Gig Guide archive October 2010

Previews by Mike Davies

Friday October 1

Island Life

Named from the Grace Jones album and part of the company’s 50 year celebrations, this is a package tour designed to showcase three of the label’s ‘new breed’ of signings whose styles both contrast and complement.

Born in Zimbabwe and raised in Hackney, Tinashe is the most obviously commercial, his Saved album reared on classic Motown, 60s soul (The Feeling almost seems about to burst into Higher And Higher) and pop, peppered with addictive melodies and songs about the ups and downs of urban teen life.

Whether heading down a swaggery indie guitar rock path with If You Say So, playing the stadium ballad card on Every Single Day, swelling with African choir on the buoyantly Afrobeat Zabezi or bouncing along with the bubblegum, finger clicking Madness/Squeeze influenced She Gives A Damn, he makes it impossible to listen without a smile on your face. (He’ll be supporting Eliza Doolittle next week too).

Then there’s Lauren Pritchard, the Tennessee songstress who’s, not inaccurately, been called a cross between Janis Joplin, Karen Carpenter and Carole King. Last time around she was unveiling her debut EP, The Jackson Sessions, featuring the King styled piano ballad When The Night Kills The Day and New York blues groove Stuck. Since then she’s released a second, the bluesy hip hop streaked Painkillers, and arrives now to wave the flag for her debut album, Wasted In Jackson, which also features the soulful Dusty Springfieldisms of It’s Not The Drinking and Going Home, the reggae shaded title track, a Motown influenced Hang Up and the hip hop Bad Time To Fall.

A shared love of hip hop has seen her join forces with the third member of the tour bus, Pete Lawrie, a stubbled adoptive Welshman who was born in Penny Lane and whose grandfather played trumpet on Strawberry Fields Forever.

Other than a jarring remix of the rough shod anthemic title track, his All That We Keep EP is a rather marvellous introduction to his husky vocals, a warm raspy blend of Southern soul and Welsh hillsides, and also features Penny Drop, which has him sounding a little like Mark Cohn and features Fyfe Dangerfield on piano, and, joined by Pritchard, a gospel country cover of Jay-Z’s Song Cry.

He’s putting the finishing touches to an album and will also be previewing next month’s new single, In The End, a tempo shifting number which has him sounding a little like a cross between Chris Rea and Ray Lamontagne. You’d pay more than this to see just one of them, so it’s terrific talent value for money. 8pm. £7.50. Glee Club

Friday October 1

Architects

A quintet hailing from Brighton, this is a building design of brutal hardcore, their Hollow Crown (United By Fate) album a welter of pulverising drums, flailing chainsaw guitars and raw, shredded throat vocal howls. For the uninitiated, the only way to distinguish one track from another is by their titles, although the title track itself does close proceedings with an intro of deceptive calm before reverting to thrash. Doubtless fans will point out the subtly nuanced differences between the likes of Early Grave, Dethroned and Dead March, but it’s likely even they may have problems with their ears pouring blood. 7pm £12. O2 Academy 2

Sunday October 3

Grant Lee Phillips

pic (c) denise siegel

The former mainman of Grant Lee Buffalo is a sterling songwriter possessed of a charismatic voice, so it’s a a pity his current album Little Moon, slipped out here last year with no real promotion. He’s here to rectify matters as best he can, belting out its blue collar, dust-flecked rock with the likes of the air fisting Strangest Thing, a jazzy swaggering marching band It Ain’t the Same Old Cold War, Harry and the moody bruised heart that is Buried Treasure. There’s probably more piano ballads here than necessary and while the Randy Newmanesque Older Now and the anthemic stir of One Morning are standout tracks, live the fans will be hoping for a little more guitar fire in his belly. 8pm. £14. Glee Club

Sunday October 3

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.

Back in indie label land after the Nitin Sawhney-produced Searching for the Hows and Whys, Sam Duckworth returns with his new eponymously titled album (Cooking Vinyl), but unfortunately little reason to raise your interest. He’s been busy flecking his folk rock with beats, world music and electro but recruiting Shy FX for the jazzy drum machine driven Collapsing Cities and Baaba Maal to inject some African vibe into All Of This Is Yours doesn’t make either of them any less tedious.

His own voice sounds drained of colour, on the fingerpicking Hand Me Downs he comes over like a poor, hoarse Nick Drake, and while Nightlife has a go at kicking up some brassy It’s Not Unsual pop soul the moment he opens his mouth its sinks into the mud. It flares up for the politically punchy punkish The Uprising but while The Plot shows he can still turn out some watery acoustic guitar troubadour folk, so much is just draggily lacklustre that you can’t but feel he lost it along the way. 8pm. £12. Rainbow, Digbeth

Sunday October 3

The Magic Numbers

Things are obviously reaching crisis point for the Greenford outfit. Having being nominated for the Mercury Music Prize with their Top 10 debut, things started to slide when the follow up, Those The Brokes stalled just outside. Then the Undecided EP failed to chart, they’ve not had a hit single in three years and, lethargically promoted, this year’s third album, The Runaway (Heavenly) failed to even make the Top 40. No wonder Romeo Stodart’s been moonlighting with other artists.

Of course that the album has suffocated the lush melodies and 60s harmonies of the debut with overproduction and that, while a dreamy summery listening experience overall it’s also incredibly soporific and that no single number cries out for airplay rotation might have something to with the defection of the fans. Dreams Of A Revelation and The Song That No One Knows show them still capable of writing a James Bond soundtrack. Unfortunately, for Sean Connery rather than Daniel Craig. 7.30pm. £14, Wulfrun Hall

Monday October 4

Thea Gilmore

In town to promote new album Murphy’s Heart (Fulfill), it's a bluesier and more sultry affair than usual, opening with the snaky folk-blues sass of This Town with its ticking hollow percussion, brass stings and lyrics and delivery that make you suspect she's been digging around the Eartha Kitt collection.

Introducing Latin rhythms, the itchily rhythmic God's Got Nothing On You is a barbed rhyming couplet put down of self-regarding arrogance that doesn't forget a catchy chorus line. The same sing-along sensibility informs You're The Radio and equally likely to whip things up live is the surf guitar twanging amd horsd driven country-blues funk of Teach Me To Be Bad.

She's talked about stepping out of her musical box and there's certainly a cosmopolitan mood here. There's more Latin with the clicking bossa nova of the motherhood-themed Wondrous Thing with its muted trumpet, Not Alone turns to flamenco for a suitably steamed tale of an illicit passion while the tinkling, lilting sway of Due South harks to her Irish roots and a clanking, politically cut Love Is The Greatest Instrument hovers around a fusion of swampy blues and gypsy campfire.

When her pure voice soars, it's striking how she's increasingly starting to resemble Baez, her influence clearly present on numbers like Coffee And Roses, the border mood of Mexico and gospel-inflected piano ballad How The Love Gets In.

Despite being regularly saluted as one of the country’s finest singer-songwriters, she’s frustratingly yet to break through into the wider public consciousness, but for those who’ve discovered her charms she’s a national treasure.

Support comes from former Rialto frontman Louis Eliot showcasing material from his current solo album Kittow’s Moor. There’s plenty of comparisons to be made. The pastoral folk pop of Runaway Night conures Stephen Duffy while there’s Lilac Time shades too on Someone Like You, Paper Plane and Bottle Rocket. The accordions, fiddles and whistles on the likes of I Saw Her At The Fair and the shantyish Skimming Stones conjure the Celtic folk of The Waterboys while Carry Me Home with its tpub singalong nature is pure Pogues. And, if you fancy more reference points, One Step At A Time borrows the Summertime Blues riff for a return to Rialto’s fizzy glam pop while Come On Let’s Go nods to those Ray Davies influences.

However, all this gives things a cosily familiar feel and, dealing with themes of love loss, childhood nostalgia and Cornish Christmases, the songs slip down easily, sometimes catching you offguard with their honest emotions and rustic pleasures. 8pm. £15. Glee Club

Tuesday October 5

The Delays

Out plugging Star Tiger Star Ariel (Lookout Mountain), their first own label release since being kicked off Fiction, the Southampton outfit have played down the summery pop of Everything’s The Rush and toughened up the guitar muscle. It’s not immediately obvious, luring listeners in with Find A Home, a fluttering Japanese flavoured tune with Greg Gilbert’s falsetto fluting ethereally as the songs builds to a restrained crescendo. Then brooding bassline and synth trigger introduces the march beat The Lost Estate, a fuzzy cascade of guitar and keyboards that swells to anthemic proportion.

But, just as you’re settling in, along comes the urgent riff heavy, thrusting Shanghied and the sonic swirls of May 45 while In Brilliant Sunshine swarms with reverb and the title track itself throbs with angry guitar and bass storms. As Unsung and the tilling Rhapsody show, they’ve not stifled the knack of writing catchy hooks, but it’s safe to assume the live set’s going to be a little louder and heavier this time around. 8pm. £11. Glee Club

Tuesday October 5

The Baseballs

Three German rockabilly fans with a shared love of Elvis, they’re the latest in a long line of bands who rework contemporary hits in a 50s and 60s manner. Big Daddy remain the kings, but this trio make a fair stab as heirs to the throne with Strike (Rhino) where they give rock n roll makeovers to the likes of Umbrella, Hey There Delilah, Bleeding Love, Don’t Cha (done a la Blue Hawaii era Elvis), Pokerface and Chasing Cars. It rapidly pales on disc, especially since most are delivered in a Presley stylee (complete with drawl) with the occasional flurry of Jerry Lee Lewis piano boogie, but it should be energetic fun live so make sure your quiff’s cool and you take your comb.7.30pm. £13.50. O2 Academy 2

Tuesday October 5

Sivert Hoyem

The former frontman of Madrugada, apparently Norway’s biggest ever rock band, following their demise after the guitarist’s death he’s now ploughing a solo furrow. Although Moon Landing (Hektor) is his third album, it’s the first since the band called it a day so there’s no day job to fall back on.

Not that he need worry about paying the rent since he brings to it his usual mastery of soaring melodies, stadium rousing choruses, plangent guitars and nagging hooks but with more of an alt-rock airplay friendly approach.

An eight minute Belorado sets the ball rolling with tumbling jangling guitars and huge power chords and while The Light That Falls Among The Trees is an acoustic ballad and Going For Gold an organ led soul blues, the emphasis is firmly on either ringing licks or crunching riffs with the likes of the fuzzed up rockabilly blues What You Doin’ With Him, the distortions and feedback of Sister Sonic Blue and the swagger and sling of the title track and Empty House.

He’s hardly likely to have anything the same fanbase here as back home, but given both this and the band’s past repertoire he’s worth a once over for the curious.

Support comes from Colour of Sound, a project that came into being when the four singers played a London charity gig with their own respective bands. Maybe it seemed a good idea at the time, but in the cold light of day debut album When (Red Grape) is a rather indifferent affair, occasionally fanning the flame of interest when it openly parades Neil Young influences on Open Room, Can I Follow You? and Pennylan Park or on the country rock jangle that lifts Here It Comes Again after two minutes of tedium. The rest though is just adequately played, forgettable and solid but unimaginative fuzzy soft rock. Don’t You Know When It’s all Over? they sing. Fairly soon, I’d imagine . 6.30pm. £8. O2 Academy 3

Wednesday October 6

Kate Nash

Maybe it was smarting at being tagged Lily Allen lite after her Made of Bricks debut, but while there’s still a fair smattering of that Sarf Lardnan teenage urchin pop smarts to the likes of Paris and Early Christmas Present. most of follow up My Best Friend Is You (Polydor) sounded like Nash was making a very deliberate attempt to show there were more colours to her palette. Large twangy daubs of 60s girl pop and Motown on one hand with Do-Wah-Doo, Kiss That Grrrl and I’ve Got A Secret mixed with gnarlier, noisier numbers such I Just Love You More, Later On, and Take Me to A Higher Place where she seemed to have found albums by Sonic Youth and The Slits.

However, given that the album fell short of its predecessor’s success and Kiss That Grrrl failed to even struggle into the Top 200, it seems reasonable to assume there’ll be some serious career direction thinking going on and, if Late On fails to trouble the charts later this month, she could well find herself in the market for a new label deal too. 7.30pm. £14. HMV Institute

Thursday October 7

Hurts

Currently holders of the new big thing baton, Mancunian electro-pop duo Theo Hutchcraft and Adam Anderson say their sound is inspired by Italian disco lento of the early 90s, big emotional balladry with heavy electronic textures. Listening to their Happiness (RCA) album, however, you’re less likely to think of Zucchero than The Pet Shop Boys, a-ha, Go West, Johnny Hates Jazz and, oh dear, Midge Ure era Ultravox. The Stay has that Vienna synth rumble and they even wear trenchoats.

All of which makes songs like big drama ballad Blood, Tears & Gold, synthfart pop Sunday, moody stadium swayer Silver Lining, the Wagnerian Evelyn and the heroically overblown Devotion, on which Kylie Minogue warbles backing vocals, blusteringly listenable but hardly the sort of stuff to have you declaring the boys the saviours of 21st century pop music. The new Savage Garden, perhaps. Enjoy them now, in two years they’ll sound as dated as Howard Jones. 7.30pm. £9. HMV Institute

Thursday October 9

Alan Pownall

The former fashion student must be wondering how it all went so wrong so quickly. This time last year he was one of the buzz names for 2010, a singer-songwriter to take on Paolo Nuttini or Jack Johnson at their own game. Adele requested him as support for her tour, reviewers were bandying around names like Aqualung and Divine Comedy and his summery folk pop was going to be all over the airwaves.

Fast forward and his debut single, the shuffling vaudeville lazy afternoon Chasing Time, failed to chart then his album, True Love Stories (Mercury) was given a ‘soft release’ with laid back promotion to build a slow groundswell. As a result no one bought it and, while he’s out headlining now and supporting Amy McDonald later in the year, word is that he was dropped by the label last month.

It’s not too surprising. Presumably anticipating they were getting their own Jack Johnson, they must have been irked when Pownall rebuffed the comparisons in favour of Ray Davies, a fine songwriter but one who peaked over 20 years ago.

The album’s pleasant enough summery listening with a gentle Caribbean sway to numbers like Take Me, More Or Less and the hiccupping ska shuffle of Life Worth Living while Don’t You Know Me goes for McCartney pop and The Others harks back to Palm Court waltzes. Maybe if the sun had shone longer, so would his rising star. 8pm. £7. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Friday October 8

Eliza Doolittle

One of the most infectiously enjoyable albums of the year, Doolittle’s self-titled debut (is a confection of whistles, scuffed shoe shuffles. vaudeville and 60s summer pop inspired skipalongs and dreamy undulations. As well as her previous four EP tracks, Rollerblades, Go Home and Money Box there’s her first chart hit Skinny Genes and the recent Pack Up which, borrowing an Elvis doo wop rhythm and the chorus of Pack Up Your Troubles, was a deserved Top 4 single and wound up being plastered all over the X-Factor, and the impending reissue of Rollerblades should bring a welcome touch of sun to the autumn airwaves too.

But, while the lazy jazzed sway of Mr Medicine is another potential hit, it’s more than a collection of singles. A Smokey Room showcases her jazz sashay shimmer, So High echoes Eddi Reader’s folk-soul while Back To Front is a marvellous mix of contemporary innocent pop and the sort of old fashioned song they sang during the Blitz.

She’s a bit of a musical magpie, borrowing from Andy Williams’ Butterfly for Skinny Genes and stealing the Come Softly To Me intro melody line for the perky girlie pop of Missing, but this is a nest well worth feathering. It’s the opening night of her first major headline tour before going on to support Paloma Faith later in the year. It should be a regular party. 7pm. £10. O2 Academy 2

Friday October 8

Cherry Ghost

For a while there it seemed as though Simon Aldred had had his 15 minutes in the spotlight with debut album Thirst For Romance when initial interest began to wave. However three years later, he’s back with a whole new impetus that’s taken his music to the next level. Beneath This Burning Shoreline (Heavenly) sounds like a band rather than a singer-songwriter and some backing musicians while, burrowing into the darker pages of his lyrics, he’s emerged as a brooding romantic who shares a kinship with Richard Hawley, Tindersticks and Nick Cave.

Indeed, the sterling opening number, We Sleep On Stones, is a six minute graveyard set murder ballad full of resonating guitars, military beat drums and a dark loamy folk inflection to the vocals and the tumbling verses as he sings ‘take him down with a clean shot’ while the lush pop of Kissing Strangers with its 'well dressed weekend brute' could unfold on any of Hawley’s Sheffield landmarks, even if Aldred does come from Manchester.

The air of rainy nights, wet streets and reflections of lights pervades the album as it deals with such subjects as death, sex, religion; Only A Mother an uptempo tale of domestic abuse, My God Betrays a mournful acoustic slow waltz of provocative intent that hangs around absinthe joints with Scott Walker and Kurt Weill, The Night They Buried Sadie Clay a widescreen cocktail of Chopin’s funeral march, mariachi strings, sea shanty, murder ballad, and twangy guitar.

With the brooding, European flavoured atmosphere of Barberini Square featuring the marvellous line “in a certain light, your face could launch a bareknuckle fight”, this is a strong contender for the album of the year lists and, if they turn things up for the live set, the anthemic Black Fang could easily give Muse a run for their money.

Support’s provided by the unfeasibly named Tim And Tim’s Tim And The Tim Sam Band With Tim And Sam, a North Wales four piece whose Life Streams (Full Of Joy) debut album is a lovely bucolic affair involving loops, glockenspiel, xylophone, clarinet, harmonium. acoustic guitar and drums that invites you to join them in a celebration of life. Rooted in folk and classical influences, although five of the 11 tracks feature harmony or choral style crystal water vocals (of which the poppy single Finders Keepers is the strongest) the emphasis very much on the instrumental, the likes of Summer Solstice, Sparks and Up The Stairs creating a fuzzy, melodic rush in the veins. Apparently they climax the live set with three of them taking to the drums and building to a crescendo. Sound worth arriving early. 7pm. £10. O2 Academy 3

Friday October 8

Detroit Social Club

Back for another forage through the Existence album with its heady mash of juggernaut blues, psychedelia and gumbo rock n roll, they’ve made quite an impression this year with the likes of the stoned blues vibe of Silver, the Nirvana-like Chemistry and the The Mission statement of Prophecy. Next year, they’ll be looking down from the top of the mountain.

Support is Liverpool’s anthem merchants The Sound of Guns whose debut album What Came From Fire earned deserved comparisons to The Editors and U2 alike for its stadium filling hooks and massive guitars. Rather curiously they’ve opted to go with one of the weaker numbers, Elementary Of Youth, for the new single, but its non album B-side, Silent Canon, sounds like one to have the heavens ringing. 8pm. £9. Rainbow, Digbeth

Friday October 8

The Lines

Following the storming Skids-like Glorious Aftermath with its clarion cry guitars and new snarl n soar single El Matador with its hints of early U2 and funky midsection, the Wolverhampton outfit return home to launch their self-titled debut album (Amboy Road). Featuring both singles and the debut Domino Effect, it tends to over rely on a similar approach in places, the opener Tracey, for example does the Verve meets Oasis bit they’ve got down to a fine art while, for all the guitar fx pedal break of Slow It Up, it’s hard not equally think of Messrs Ashcroft and Gallagher.

There are, however, other colours to the mix. How It Should Be is choppy funk guitar with hints of The Smiths, shouts of ‘hey’ and an 80s indie pop sensibility, Crystal Clear does tumbling melodies, ringing Mediterranean guitar circles and displays show closing anthemic potential.

The five and half minute Over & Out pulls out their mid-tempo side with fluttering guitars and a big build instrumental midsection that again conjures images of Hellenic hills and beaches while, arguably the album standout, Half Dreams finds singer Alex Ohms in tender heartfelt form as the melody line undulates beneath him and bruised Radiohead ballads swoon in admiration. The album should have closed with that rather than the messy thrash of Loudmouth, but otherwise it’s an auspicious debut. “We’re not rich, we’re not famous”, laments Ohms. Give it time, lad, give it time. 7.30pm. £12.50. Wulfrun Hall

Friday October 8

Beth Nielsen Chapman

Following an album informed by her husband’s death and brush with breast cancer, a collection of Latin hymns and one comprising multi-language songs of devotion and the spiritual, Back To Love (BNC) finds Chapman in less meditative and more upbeat frame of mind. But then, having recently come out the other end of an operation for a benign brain tumour, she has more reason to be positive than most.

She describes its dominant theme as the awakening the heart and letting love in and were the title not clue enough, love also figures in no less than six of the song titles while two others, Happiness and Peace, equally give a pretty good idea of where she's emotionally coming from.

Returning to the soulful country pop that characterised her eponymous album a decade ago, the set opens with Hallelujah, the melodically infectious and life-embracing stand out number previewed during last year's tour and featuring a lovely George Harrison-like slide guitar figure.

More Than Love may have a handclapping old school country gospel rhythm and the choppy I Can See Me Loving You a frisky guitar and mandolin setting, but the prevalent musical mood here is gently rolling mid-tempo, punctuated by the relaxed, star-kissed and Celtic tinged early evening balladry of How We Love and the piano and strings back hymnal notes of Peace and The Path Of Love. Over the years, Chapman has been giving workshops about healing grief through music, tonight she’ll be laying on the hands with her songs. 8pm. £22.50/£19.50. Warwick Arts Centre

Saturday October 9/Sunday October 10

Michael Buble

Back for the second brace of rafter packing shows, don’t expect the set to be too different from the last time, with a big band backing and a craft of jazz-lite covers that include Cry Me A River, Mack The Knife, Georgia On My Mind, At This Moment, How Sweet It Is and Billie Jean, complete with a not entirely on the nose attempt at a Jackson dance. However, with the forthcoming reissue of last year’s Crazy Love album with bonus live tracks, it’s pretty much certain he’ll be spotlighting the new self-penned single Hollywood. Although, quite frankly, don’t hang around if he keeps it for the encore. 7.30pm. £80/£50. LG Arena

Sunday October 10

Professor Green

Grime comes to town with London white rapper Stephen Manderson. riding the wave of recent Top 3 single I Need You Tonight and just released album Alive Till I’m Dead (Virgin). Like most of the genre, he relies a lot on guest vocalists and samples of other numbers, I Neec You Tonight lifted from the INXS hit and Just Be Good To Green a rework of Just Be Good To Me and featuring Lily Allen. Example does his bit for Monster which, suprisingly, isn’t The Automatics, while Labrinth fetches up on Oh My God. He’s been called the London answer to Eminem, but, save for City Of Gold, he really doesn’t have anything like the lyrical bite or imagination, content to do the usual thing about being put upon, misunderstood, vulnerable and making it on the East London streets.

Kids That Love To Dance shows he can handle the beats for the hustling club floors and he has the taste of urban paranoia, but it’s hard to imagine him progressing beyond his current level. 7pm. £10. O2 Academy 2

Sunday October 10

Michael Weston King

Always a welcome visitor to the venue, tonight’s show’s a little different with King spotlighting his new album I Didn't Raise My Son To Be A Soldier (Valve), a collection of protest songs, both originals and covers, to catch the political if not musical mood of the times.

With projections and mixed media providing a thematic backdrop, he’ll be joined by wife Lou Dalgleish and steel player Alan Cook for a set list likely to feature album numbers such as the title track’s setting of a 1915 war poem, Tim Hardin’s peace anthem Simple Song Of Freedom, the enigmatic but powerful Parish Of Rope co-written by his son Oliver Lomax and album guitarist Paul Hesketh, his own Hey Ma I’m Coming Home inspired by the coffin parades of Wootton Bassett and, sharing a common indictment of American foreign policy, both Phil Ochs’ Cops Of The World and the self-penned folk rock In Time.

As well as songs from the album, the list’s also likely to feature his version of New Order’s Love Vigilante and new Arlo Guthrie number, When A Soldier Makes It Home. A show with songs and a message.

Support comes from Red Shoes, here working in duo format with just Mark and Carolyn stripping songs from their Ring Around The Land album down to spine-shivering basics as well as showcasing as yet unrecorded numbers like the emotion-wrenching River Rea. 8pm. £12. Kitchen Garden Cafe, Kings Heath

Monday October 11

Crystal Castles

An experimental electronic duo from Toronto, you’re really going to have to be a fan if they decide to include some of the squallier noise moments from their self-titled (Fiction) sophomore album, and even then the likes of Doe Deer, Baptism and I Am Made Of Chalk will take some forbearance. Fortunately, for the most part, the calm outweighs the rage with the trance rush of Celestica, an ethereal Occidental flavoured Empathy, Not In Love’s ice cascades, the deceptively titled Violent Dreams and the rather lovely swirls of Suffocation all likely to prompt nu rave veterans to break out those glo-sticks. 7.30pm. £13.50., Wulfrun Hall

Tuesday October 12

Ian Hunter

At 71 the Shropshire lad’s not only not looking his age, but the former Mott The Hoople frontman is still out there making music with the best of his fellow rock pensioners. He may not have had a sniff of the charts since 1976, but he’s still released 15 live or studio albums since then, including You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic that included what’s become almost his solo career signature, Cleveland Rocks.

With that wealth of material at his fingers, it’s hard to guess what will be in the live set but it’s highly unlikely to pass by without a version of Mott The Hoople classic All The Young Dudes while there should be a fair representation of his latest album, Man Overboard (New West). Although guilty of some meat and potato pub rock (Up And Running, Babylon Blues), it continues the revival momentum of Rant and Shrunken Heads with its meld of venomous social commentary and tender love songs, taking a musical stroll up the country-inclined path once followed by The Faces, even flourishing banjo on the opening The Great Escape. Elsewhere the Mellencamp rock of Arms And Legs, a Dylanish title track, the tumbling folk pop Flowers, sandpapery ballad Way With Words and the rolling closer River of Tears all warrant a place in the line up tonight. 7.30pm. £20. B’ham Town Hall

Tuesday October 12

Mark Chadwick

pic (c) Christian Barnfield.jpg

For the past 23 years, he’s been the frontman of the politically aware folk rockers, but while he may slip a couple of old favourites in, tonight’s gig is all about his debut solo album, All The Pieces (Stay By).

It never strays too far from his musical roots and band fans will be well at home with Empty Now, a shanty strummer about conserving fish stocks and oil reserves, and the trad style acoustic break-up number Inevitable. However, chronologically reflecting his life over the past 28 years and toll taken by being a touring musician, the album also ranges from the 60s flavoured psych-folk of Elephant Fayre, through the Clash bounce of Paramount and Havens’ ebb and flow stomp celebration of playing live to the handclapping Magic Bus echoes of Say You’re Gonna Be My Girl and The Great And The Dead’s heartfelt, slow swaying, soulful tribute to Johnny Cash and all the other musical inspirations that have fed his spirit. Chadwick says music’s given him everything he has. Here he’s giving some of it back.8pm. £15. Glee Club

Tuesday October 12

Fenech-Soler

A synth, bass, guitar teen trio with male model looks, brothers Ben and Ross Duffy and mate Dan Soler make dance floor friendly polished synth-pop with influences that variously nod to Michael Jackson, Duran, Spandau, Daft Punk and Cut Copy. Launching their eponymous debut album (B-Unique), they’re clearly devotees of 80s electro club and French House with big bass lines, dashes of brass and burbling keyboards inviting Ibiza tourists to shake bodies to the likes of Golden Sun, Lies and Contender.

Although opener Battlefields suggests some synth-rock touches to go with the beats, they’re not doing anything original or inventive, but anyone who gets misty eyed at the mere mention of Beat It or The Reflex will be along tonight. 7pm. £6.50. HMV Institute

Tuesday October 12

A Genuine Freak Show

A seven piece from around Reading with a shared interest in post-rock and bands like Mew, Elbow and The National and a line-up that includes cello, violin and trumpet, as you may imagine they’re fond of the epic.

Opening with We Are The Undercurrents which builds from lengthy keyboard led instrumental swell intro to tumultuous midsection and ebbing fade, debut album Oftentimes (Pear Tree) has been likened to a mix of Sigur Ros, Floyd and Radiohead, which gives a rough idea of what to expect from such titles as I Can Feel His Heartbeats, the six-minute moodiness of You Cut Me Out and the pastoral infused fire of Holding Hearts with its anger at foreign policy.

That said Hopscotch Machine Gun Machine is actually quite poppy in its staccato rhythms and boy/girl vocals, but while they do have a couple of shorter acoustic pieces, this is a band who want to paint on large canvases. They might just have the brushes to do so. 8pm. £5. The Rainbow

Wednesday October 12

Sparrow And The Workshop

Following their Moseley Folk Fest slot, the Glasgow trio return for their own headliner, dipping back into the psychedelic rock, grunge and trad folk of debut album Crystals Fall featuring things like the surf noir Last Chance, country blues waltz You’ve Got It All and the acid folk Medal Around Your Neck. Although only released this year, the band are already busy preparing a follow-up, and they’ll be previewing the first fruits tonight with new single Black To Red (Distiller), a waltz jerking slice of desert country garage blues with surf guitar and Jill O’Sullivan’s vocals tumbling over one another like Margo Timmins fronting The White Stripes. 7.30pm. £7. O2 Academy 3

Thursday October 14

Groove Armada

Andy Cato and Tom Findlay having announced that this will be their final tour as a full live band, there should be more interest than usual in catching them while you can. It will also reassure the faithful they’re the same guys who made I See You Baby and Song 4 Mutya in the light of the Black Light (Cooking Vinyl) album with its Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, Gary Numan, Human League and Roxy influences.

Indeed, the opening Look Me In The Eye Sister with She Keeps Be singer Jess Larrabee sounds very much emo derived alt-rock while Warsaw, with Empire Of The Sun’s Nick Littlemore is all a bit terrace shouty behind the squeezy synths and Just For Tonight is a bit like New Order hanging out at New York disco.

Larrabee, Littlemore and Saint Saviour provide the bulk of the album’s vocals, but recent single Paper Romance features Fenech-Soler while the two strongest numbers, the spooked Ultravoxy History and a lounge club crooning Shameless, feature appearances by an almost unrecognisable Will Young and Bryan Ferry respectively.

Live, of course, they’ll have to carry it off themselves with just Saint Saviour to rely on, which may go some way to explain the forthcoming White Light album containing live studio re-recordings of the current album, presumably to see how things sounded and make a few extra bob.

Those bewailing this last series of shows should, of course, be reminded that it’s only the musicians being pensioned off, not the band per se and the duo are already lining up recording, production and performance work for next year. It’s helped shift the tickets, though. 7pm. £1.50. O2 Academy

Friday October 15

Bryan Adams

No longer the mega-platinum shifting force he once was, even so the husky voiced Canadian can still command a sizeable Arena audience. So what he’s doing here? The answer is that it’s a solo acoustic Bare Bones tour with just him and a guitar. Already having proven a success Stateside, having signed to Decca after a he’s now releasing a live album of the stripped down versions of numbers that include Night To Remember, Summer Of ’69, Straight From The Heart and, naturally, (Everything I Do) I Do It For You. 7.30pm. £50. Alexandra Theatre

Sunday October 17

Guns n Roses

Returning to the stage after nine years in 2001, things have been a little crazy in the time since, with members departing, managers being fired and law suits flying around. There was also some seven years spent trying to get Chinese Democracy completed and into the shops. Earlier this year they headlined both Reading and Leeds, but on both occasions, as with a subsequent gig in Dublin, they left audiences waiting for anything between 30 to 90 minutes before coming on stage. Hardly surprising they had water bottles chucked at them.

Assuming they can be persuaded to get out of the hotel or the dressing rooms, this will be the first time they’ve toured the Chinese Democracy album in the UK with anything up to 13 of the 14 tracks likely to make the set list alongside possible covers and classics that include Live And Let Die, Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door and, inevitably, Sweet Child O’ Mine. Just take sandwiches and a good book in case. 7.30pm. £45/£40. LG Arena

Monday October 18

Badly Drawn Boy

Largely off the radar for the past four years, during which time he left EMI and released the soundtrack to Caroline Aherne’s The Fattest Man In The UK, Damon Gough is back and looking to make up for lost time by releasing a trilogy of albums in quick succession. Released under the umbrella title What I’m Thinking, the first instalment is Photographing Snowflakes (One Last Fruit), a sonically spare affair with drum machines and strings, Gough’s hushed vocals drenched in echo while the introspective songs address relationships, reflections on ‘failing’ and the need to rely on yourself.

It’s not about to restore his chart fortunes to their previous peak, but it is a considered, mature musical step forward even if Too Many Miracles, What Tomorrow Brings and I Saw You Walk Away all sound overly Smiths-like, albeit filtered through a sort of Postcard label soul. That same Edwyn Collins groove informs This Electric, a song written back in 94, while on the lengthy title track and You Lied he also seems to be wearing a Scott Walker influence. Having not toured for a while, this is going to be a telling temperature taking of fanbase loyalty. 7.30pm. £17.50. B’ham Town Hall

Monday October 18

Travie McCoy

There’ll be no fricking about tonight as you get the uncensored version of his irritatingly catchy #1, Billionaire alongside the rest of the tracks from the Gym Class Heroes frontman’s solo debut, Lazarus (Decaydance). Supposedly the subject of Circle The Drain on ex-girlfriend Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream album, McCoy’s album hasn’t fallen too far from the band’s tree with its accessible brand of alternative hip hop pop rock and while he’ll be without studio collaborators Bruno Mars, Cee Lo Green, Tim William and Colin Munroe on stage that shouldn’t put too much of a dent in the live versions of Dr Feelgood, Critical, Don’t Pretend or that hit.

Having had experience working the band’s audience, McCoy knows how to whip up a crowd and when he’s got dance and chorus friendly numbers like Need You, After Midnight and the Supergrass sampling We’ll Be Alright in his bag, you can be pretty sure this is going to be some kind of party.7.30pm. £12.50. O2 Academy 2

Monday October 18

Brandon Flowers

Fed up with sitting around while the rest of The Killers recharge their batteries, their frontman holed up in the studio making his solo debut album, Flamingo (Vertigo) which he’s now duly out promoting live.

A pity then that it’s all so underwhelming, a listenable, polished but unmemorable trawl through his Springsteen fantasies and the drivetime stadium rock of Sam’s Town without any songs that really make you want to stand up and shout ‘yeh!’.

Sure there’s plenty of radio friendly choruses, tumbling melodies and ringing guitars and on Hard Enough he’s joined by Jenny Lewis for some country flavours, but she won’t be along to save the day on tour and, while Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas sounds like a great show opener with its dramatic pomp, it’s going to be pretty much downhill from there. The only other things here likely to strike a spark are the bouncy 80s keyboard backed power pop of Was It Something I Said? (though more for Rick Springfield fans than Killers devotees) and the ostensible crowd singalong power anthem Magdalena, but nowhere on the album does he seem to have that urgent passion he brings to the band.

Still, it fills the time and, look on the bright side, with these out of the way, there’ll be less fillers to wade through next time the band make an album. 7.30pm. £25. O2 Academy

Monday October 18

The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band

That’s Josh Peyton, a real Rev from Indiana, on slide guitar and vocals and his Big Damn Band comprises wife Breezy on washboard and cousin Aaron Persinger on drums and five gallon bucket.

Meeting the missus when he had surgery to remove scar tissue on his hand that left him unable to hold the guitar in a fretting position, she introduced him to the Squirrel Nut Zippers and he introduced her to the delta blues of Charlie Patton and Bukka White and his brother Jayme (who was the trio’s drummer until last year) had grown up playing.

Having recently torn up the States, they’re now over here promoting their new, third, album, The Wages (Side One Dummy), a collection of rowdy hillbilly country blues with gargling Southern gravel vocals and wild foot stomping tunes. Bottleneck guitar sparks flying off breakneck numbers like Born Bred Corn Fed, Clap Your Hands, accordion punk bluegrass thrash Two Bottles of Wine, and the quite bonkers Shortnin’Bread like crowd rouser Ft. Wayne Zoo defying anyone to not get on their feet and leaping round the room.

They do allow a breather or two, but even when they start out slow, as on In A Holler Over There with its military snare drum beat by the time they get to the end they just have to let rip. Like Just Getting By, that’s a protest number about rural America’s economic collapse, but generally speaking issue based lyrics are the exception. Indeed, Clap Your Hand mostly consists of the line ‘I’m bad and you know it’ and what can you say about “my brother stole a chicken from the Ft. Wayne Zoo.... Ft Wayne Zoo's got Chickens ... and all the chickens go Cock A Doodle Dee, Cock a Doodle Doo’? Resistance is futile, just dip your jug in the still and give that front porch a workover. 9pm. £10. Robin 2, Bilston

Monday October 18

Joshua Radin

Delayed by the belated UK release of Simple Times, the Ohio singer-songwriter’s return tour finally sees the release of his current album, The Rock And The Tide (14th Floor). That 70s folk pop flavour’s still there, but it’s a far more rocking affair, guitars and drums driving out of the gate with Road To Ride On and keeping the impetus going with the likes of Nowhere To Go, We Are Only Getting Better, and We Are Only Getting Better, a number that begins with a synth pattern echoing Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This.

He still does soft and sensitive though, piano ballad Streetlight could easily provide a hit for Boyzone or Westlife, You Got What I Need is a slow sway soul blues, Wanted an orchestrated tumbling lullaby and the title track a strummed mid-tempo love song that harks back to 50s streetcorner crooners. By far his best work to date, he’s long been touted as a major star, this could be the one that makes the predictions come true.

Support comes from Rumer, not Bruce Willis’s daughter, but Sarah Joyce a singer-songwriter who spent her childhood in Pakistan and her teenage years in Carlisle. Numbering Burt Bacharach among her admirers, her influences embrace 30s jazz, 70s soul, Dionne Warwick, Dusty Springfield, Ella Fitgerald, Sade and The Carpenters alike, giving a good idea of that to expect for her torchy, smoky style. She’s also a fan of the Queen of Soul, a fact acknowledged by her new single, Aretha (Atlantic) from upcoming album Seasons Of My Soul. She’d probably be better suited to a more intimate, jazz club style environment but any opportunity to be seduced by her voice shouldn’t be missed. 7.30pm. £13. Wulfrun Halll

Tuesday October 19

Anais Mitchell

Here earlier in the year touring with Erin McKeown, the Vermont singer-songwriter with the girlish warble makes a welcome return, this time with a new album, Hadestown (Righteous Babe), featuring songs from her titular Brecht/Weill styled folk opera and joined by guitarist Michael Chorley, who wrote the score. Based on the Orpheus myth and set in a post-apocalyptic American depression, it doesn’t feature a new version of then work in progress taster Hades and Persephone from The Brightness album, but does include performances from Ani DiFranco (Persephone), Justin Vernon of Bon Iver (Hermes), Greg Brown (Hades) and Low Anthem’s Ben Knox Miller (Orpheus) with Mitchell singing the role of Eurydice.

Musically ranging across gospel, blues, ragtime, jazz and folk rock, it’s a terrific work with some great songs, not least those featuring Mitchell herself such as Flowers and Hey Little Songbird.

Whether she’ll be including numbers she doesn’t sing in the opera remains to be seen, but there should certainly be room on the set list for earlier nuggets like the bluesy Mockingbird and the acoustic folk of Your Fonder Heart and Shenandoah. All of which makes this a pretty essential gig. 8pm. £10. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Wednesday October 20

Train

Probably the only band to run a wine club on their web site, it’s been nine years since the San Franciscan outfit (then a five piece) made their first appearance in the UK charts with their Drops Of Jupiter album and its Grammy winning title track. Since then,. pretty much nothing with the My Private Nation and For Me, It’s You albums failing to register. When the latter also flopped in America, they took a break only returning last year, now as a trio but still fronted by Patrick Monahan, with Save Me, San Francisco (Columbia).

Rather belatedly, they finally arrive on these shores but while they may have missed the summer weather for which their music is most suited, they should be bringing a heady dose of musical sunshine with them, headed up by recent chirpy folk rock hit Hey, Soul Sister, a song that namechecks both Mister Mister and Madonna.

They’re lifting If It’s Love as the follow up, this time referencing pop rock outfit Winger, though given it has them sounding more like Barenaked Ladies it doesn’t seem the best choice, especially not when the album’s packed with far stronger potential singles like the stadium rouser Parachute, piano led anthemic ballad Brick By Brick and the fabulous acoustic strummed title track with its crowd shoutalong chorus.

It’ll be interesting to hear how Drops Of Jupiter translates to the slimmer line-up, but on the evidence of the new back on the tracks material this is a band with a future as well as a past. All aboard. 7.30pm. £14.50. O2 Academy

Wednesday October 20

Jim Jones Revue

Fronted by former Thee Hypnotics singer Jones, the music’s not too dissimilar, a rowdy garage rock n roll blues indebted to the likes of Zeppelin, Little Richard, Nick Cave, Stooges and The Faces. Hitting town armed with material from new album Burning Your House Down (Punk Rock Blues), there’s little here in the mood to take prisoners, from the psychobilly stomp of Big Len and the Jerry Lee Lewis aping piano bash boogies High Horse and Premeditated to Foghorn’s heavy blues rock and the title track’s Gun Club swagger. Not one for subtleties, but if you like your sweat served up in a bucket this lot are your sort of music. 7.30pm. £10. O2 Academy 2

Wednesday October 20

Chris While & Julie Matthews

Indisputably still the UK's reigning female folk duo, in the two years since releasing Together Alone they've been busy getting the passports stamped for new album Hitting The Ground Running (Fat Cat). The journey begins in Andalucia with Carved In Stone’s meditation on mortality inspired by a Comares cemetery, the theme of endurance and history resurfacing in Rock of Gelt, a lovely number featuring uillean pipes written for a project about Hadrian's Wall which also gave rise to the ukulele dappled Bridge Over Time, inspired by the discovery of the wooden Roman documents at Vindolanda.

Where The Year Has Gone finds them in reflective mood in Venice while The Darkside Wood travels to Australia for the bluesy tale of bushfires and lovers almost boiled to death. Then, it’s back home for hymnal piano ballad Somewhere I Walk Alone’s tribute to the resilience of those who weather Cumbria's hard ground and harder lives. And if they’re not imagining taking wing on the soaring harmonies and yearning violin of The Coldest Winds Do Blow they’re dreaming of those who’ve passed before on the moving Four Walls or break up ballad Ghost Of You.

They’ll be dipping deep into the new material as well as the back catalogue, but make sure they don’t leave without once again proving themselves the British answer to the McGarrigles with We're Not Over Yet, a homage to the writers of the Everly Brothers classics. 8pm. £12. Red Lion, Kings Heath

Wednesday October 20

Ellen And The Escapades

Based in Leeds, Ellen Smith’s already being hailed as one of the freshest new faces on the folk-pop scene after just one single, the harmonica blowing, acoustic strummed bounce of last year’s Without You, a toe-tapper number that’s more Kirsty MacColl than Kate Rusby. It’s not the only string to the quintet’s bow. Earlier this year came the follow-up, the more wistful balladry of Coming Home which also turns up on their new Of All The Times EP (Branch Records) alongside misty slow waltzer Yours To Keep, the regret-stained smoky burr of This Ace I’ve Burned and a full stomp, tambourine shaking version of Preying On Your Mind, a song that hints at their folk-rock Dylan and Fleetwood Mac influences.

They triumphed at both Glastonbury and Summer Sundae this year and 2011 sounds like it could be theirs for the taking. 8pm. £5. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Wednesday October 20

Benjamin Blower

Although his throaty croak sometimes slips into a hometown Birmingham voice, Blower's a mesmerising singer whose meld of rapper, carnival barker, junkyard prophet and shaman on The Darkness Doesn't Love You Baby, Come Out While You Can (Zang) suggests he’s studied at the musical feet of Tom Waits, Dr John, Johnny Cash, Captain Beefheart and Jim Morrison.

It's a rich cocktail of genres too, embracing the blues, call and response gospel, folk, worksongs and on The Army Of The Broken Hearted, even a combination of scratching and didecoi soul pop.

Opening track Ringing The Bell For The Last Time instantly underlines his mastery of hypnotic steamrollering rhythms and testifying style repetitive chorus, an approach that finds equally potent expression on the bottleneck slide guitar driven stomp I See Trouble Round The Bend, dusty field work song rap Blood On The Doorframe and the quite brilliant swampily menacing a capella social and spiritual collapse title track with its simple clapping percussion accompaniment.

Elsewhere Childhood rides the haunted desert vistas with Leone gathering to a border mariachi showdown while a rumbling Man With No Shadow stalks the salvation blues with a clever reworking of the staple devil at the crossroads mythos. Mesmerising live, he’s one of the most exciting new names to emerge from Birmingham in the past five years. 8pm. £2. Bull’s Head, Moseley

Friday Oct 22

UB40

A warm up for next week’s bigger venue shows, this finds the boys back where it began at the venue where they played their first paid for gig. Doubtless, sold out long before you read this with fans cramming into the intimate upstairs room, hopefully it will also re-ignite the fire and passion of those early days that’s been dampened down by complacency and commercial concerns in recent years.

This and the tour is all in the cause of revisiting debut album Signing Off, marking its 30th anniversary by performing it in full, though without the departed Ali Campbell and Mickey Virtue, it’s not going to be quite the recreation of the original and whether they’ll keep to the track running order remains to be seen. The show will be in two sets, the second half ranging across subsequent albums and hit, so yes, there’s a good chance that One In Ten, If It Happens Again, Rat In Mi Kitchen and Red Red Wine will find its way in there too.

However, Signing Off remains their most politically charged work, opening with Tyler, about the young black American convicted of murdering a 13-year-old white boy and features double A side debut single Food For Thought and King alongside their Randy Newman cover follow-up, I Think It’s Going To Rain Today (a recording which puts to shame the entire Labour Of Love series) and Burden Of Shame’s powerful condemnation of British imperialism as well as perhaps less well remembered numbers Adella, 12 Bar, 25%, Little By Little and the title track.

Though not part of the album per se, hopefully they’ll see fit to include the three numbers from the 12”, Reefer Madness, their cover of Billie Holiday classic Strange Fruit and Madam Medusa, a savage attack on Thatcher co-written with the Campbells’ father Ian. It’ll be interesting too to see if they’ve come to terms with their dissatisfaction with My Way Of Thinking, the other side of the sophomore single that never found its way on to the album itself.

With their following dwindling alongside declining album sales (normally a cash cow, Vol IV of Labour of Love stalled outside the Top 20), this return to the source might be just what band and audiences alike need to remind them of where they came from. 8pm. £30. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath (+ Tue 26 Symphony Hall/Wed 27 W’hampton Civic. 7.30pn. £35)

Friday October 22

Plan B

The image may have landed him roles in Adulthood and Harry Brown, but abandoning the angry, sweary rapping hoody of debut album Who Needs Actions When You Got Words in favour of the persona of a ill angry, but more considered soul singer character with deep affection for classic Motown has paid off big time for Ben Drew musical career.

The four letter word rapping’s still there on a few numbers, but The Defamation Of Strickland Banks, a concept styled album about a soul singer’s conviction of a crime he didn't commit and his subsequent time inside, is more firmly aligned to the likes of Otis and Smokey than Eminem. Just listen to the classy opener Love Goes Down where he takes on Mick Hucknall at his own game and forces a score draw, the Ball of Confusion era Temptations on Stay Too Long.

Where the debut disappeared virtually overnight, having made #1, this one’s still in the top 10 six months after release and has already spawned four hit singles, the pumped up Stay Too Long, a Four Tops sounding Prayin’, strings swirling current release The Recluse and, of course, the top 3 cracker finger snapping falsetto soul She Said, a song Amy Winehouse would sell her vodka reserves to have recorded.

And they’re not the only standouts as he dips into gospel on Welcome To Hell, channels Donny Hathaway for Hard Times, and turns into a one man Holland/Dozier/Holland for Traded In My Cigarettes and Free, either of which could have been 60s hits for Smokey or The Supremes.

As a story it peaks early and leaves too much unanswered, but maybe that’ll get fleshed out in then proposed film, but as a soul revue this is up there with the year’s best.

Somewhat contrastive support comes from Irish Brummie Clare Maguire showcasing her debut single, Ain’t Nobody (Polydor), a moodily dramatic number that draws on trad Celtic roots and has seen her described as an ‘electro flecked amalgam of Eurythmics, Kate Bush, Fleetwood Mac and Florence’. It’s a reasonable tag, but, citing gospel star Sister Rosetta Tharpe as her prime influence, that raw, husky, big and bluesy voice, is distinctively her own.

An album, Light After Dark, is due later this/early next year with numbers to include Michael Jackson inspired The Last Dance, the childhood magic of The Happiest Pretenders and the gospel coloured Break These Chains. Mark her as one to watch. 7pm. £15.O2 Academy

Friday October 22

Catherine Feeney

Strictly speaking this isn’t a Feeney gig but rather the first night of the UK tour to unveil Come Gather Round Us, a new band project with husband Sebastian Rogers, guitarist Jon Neufeld from Decemberists offshoot Black Prairie and multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter Mike Danner.

Having fallen victim to the EMI corporate takeover following her well received Hurricane Glass, she moved back to Portland and released her third album, People In The Hole, on her own label. Described as songs that might have come from a union of Joni and Morrissey and featuring such titles as Jacaranda, He’s Like You Only Better and Last Night I Awoke In The Midst Of A Dream, it’s disappointingly not out in the UK, though copies should be available at the gig. As will the new band’s studio debut, Despair?, a rootsier affair than her solo albums, it’s also a more politically conscious work, evidenced by Freedom Or Death, a clanky banjo laced folk-blues lurch attack on US foreign policy, accordion waltzing anti-corporate chanson Modern Mythology, and Holy White Ghostly’s jaunty stab at Christian hypocrisy.

Feeney fans might be disappointed to learn that Rogers takes lead on the majority of tracks, often sounding, as on finger-picking blues Frontline, like Paul Simon; but that balance brings extra strength and colour to the album and, when Feeney does step into the spotlight, duetting on the CS&N flavoured bluesy title track or upfront on wistful acoustic strum Home, the pedal steel backed Windchime with its emotional barbs and the fragile Floating World, where’s she’s accompanied by just muted guitar, she sounds more assured and soulful than ever. Gather round indeed. 8pm. £9.50. Glee Club

Friday October 22-Sunday October 24

Supersonic

The annual, Capsule curated, festival of avant garde music, art, and film returns for its eight year with another heady cocktail of doom metal, prog, folk, experimental jazz and grindcore served with heavy riffage, bombastic drumming and vocals that could crush concrete. Not to forget a five piece orchestra of toy and small instruments from Poland.

Friday: Homegrown grindcore masters Napalm Death headline the first night, their brutal piston thrashing metal and guttural yowling threatening the brickwork as they showcase new album Time Waits For No Slave on a bill that also includes Dead Fader, Devilman Drumcorps and Necro Deathmort.

Saturday: In a line-up that features the psychedelic guitar based drone and noise of Blue Sabbath Black Fiji, the second day’s highlight is, reunited after eight years, unquestionably the first UK appearance in over a decade by Birmingham industrial metal pioneers Godflesh.

Sunday: This is the biggie of the fest, with a line-up of legends and cult heroes alike. Two years after the death of former musical partner and fellow Kraftwerk alumnus Klaus Dinger, Michael Rother is presenting Hallogallo 2010, a revisiting of the music the pair made together over their three albums as Krautrock pioneers Neu. It’ll be the first time in over 35 years that the music has been performed and, joined by Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley and Tall First guitarist Aaron Mullan, the set will also include selections from Rother’s work with Harmonia and solo albums.

Illustrating the diversity, sometime Efterklang member Peter Broderick will be taking time out from his ambient and film score work to present songs from new album How They Are (Bella Union). While still minimalist in form, this finds him wearing his folk singer-songwriter hat, behind the piano or noodling guitar for stripped back melodies, melancholic songs and soft, bruised and weary vocals.

It’s only seven tracks long - so he can probably include them all in the set - but every one earns its inclusion; opening with introspective piano ballad Sideline where he rivals early Newman as lyricist, it runs through the winter feel of spoken word Guilt’s Tune, Hello To Nils’ bittersweet account of how the life of a travelling musician can mean a life saying goodbye, and Human Eyeballs On Toast, a circling piano figure song which thankfully has a better lyric than a title.

Admirers of his soundtrack work will also be happy to discover there’s two piano instrumentals here, the slowly swelling Pulling The Rain and the lovely, gentle American folk music inspired When I’m Out. He’ll be a welcome oasis of quiet amid the sonic squalls.

Which brings you to the coup de grace of the event with headliners Swans, Michael Gira having reactivated his seminal 80s post-punk outfit with semi-regular guitarist Norman Westberg joining the otherwise all new line-up. Following the template of beautiful but fierce, they specialised in choppy, angular rhythms, distorted guitars, and slo mo heavy metal grind, before melodies and subtler nuances began to creep in, blending ethereal dirge with brutal riffs.

The set will doubtless feature a selection of old favourites from such albums of Children Of God, Burning World and The Great Annihilator, but is likely to put heavy emphasis on My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky, the first Swans studio material since Gira disbanded them in 1996.

A return to the aggressive sonic intensity of yore, it’s much concerned with death, spirituality, the quest for immortality (through memory, technology and children), and religion, the church bells (percussion he claims) of opening track No Words/No Thoughts sounding like the perfect way to get the live show started on too, especially when the heavy drums and intense guitars kick in to up the dramatics.

There’s little relief from the sonic assault on disc, and likely even less chance live, as they wade through things like Eden Prison, Inside Madeleine and My Birth. The most notable exception being Reeling The Liars in, a 2 minute campfire song, albeit a campfire on which they’re burning the unjust in flames of revenge after cutting their faces off. Can’t wait for the singalong. Friday £20, Sat/Sun £35, Weekend £75. Custard Factory

Saturday October 23

Marina & The Diamonds

Having played the intimacy of the Glee last time in town, Marina Lambrini Diamandis returns to take on a bigger stage with numbers from her truckload-shifting debut album, The Family Jewels (679). Her swoop and soar melodramatic staccato vocals can be a love or hate thing, but, marrying influences that range from Britney Spears to Tom Waits, the songs are melodically infectious.

However, despite the excellent Radio Ga Ga meets Eurythmics electro pop I Am Not A Robot,, she’s yet to have a Top 10 single and, indeed, each successive release has been less successful than the last. Hopefully the disco pop Shampain will make it fourth time lucky, but even if not there’s no question that she’s got a sparkling long term future. 7.30pm. £15. B’ham Town Hall

Saturday October 23

The Charlatans

For the first 10 seconds of new album Who We Touch (Cooking Vinyl), you’d be forgiven for thinking the band’s name had been stolen by some metalcore outfit, but then, thankfully, Love Is Ending settles down into the familiar Tim Burgess territory of chiming guitars and acid rush melodies, albeit vaguely suggesting the intro to Love Will Tear Us Apart.

Reassuringly, while the prominent Hammond organ sound of the early baggy days may have been toned down, the band’s 11th album makes little attempt to reinvent their own wheel, content to find fresh colours within the same paintbox that gave them 22 Top 40 hits between 1990 and 2006. So, along with the 60s influenced pop pyschedelia of Trust In Desire, When I Wonder and the Krautrock pulse of Sincerity, there’s the Motown swing of My Foolish Pride, a dose of Ray Davies on Your Pure Soul, ambient bliss-out You Can Swim and even a Floyd flutter to Smash The System and Intimacy.

It could have done without the declaimed spoken hidden track I Sing The Body Eclectic where they’re joined by Crass poet Penny Rimbauld for what sounds like an inexplicable stab at Vincent Price doing Swedish goth folk-metal, but while they continue to turn out things like dreamy Lennon-esque ballad Oh!, they’ll always be welcome visitors regardless of any current musical fad or fashion. 7pm. £23.50. O2 Academy

Saturday October 23

Shady Bard

Three long years since the release of their From The Ground Up debut gained them exposure on Grey's Anatomy, the critically acclaimed Birmingham outfit finally resurface to launch sophomore album Trials (Forest Industries).

Trailed by the flamenco flavoured piano and drums single Volcano!, echoing the ecological imagery of its predecessor it's a suite of songs inspired thematically by the Peloponese forest fires of 2007 and musically by songwriter Lawrence Becko Vasiliadis's Mediterranean childhood in Greece.

Expounded through widescreen cinematic symphonic pop, alt-folk and postrock atmospherics woven with Latin beats, strings, brass and choirs, it again features the shared vocals of pianist/guitarist Becko and violin and French horn player Jasmin Hollingum with Aidan Murphy on guitars, Alex Housden on cello and Sophie Barnes and Nick Gosling providing trumpet and drums.

Another stunning piece of work, it's destined to draw references to Tindersticks, Radiohead, Morricone, Twilight Sad, and Grandaddy but perhaps also cult Malvern outfit And Also The Trees too.

Opening with the mournful title track with its Andalucian textured brass, the journey proceeds from the aching anthemic tumbling pop melody of Night Song and the melodramatic balladry of Daphne to a suitably tense journey through the bracken woods of Bears with pizzicato strings and the symphonic pop of Plan B.

Flamenco again rears its head on the molten blaze of Trials Part III which, naturally, precedes Trials Part II's sparse piano and haunted brass meditation on memory and loss with its near operatic chorale and French horn climax. The album closes with the dying embers of In Memoriam, a hymn-like epilogue of regret that musically conjures images of smoke curls fading into the sky's first cracks of dawn. They have been tested and not found wanting.8pm. £5. The Flapper

Sunday October 24

The Minnikins

It’s taken nine months, but after their January date fell victim to the snow and big freeze, Canada siblings Ruth and Gabe are finally here for a long delayed live introduction to Ruth’s new album, Depend On This.

However, anyone anticipating a re-run of the bucolic homespun Folk Art is in for a surprise. The palette may still be roots, country, 40s music hall, jazz and bluegrass but here she's painting the same pictures on two very different musical canvases. Quite literally, since the six songs addressing the different perspectives people have on death each appear twice in totally different arrangements. For example, Animals Of Breman first dapples in banjo sunshine while warm brass rays and steel glimmer while a second version is more orchestral affair of synthesised strings, computer effects, bass lines and discordance with the lyrics reduced to repeated phrases. Likewise Sleeping And Dreaming comes in both coy sha la las r&b form and as a bass throbbing version with electronic effects. Quite what shape the live performance versions of these and songs from their shared and individual back catalogue will take is anyone’s guess, but either way it’s well worth hoping there’s no catastrophic change in the weather.

Opening proceedings is KTB aka Katy Bennett returning to her old stomping grounds after getting hitched, leaving Little Sister and decamping to Bewdley last year. She’ll be dipping into last year’s fine debut album Indelible Ink and such numbers as Willow Tree’s wheezing tale of betrayed love, the hymnal Perfect World, River Run Through Us and the bittersweet The Girl With The Sad Shoes. 8pm. £8. Kitchen Garden Cafe

Sunday October 24

KT Tunstall

Here first two albums having peaked at #3, Tunstall’s looking to push for the top spot with Tiger Suit (Relentless), an album that, under the influence of Linda Perry, extends her folk pop into the dance beats market.

She’s called her mix of the organic and the electronic ‘nature techo’, the manifesto unfurled on opening track Uummannaq Song which comes with tribal rhythm, chanting and sequenced beats, stepping it up a further notch with Glamour Puss, which might not sound out of place on a Sugababes album if the lyrics were less intelligent, and the chunky bassline groove of Push That Knot Away.

There is, of course, the danger that it could all backfire, alienating those who bought Eye To The Telescope and Drastic Fantastic and who don’t like the springy electronics reverberating over Difficulty’s otherwise characteristic KT pop and failing to grab the interest of the dance market who might find her all a bit too Radio 2 and the clattering glamtgrash of Come On, Get In and Madame Trudeaux a touch like some wannabe Lady GaGa.

It’s good to see her taking risks although, if you strip away the electro you’ll find old school Tunstall rootsy rock pop still at the heart of Fade Like A Shadow and the scuffling (Still A) Wierdo. It’s more like she’s trying on a new coat than having a transforming makeover, and only time and sales will tell if fans will accept the new clothing and quite how she intends to balance her new approach with the old material in the live context. Whatever, the prospect of a KT Tunstall single featuring Tinie Tempah seems remote. 7.30pm. £20. Wulfrun Hall

Monday October 25

Alter Bridge

Six years on after arising from the ashes of Creed and named for an actual Detroit bridge, the gateway to the ‘bad part of town’, the four piece are now on their third album, the imaginatively titled AB III (Roadrunner). More muscular and melodic perhaps, but it’s stgill largely metal business as usual, sliding between riff dominated heavy rock juggernauts like Slip To The Void and Isolation and soaring power chord hard rock ballads such as Ghosts Of Days Gone By and Breathe Again.

Several numbers deliver the obligatory acoustic guitar intro before breaking out the beef, but they do, at least, carry it off better than some and, as Wonderful Life and Life Must Go On demonstrate, they know the stadium anthem formula off by heart.

A duet between vocalist Myles Kennedy and guitarist Mark Tremonti provides the album’s climax with Words Darker than Their Wings, a song that seems pretty much guaranteed to be the live set’s centrepiece, too.

Support comes from London metal crew Slaves To Gravity, the grunge-influenced outfit formed by ex members of The Ga Gas. They’ll be showcasing upcoming sophomore album Underwaterouterspace where the Alice In Chains/Soundgarden influences can be expected to parade themselves in their best melodic clothes with frontunner singles Good Advice and Honesty. 7.30pm. £17.50. O2 Academy

Monday October 25

Feeder

Due to headline the Kerrang Christmas Party next month, the Welsh trio are currently enjoying a return to favour after the disappointing response to their Silent Cry album. The tour has seen the sold out notices up and current album Renegades (Big Teeth) has re-ignited fan passions with hard riffing indie rock like Sentimental and The End intercut with the shouty punk assaults of Left Foot Right and Barking Dogs, the quieter aspects of Down By The River and the spiky barrelling and tumbling pop that is This Town, City In A Rut and the storm the barricades charge of the title track. Re-energised and back to raw basics, they sound angry and hungry once again and seem set to tear the walls down. 7.30pm. £20. Wulfrun Hall

Monday October 25

Carl Barat

photo Roger Sargent

While the temporary, intermittent or permanent nature of any Libertines reunion remains vague, Barat’s busy trying to carve out a solo career. It’s a pity he’s not certain which one. His self-titled debut (Arcady) is a mishmash in search of a coherent direction with him trying his hand at various musical styles in the hope of finding something that sticks.

Thus you get the Marc Almond meets Momus lite of The Magus, the lyrically naff Je Regrette, Je Regrette sounding like a collision between Morrissey and Supergrass’ Alright, the Pulp-like tango of She’s Something, a flirtation with Kurt Weill cabaret on The Fall, and even a foray into 50s Pat Boone crooning pop for What Have I Done while the Gallic cinenoir Shadows Fall has him fancying himself as Serge Gainsbourg.

Not that some of this isn’t quite good, notably the twangy guitar sway of catchy chorus singalong So Long, My Lover and the uptempo Morrissey and Motown pop of Run With The Boys, even if it the opening bassline does seem about to launch into Higher And Higher. It’ll serve him well enough while he makes his mind up what he actually wants to do, but he’d be advised not to stake a future on it. 7.30pm. £12.50. Slade Rooms

Tuesday October 26

The Manic Street Preachers

After clearing out Richie Edwards’ lyric locker for last year’s Journal For Plague Lovers, Nicky Wire returns to the songwriting front line for Postcards From A Young Man (Columbia), an album that never considers anything less than a stadium as its target venue and leaves no kitchen sink unused.

Opening with (It’s Not War) Just The End Of Love, anthem tumbles over anthem as orchestras, horns and choirs jostle each other to push tunes into the bombast stratosphere. Some Kind Of Nothingness even drafts in Bunnyman Ian McCulloch to duet with James Dean Bradfield on a song that, complete with gospel choir, wouldn’t sound out of place on a Take That album.

While Bradfield sings “I am no longer preaching to the converted, that congregation has long deserted” on All We Make is Entertainment, they’ve not entirely elbowed the political ingredients. Sounding a bit like Steppenwolf on the guitar riff, Don’t Be Evil takes a pop at corporate thinking, A Billion Balconies Facing The Sun is a chugging moan about how modern technology limits human communication, Golden Platitudes laments the failure of New Labour’s idealistic Shangri-La and Auto-Intoxication addresses the new slave trade of the economic collapse.

But these are all couched in the sort of melodies that make you want to stand on cliff tops and embrace the sky, channelling the sunny pop of ELO on the strings-laden The Descent (Pages 1 and 2) and holding hands with Elton John and Motown for Hazleton Avenue’s seemingly non-ironic hymn to consumerism.

If they’re in this euphoric mood on stage too, the audience might just spontaneously combust with the sheer towering majesty of it all.

After last year’s soundtrack British Sea Power will be bristling to let loose with their first song-based material since 2008’s Do You Like Rock Music? They’ll doubtless be showcasing a couple of numbers from next year’s new album, Valhalla Dancehall, as well as reminding everyone about the little publicised recent release of the Zeus EP which, if Can We Do It and the title track are any indication, seems to suggest the band have discovered their inner rockabilly-thrash punk souls. 7.30pm. £26.50. O2 Academy

Tuesday October 26

One Night Only

Having Emma Watson for a girlfriend is useful when it comes to making a video for your new single, but, as singer George Craig discovered, that’s not necessarily going to make people go out and buy it. Sounding like they were channelling a Psychedelic Furs number for an 80s teen movie, Say You Don’t Want It deserved to be a massive hit but, in the end, peaked outside the Top 20 while the accompanying self-titled album (Mercury) debuted at #36 and vanished entirely the following week.

Having started out promisingly with Top 10 hit Just For Tonight two years ago, the Yorkshire five piece’s career trajectory has been pretty much in decline ever since. Perhaps that’s because, while highly melodic, chorus friendly, upbeat synth and guitar pop, their songs suggest that, along with the Furs, they’ve spent too much time and pocket money on albums by both the Pet Shop Boys (Forget My Name, All I Want, Anything) and Ultravox (Never Be The Same).

They have potential, but releasing the plodding mid-tempo ballad Chemistry as the new single seems likely to be the final nail in the coffin that will see them looking for a new label deal next time round. Maybe George could get Emma to put in a word with the soundtrack compilers for her next film. 7.30pm. £10. O2 Academy 2

Tuesday October 26

Lotte Mullan

Born in Suffolk and based in London, Mullan originally wanted to sound like Tom Waits. Unfortunately, her throat felt otherwise, leaving her Waitsian aspirations to extend no further than the name of her Raindog label. Instead, parental record collections (Beatles, Kirsty MacColl, Paul Simon) and l artists (Beth Orton) and genres (30s blues and folk) discovered pursuing assorted boys she fancied, inform her own music. You'll probably also spot Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, and Lucinda Williams in there too.

Clearly a woman who knows what she wants, she's 25 now, but next year’s debut album, Plain Jane, has the soul of a 16 or 17 year old trying to find herself, exploring her sexuality and discovering the ups and downs of relationships.

It’s packed with standouts, among them refusal to compromise opener Fire In My Soul, a folk blues influenced Can’t Find The Words about how it's often more compassionate not to tell the truth, the alt-country flavoured Suzie's Back In Town, a fusion of Kitty Lester and Eddi Reader on torch waltz Valentine Song and her transforming ownership of Ben Taylor’s Wicked Way which turns the original's whiff of sleaze into a coy eroticism.

There’ll be a proper tour next year to go with the release, but for now, with a set that’s likely to throw in folk-blues covers of Lady GaGa and Beyonce, this is an early, free, opportunity to be able to tell everyone you saw her first when she becomes the name of 2011. Noon. Free. Cafe Nero, Harborne.

Tuesday October 26

Mitchell Museum

When one of the band’s named Raindeer and vocalist brother Cammy MacFarlane was sent off to some town on a remote Scottish island to be treated for ‘losing his mind’, you might not be too surprised to find the Glasgow band’s music at the post-psychedelic end of the pop spectrum. And so it is that, overflowing with acid-sweet sunny melodies and walk in the clouds harmonies, debut album The Peters Port Memorial Service (Electra French) rolls out the obvious Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, and Animal Collective references, noting Cammy’s affinity with the more obscure Yoni Wolf of indie hip hop outfit WHY while Cut Lanterns and Tiger Heartbeat suggest a dash of They Might Be Giants too.

Parading their experimental side, the title track’s a three minute sonic collage conjuring bees swarming followed by a meadow stillness, there’s quirky with lines about spiders’ heartbeats, mutant sea shanty stomp Take The Tongue Out and the sunshine rush of Warning Bells with Raindeer’s fractured drum patterns. The fuzzy production and a propensity to over-clutter tends to obscure the songs, and, as they sing themselves, there’s Room For Improvement, but it’s still an impressive calling card. 7.30pm. £5. Slade Rooms

Wednesday October 27

Psychedelic Furs

And lo and behold, here are the Furs themselves. Formed during the punk explosion of the late 70s, they started out as an art-rock outfit before moving into the New Wave and harder mainstream rock areas. Although their 1980 self-titled debut, featuring Sister Europe and We Love You, earned them a UK Top 20 slot, it was next year’s follow-up, Talk, Talk, Talk that put them on course for international success, to be followed by Forever Now in 1982 which gave them their first American hit with Love My Way.

However, their defining moment came four years later when producer/director John Hughes picked their song Pretty In Pink for the title of his new Molly Ringwald High School romcom. Having peaked at #43 on its original release, the re-recorded soundtrack version gave them their highest UK chart position at #18 while the film soundtrack album went platinum.

Going on to further American success, the band eventually split in the early 1990s with singer Richard Butler and brother Tim forming Love Spit Love before resurrecting the Furs in 2000. Since then, although there’s been no new band material since 1991’s World Outside and only the brothers remain from the original line-up, they’ve toured regularly.

This one, though, is different since, following the current fad for shows built around classic albums, they’re running up to its 30th anniversary by playing Talk, Talk, Talk in its entirety which, if they follow the track running order, should see the show open with Dumb Waiters and close on She Is Mine, However, since this would mean having to do the big hit as the second song, chances are they might be a little free with the sequencing, saving Pretty In Pink for after they’ve sorted out the likes of I Wanna Sleep With You, Into You Like a Train and All Of This And Nothing.7.30pm. £18.50. HMV Institute

Wednesday October 27

Robert Plant

Reviving the name of his first outfit for the title of new album Band of Joy (Decca), Plant doesn't forsake the country elements of Raising Sand but the emphasis is more on blues rather than bluegrass.

With Patty Griffin stepping into Alison Krauss' shoes, the rest of the band line up as Marco Giovino on percussion, Byron House on bass, Darrell Scott providing guitar, pedal steel, accordion, banjo and mandolin and, recruited from the Raising Sand touring band, Buddy Miller on guitar.

That this is going to be a slightly different animal is obvious from the opening track, a rumbling guitar blues cover of Los Lobos number Angel Dance with a jerky tribal feel to the rhythm, one that resurfaces on Even This Shall Pass Away, a Zep-meets Stones blues setting of the poem by 19th Century poet and abolitionist, Theodore Tilton.

There’s a further dose of the blues on the jangling Central Two-O-Nine where Oh Brother meets Led Zep III, gospel colours come to the for with traditional spiritual Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down with the country side of things is well represented by a cover of Richard Thompson's House of Cards, pedal steel stroll The Only Sound That Matters, a jangly Harm's Swift Way and even in the breathy psychedelic slowcore of the six minute Silver Rider.

If they stick to the set list with which they debuted in Memphis, then there’ll be half a dozen selections from the album, including the Angel Dance single and the rumbling, lips licking sexual tension of the rumbling Monkey, alongside Raising Sand nuggets Gone Gone Gone and Please Read The Letter plus reworked interpretations of Zeppelin chestnuts Misty Mountain Hop, Houses Of The Holy, Rock n Roll and Gallows Pole.

Of course, on the other hand, Plant may just throw all the cards in the air to see how they land, either way it’ll be like letting lightning out of a bottle. 7.30pm. £45/£40. Symphony Hall

Wednesday October 27

The Strange Death Of Liberal England

The Portsmouth outfit may take their name from a 1935 book explaining the 1910-1914 decline of the Liberal Party, but it seems more singularly appropriate in these days of a ConDemned nation. They don’t, however, have any political flag to wave in the music, debut album Drown Your Heart Again (Republic of Music) rather a collection of songs about floundering relationships, fear, struggle and striving served up, with a helping hand from the Richard P Horne Youth Orchestra, as widescreen orchestral pop with lashings of nautical imagery.

Comparisons to Arcade Fire and pre-electronic Editors are inevitable in their arch romantics marriage of folk and rock, especially so on the melancholically anthemic Flickering Light and the rousing Flagships. At the same time there also seems a touch of early Cockney Rebel to the shanty sway of Lighthouse while the warbly vocals and jittery guitar driven Rising Sea calls to mind Men Without Hats.

There’s perhaps a little too much of the old sea dog with Autumn and Come On You Young Philosophers! both leaning in the shanty direction and they also rather overdo the chugging guitar riff backing. But if they boost the euphoria levels in the live performance (where they apparent hold up placards rather than talk to the audience), they could be pretty sensational. 8pm. £6. The Flapper

Wednesday October 27

James Yuill

If you thought folktronica had run out of steam and fallen from fashion, then Yuill might warrant a change of mind. Marrying dance beats to melancholic English folk with shared influences of Aphex Twin, Sufjan Stevens and Nick Drake, he made quite a splash with debut albu. Turning Down Water For Air and is now treading the boards in support of follow-up Movement In A Storm (Moshi Moshi).

He’s not got the strongest voice, but, both breezy and pensive, the album has the inviting haze of a summer meadow about it, especially so on the spare acoustic Foreign Shore. Offering the invitation to chill out to the evocative hushed fingerpicked Wild Goose At Night or gently sway on the dance floor along to the rippling pop of On Your Own, First In Line’s motorik rhythm or the Vince Clarke-like bubbles and bleeps of My Fears, this is 21st century folk music for laptop troubadours. 8pm. £8. The Rainbow

Thursday October 28

Amy Macdonald

A welcome return and a bigger venue gives the Glaswegian singer-songwriter a chance to get bigger sound wise with a full audience singalong into the bargain. She’ll once again be dipping into the catchy folk pop of both her debut album, with its Mr Rock N Roll hit single, and the current A Curious Thing. Inexplicably, none of the three singles to date, Don’t Tell Me That It’s Over, Spark and This Pretty Face, made the Top 40, but hopefully the cloth ears of the British record buying public will have the good taste and sense to make the jittery Roxy Music meets Buddy Holly of Love Love the massive hit she deserves.

Live she’s a bit like all your best pub gigs rolled into one and with past and present cover choices including Dancing In The Dark, Born To Run and, most recently Dead End Street on See My Friends album with Ray Davies, it’s one you really shouldn’t miss. 7.30pm. £22.50. O2 Academy

Thursday October 28

Avenged Sevenfold

Now into their 11th year, the California metal crew haven’t strayed too far from their piston rhythms, sombre guitar riffs, the quiet-loud song structure or the required acoustic guitar moments that again drive current album Nightmare. With Dream Theatre’s Mike Portnoy standing in, both on disc and on tour, for late drummer The Rev, it follows the familiar route of brooding metal and full pelt rock fury with songs that variously address standard themes of war, religion, alienation and so forth.

As such, devotees will probably have no complaints over the military drum beat propulsion of Danger Line, the fret blazing pop thrash and guitar solos of Welcome To The Family and Natural Born Killer, or the sombre moody balladry of Buried Alive and Tonight The World Dies. Newcomers might, however, feel they’ve heard the sentiments and sound of sopmething like God Hates Us too many times before to find anything original to inspire. 7.30pm. £22.50. NIA

Thursday October 28

Hafdis Huld

The former GusGus singer made quite a splash four years ago with her solo debut, Dirty Paper Cup, collaborating with Boo Hewardine for an album that brought together 60s English folk, mediaeval troubadour pop, bluegrass n Eastern and vaudeville. So, anticipation for the follow-up was high. Sad to say then that Synchronised Swimmers (Red Grape) is a bit of a let down. Hewardine provides only one co-write here, the slow waltzing Vampires, on which he also duets, and it’s easily the best thing on the album, even if it sounds as though it was penned for Eddi Reader.

The rest wanders between plodding (Boys & Perfume and the Nik Kershaw co-written I Almost Know A Criminal), forced kookiness (Robot, Robot, Kónguló) and pleasantly forgettable folk pop (Time Of My Life, One Of Those Things) and, when the songs don’t get your attention, her high pitched girlie voice can quickly become irritating. The only other half decent thing here is Homemade Lemonade, a song that sparkles with the former bubble while everything else is flat. 8pm. £7. Glee Club

Thursday October 28

iLiketrains

Having made their name with sparse piano, minimal guitar and orchestral crescendos and the heavily researched historically based brooding songs relating to such topics as the Eyam plague of 1665, the Great Fire of London, John Stonehouse, murdered British PM John Perceval and the legendary 1992 chess match between Fischer and Spassky, the Leeds post-rock outfit have made a few changes for fan-funded new album He Who Saw The Deep.

Decidedly less intense than the Elegies To Lessons Learnt debut of three years ago, there’s actual stripped back indie pop melodies here to A Father’s Son and Feet Of Clay even if the songs themselves still lurk in the darker shadows with themes of natural disasters and apocalypse.

Filtering the influence of Explosions In The Sky here and there, decidedly so on opening number When We Were Kings, they haven’t wholly moved away from the big melodic swell, Broken Bones and the eight minute Sea Of Regrets with its gradual build to crescendo and dying ebb of strings, both redolent of their earlier work. Their bleak world vision is unlikely to send you home full of the joys of life perhaps, but musically your head should be in a state of apotheosis. 8pm. £7. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath

Saturday October 30

Seth Lakeman

The poster boy for the new folk revival, Lakeman was in danger of becoming single-mindedly parochial in his choice of song material with his last three albums all drawing on stories and folk-legends from his West Country home. New album Hearts And Minds (Relentless) hasn’t totally abandoned the geographical roots - Preacher's Ghost relates how a Cornish miner gave up drink and became a Methodist preacher while Signed And Sealed concerns a 17th century magistrate’s deal with the devil - but there’s a wider horizon here as well as more personal reflections.

Unfortunately, in looking at the wider world, he seems to have fallen victim to stating the obvious with the folk funk title track a fiddle scraping response to the financial meltdown, The Watchman essentially a song about letting yourself age naturally and Hard Working Man, well take a guess.

The Led Zep folk riffery still keeps the music potent and numbers like the bustling Tiny World, the banjo led Stepping Over You and the simple, spooked Changes demonstrate he’s not lost the touch, but it might be an idea next time to get back to the local libraries for the source material. 8pm. £19.50. B’ham Town Hall

Saturday October 30

Micah P Hinson

Following on from recent covers album, the sandpaper gruff baritone Texan returns to original material with ...And The Pioneer Saboteurs (Full Time Hobby), an album that taps deep into the Cormac McCarthy seam of bleak American Gothic that veins his DNA. With tales of suicidal preachers (My God, My God), hung lovers (Stuck On The Job), dysfunctional parents (Seven Horses Seen) and general despair, the gloom comes on pretty thick.

It’s not all agony and torment, though. The Letter At Twin Wrecks is a love letter to his wife while the most memorable track, Take Off That Dress For Me, is a simple acoustic guitar strum as Hinson pleads for a lover's naked intimacy "against all hope and sense of dignity".

Vocally, he retains that hint of Cash but increasingly draws comparison with Richard Hawley and the Handsome Family’s Brett Sparks on an album that shares its space between wistful ballads, sweeping guitars and the experimental clanking percussion of Watchers.

He’s as yet still something of a cult figure, but if you’ve discovered him then make sure you take along someone else to spread the word. 7pm. £12.50. O2 Academy 3

Sunday October 31

Lissie

Having already done rather well shifting a fair few copies of her Catching The Tiger (Columbia) debut, Illinois songbird Elisabeth Maurus is back to etch reminders on those Santa lists with the release of the Maria McKee sounding single Everywhere I Go. If you’ve already caught her several appearances in these parts, the only real difference to the set is likely to be the running order and whether she’ll be slipping in her covers of Stairway To Heaven or Bad Romance inbetween the Fleetwood Maccy Record Collector and Cuckoo or the Buddy Holly styled Little Lovin’.

A fresher experience might be support act Ramona. Not the Toronto power pop trio nor the LA electronica dance duo, but the Brighton quartet variation fronted by Karen Anne. If there were any doubts about the name being taken from the Ramones song on Rocket To Russia, then debut single How Long (Sony) will settle them. Basically it sounds like the Ramones fronted by a young Debbie Harry with Velvets chugging guitar B-side Steve McQueen reinforcing the Blondie comparisons. A self-titled album’s due early next year and, since everyone’s going to bigging them up then, it’s advisable to get in on the ground floor now. 7pm. £10. O2 Academy 2

Sunday October 31

Love Amongst Ruin

Former Placebo drummer Steve Hewitt steps up front with his own band (as opposed to New Jersey punks Love Among Ruins), an angsty hard rock outfit whose eponymous debut (Ancient B) trawls various elements from Foo Fighters, QOTSA and even Metallica. They have the noise and Hewitt has the physical charisma, what they don’t have, at least on the evidence of such numbers as the riff repetitive So Sad (Fade), the plodding Alone and Blood & Earth’s routine metal, are the songs, Hewitt apparently thinking that repeating the chorus line over and over somehow makes numbers anything more than longer and repetitive.

They do have one standout, Bring Me Down (You Don’t), a rather lovely cello based ballad, but perversely that seems to hacve vanished somewhere between the early and the released version of the album, to be replaced by the similar but lesser string laced Come On Say It. Maybe they have a death wish. 7.30pm. £7.50. Slade Rooms