The special edition version comes with a bonus DVD featuring the promo videos, archive documentary footage and a full live show from Aberdeen earlier this year, just so you can check out what you’re in for upfront. 8pm. £16. Warwick University

Monday October 29

Beverley Knight

Wolverhampton’s, nay arguably the UK’s finest soul singer, this is her first tour since receiving her MBE and the release of Music City Soul (Parlophone), an album that, recorded in just five days with no excess studio polish, digs into the roots of old school school to stand shoulder to shoulder with best of Aretha (check out her cover of Rock Steady) and Tina Turner; indeed Black Butta sounds very much like Nutbush City Limits.

Apparently it’s an album she’s been wanting to make for years and she’s never sounded better or more involved, opening proceedings with the slinky swaggering Every Time You See Me Smile and the Atlantic r&b pumping Ain’t That A Lot Of Love and proceeding through warm, rich butter cream ballads No Man’s Land (a track Percy Sledge would have loved) and new single The Queen of Starting Over to the classic Stax and  vintage Motown feel of things like Tell Me I’m Wrong, Back To You and Why Me, Why You, Why Now. And her cover of Time Is On My Side easily rivals the 1964 Irma Thomas version.

The only problem is, save for Piece of My Heart, how on earth are her earlier more contemporary r&b numbers going to fit alongside material from this album and not sound diminished by comparison.

Opening the show will be Barnet soul-pop newcomer David Jordan whose debut album Set The Mood (ZTT) seems set to see him landed with new Seal/Terence Trent D’Arby labels for numbers like On The Money, Set The Mood,  Love Song and Glorious Day. Those, though, aren’t the only strings to his bow. Place In My Heart is playful 80s pop Michael Jackson and Sweet Prince a soul Take That with If I’m Love all slinky Timberlake soul swing and Sun Goes Down a great clanking rhythm oddity that sounds like it was lifted from some stomping Russian-Jewish musical. Definitely a name to keep an eye on. 7.30pm. £22.50. Symphony Hall (+ Thu Nov 29 7.30pm. £22.50, W’hampton Civic Hall)

Monday October 29

Hell is For Heroes

Named after the 1962 Steve McQueen movie, the London based post-hardcore outfit follow up their Transmit Disrupt album with their self-titled newbie (Golf), all massive widescreen noise that occasionally veers towards the sort of 21st century prog essayed by Oceansize.

 It’s pretty relentless stuff, creating huge soundscapes with guitars and keyboards on the likes of the epic To Die For, the urgent intensity of Stranger In You, Into The Blood, Arcades and Hands Up although You’ve Got Hopes and Once And For All shows they can introduce lighter passages before going off into the sonic stratospheres.

Unfortunately, it again fails to recapture the promise and power of their debut and while they still deliver solid live shows with ferocious versions of I Can Climb Mountains, Five Kids Go and Kamichi, the chances of a fourth album look slim.

Keeping the movie title theme going, support comes from Guildford noisenicks  Meet Me In St Louis, though given their debut album, Variations On Swing (Xtra Mile) is a barrage of ragged riff, melody-devoid cacophony that never lives up to song titles like I’ve Got Knives In My Eyes I’m Going Home Sick, I Beat Up The Bathroom, I’m Sorry and Come To New York, There Were Fewer Murders Last Year, maybe arriving late might be a good option. 7.30pm. £10. Barfly

Tuesday October 30

Emmy The Great

Tipped by Vogue and endorsed by Fyfe Dangerfield,  Hong Kong born  singer-songwriter Emma Lee Moss  arrives in town to showcase her upcoming single Gabriel (Close Harbour), a rather lovely pure warbling voiced dash of bright-eyed pop-folk that hints at what Natalie Merchant might sound like if she was skipping down English country lanes and across fields of golden wheat.

She’ll also be dipping into her bag of goodies containing tracks from debut EP My Bad with its flavours of early Melanie (in spirit rather than voice) and Regina Spektor on such particular delights as The Easter Parade and an accordion hued City Song. Twee with hidden teeth. 8pm. £6.50. Glee Club

Tuesday October 30

The Fray

Emerging from nowhere (well Denver actually) and sounding like America’s answer to Keane, with the help of  the title track being featured on Grey’s Anatomy the piano driven soft rock debut album How To Save A Life (Epic) sold two million copies Stateside while the single took up what seemed like permanent residence in the UK Top 10.

 Firmly Christian without using their faith to overtly fuel their songs, they arrive here wearing their U2 and Counting Crows influences on their sleeves to reinvigorate sales after follow-up single  Over My Head proved somewhat less successful. No reason to suspect they won’t sweep all before them with such radio friendly, melody dripping, emotion rinsed numbers as  Heaven Forbid, Vienna (no, not that one) and Little House as well as more rocking material like She Is. Given the album’s actually two years old, they’re also likely to be trying out a couple of new numbers for the follow up while their previous independently released EP, Reason, is being reissued to bridge the gap. 7.30pm. £15. Carling Academy

Wednesday October 31

Steriogram

If anyone’s still interested, this lot had that  skate punk rap hit Walkie Talkie Man only to fall like a ton of bricks and do a Stiltskinhen when they released the  Schmack album revealing them as  a watered down New Zealand answer to the Red Hot Chillis. And garage rock. And Green Day. And Blink 182. They return now having grown their hair and gone more hardcore with This Is Not The Target Market (Short Stack), throwing in some distorted guitars, aping Faith No More with Talk About It  and dropping a nod of AC/DC bluesy riffery for Satan Is A Lady. Sitting Above Me, Wasted,a stacatto jabbing Just Like You and the punk Own Way Home are probably the most direct numbers and likely to be the live highlights. But really there’s nothing much out of the run of the mill here to suggest anything like a resurrection comeback. 7.30pm. £9. Carling Academy 2

Wednesday October 31

Vinny Peculiar

The musical alter-ego of Bromsgrove's Alan Wilkes or, as he’s been dubbed, The Tony Hancock of pop , Growing Up With Vinny Peculiar and its sequel, Whatever Happened To Vinny Peculiar, were sadly underrated affairs. But, for those willing to listen, they revealed a clutch of  peculiarly English self-deprecating songs about  male self-doubt, religion, the hollowness of celebrity, lost innocence, schooldays memories and emotional need.

Now he’s here trailing next year’s Goodbye My Angry Friend (Pronoia) which, despite an opening track (that sounds like it was recorded underwater) announcing Vinny Peculiar Is Dead, continues his preoccupations and literate observational insights. However an air of disillusion, regret and resignation permeating numbers like the slow marching Too Late, the tinkling chamber pop Seasonal Affective Disorder, Song For The Dead (a wry ditty about musical necrophilia), Lost For Words, a bitterly ironic The Happiest Man In The World and Batman, which isn’t about the comic book hero but fathers for justice. He’s been linked to Morrissey, but perhaps he’s better described as what Alan Sillitoe might have been had he written songs rather than novels. It’ll be a long three months until the album’s out, so stock up on nourishment here.

He’s joined on tour by Wonderstuff frontman Miles Hunt and violinist/co-writer Erica Nockalls who’ll be spotlighting new album No Exit (IRL), a  fairly representative addition to the Hunt canon of spleen venting, cynicism washed melodic pop that positively bounds along with all the fire of the vintage Stuffies. There is, though, a tendency to swamp everything with orchestral arrangements that make things a little top heavy at times, forcing the songs to struggle their way above the arrangements.

That said, Back On The Charm Offensive is a rousing three minutes of bile that name checks Bono, Note To Self a defiant riposte to those who pass judgement but never get their hands dirty, The Cake dips back into Golden Green territory to sound like some Jewish mazurka, These Things Remembered  does a country trot with Nockalls supplying the hoe down fiddle and The Easy Way (Like Californians) is just classic  Eight Legged Groove Machine  tumbling jumbling rock n roll pop.

There’s a worrying sign on the romantic Corny But True and the ploddy Play Me Music that he might be mellowing in his old age, hopefully that’s just a passing phase and there’s many more years of his sharp tongue and withering put downs still to come. 8pm. £10. Robin 2, Stourbridge