Saturday September 1

Plain White T’s

Having been slogging round the US for ten years, the Chicago five piece finally broke big earlier this year when their Beatlesy acoustic pop single Hey There Delilah topped the Billboard charts. Having also provided them with their UK debut, they arrive now in advance of accompanying album Every Second Counts (Hollywood) and further evidence of their fresh faced Blink-like power pop punk and Fab Four inclinations on such tracks as Hate (I Really Don’t Like You), Let Me Take You There and Friends Don't Let Friends Dial Drunk. Slip one on now, everybody’ll be wearing them, soon.  6.30pm. £7.50. Carling Academy 2

Saturday September 1

Russian Circles

Another Chicago outfit, the instrumental trio are over here paving the way for the forthcoming Enter (Black Records) album, a six tracker of moody progrock and jazz tinged math-metal that clearly owes a few nods to the likes of Metallica, Tool and their breed. Opening cut Carpe sustains the dynamics for nine minutes of piston hammering guitars and quiet ambience while elsewhere Death Rides A Horse could teach Joe Satriani a few tricks, the title track whips up a sonic storm of intensity and Micah suggests a few cobwebbed goth influences in the makeup too. Art rock in places perhaps, but certainly well worth a look. 7.30pm. £10. Barfly

Saturday September 1

Moseley Folk Festival

Following on from the success of last year’s inaugural bash, the fest returns to Moseley’s leafy environs for an even better weekend of trad and contemporary folk. Fresh from their own Cropredy get together, long serving veterans Fairport Convention provide the headline spot for the first day with band alumni Dave Swarbrick appearing earlier on with his own Lazarus. Britfolk legend Davy Graham’s here, sharing billing with a solo slot from OCS frontman Simon Fowler underlining his own folk roots while Martha Tilston will doubtless be dipping into the likes of Frizzby, the jazzfolk Up In The Tower and the catchily excellent Artificial from her download only gem Ropeswing, now back on her website, as well as numbers from the more traditionally available Bimbling and Of Milkmaids And Architects.

Likely to prove one of the day’s highlights will be folktronica collective Tunng  showcasing new album Good Arrows (Full Time Hobby), again melding the likes of Nick Drake, Incredible String Band, and John Renbourn but also accentuating a campfire pop sensibility on such fresh meadow breezes as Bricks, Hands, Spoons and oompah beat of Bullets. They’ve not lost their fondness for wyrd trad or mischievous experimentation though, Take and Strings very much infused with a medieval feel, Soup transforming from Tubular Bells tinkling to a sonic scratching storm of metal while Secrets is a suitably pagan dose of spooky bewitchments. They were made for days like this. 11am. £29.50 (kids £15). Weekend £42.50/£28. Family £90. Moseley Park

Sunday September 2

Moseley Folk Festival

Day two offer a no less impressive line-up that ranges from the trad of Jim Moray and Alasdair Roberts to the nu-folk of Adem and the 60s flavours of Findlay Brown by way of Leamington heroes Nizlopi. Taking the stage around noon will be sadly underrated local singer-songwriter Eddy Morton unveiling his new album Stourbridge Town (New Mountain Music) from which, if you’re lucky, he’ll be extracting the Eric Andersen like Man Who’s Got No Name, King Of My Own Country and the excellent moody faux trad ballad Queen of Stourbridge Town.

The real coup de grace, though, is the appearance of Kate Rusby offering an early preview of her new album Awkward Annie (Pure), prior to her tour later this year. Improving on The Girl Who Couldn’t Fly was never going to be an easy task, but judging by the self-penned The Bitter Boy, a banjo dappled High On A Hill, her reading of the old chestnut Blooming Heather and a spirited folk rock cover of The Village Green Preservation Society she’s done it with effort to spare. 11am. Day £29.50 (kids £15). Weekend £42.50 (kids £28). Family £90. Moseley Park

Sunday September 2

Paramore

Fronted by teenage punk pop volcano Hayley Williams, the emo pounding outfit leap back into the live fray on the back of recent sophomore album Riot! (Fuelled By Ramen) with its slickly polished jerky riffs and her  Tennessee sugargum vocals. Having made a solid impression with All We Know Is Falling, they’ve polished up the formula and returned with a collection of highly melodic  pop friendly tunes designed to take mainstream radio audiences by the ears and shake them into the record stores.

Things get a bit bogged down as We Are Broken and When it Rains announce the mid-tempo bits, but when the band stoke up the energy buttons on For A Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic, a swaggery That’s What You Get, Misery Business and an oddly Pat Benatar like Crushcrushcrush you’ll want a riot of your own. 7.30pm. £12. Wulfrun Hall

Sunday September 2

Status Quo

No jokes about ancient monuments please! The Quo take to the battlements for a summer bout of greatest hits memories prior to the annual Christmas knees-up, but also affording an early opportunity to wrap the hears around tasters from new album In Search of The Fourth Chord (Fourth Chord Records).

There’s naturally few surprises in what’s a pretty standard set of the chugging blues boogie rock they’ve been knocking out for the past few decades, but familiarity hasn’t dulled their ability to come up with a bunch of memorable leg tappers with each new outing. This time round I Don’t Wanna Hurt You Anymore is vintage Quo rock n roll country boogie, Gravy Train, Bad News and Electric Arena rowdy blues barrellhousing in the manner of the Down The Dustpipe era albums while the likes of Alright and Pennsylvania Blues Tonight couldn’t be anyone but Messrs Rossi and Parfitt. Which, let’s face, is all any of the army of denim heads really want. 5pm. £30. Dudley Castle

Tuesday September 4

Chris Cornell

The former Soundgarden frontman was once touted as one of the greatest voices in rock, the Robert Plant or Paul Rodgers of grunge.  Today he’s carving a solo career but it’s unlikely his second album, Carry On (Interscope) is going to earn similar gushing comparisons and praise. He still has the Rodgers throaty blues rock growl, well in evidence on the likes of Poison Eye, the soulful gospel Safe And Sound and the blues rock ballad Roads We Choose, but too often he sounds like he’s straining while, despite hopping around between blasting direct rock (No Such Thing), swaggery hard tipped pop (Killing Birds),  funk (She’ll Never Be Your Man), and Southern soul roots (Finally Forever), the songs themselves tend to be much of a muchness that never linger in the memory.

Indeed, while a few old hits might whip up the faithful, it seem ironic that the set’s likely standout will be his cover of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean, transformed from jittery dance number into a Joe Cocker-esque wailing blues. 7.30pm. £25. Carling Academy

Tuesday September 4/Wednesday September 5

The Police

Come on, who really would have cared if Messrs Copeland, Summers and Sting hadn’t decided to get back together for a 30th anniversary tour! Still, if you’ve blanked out memories of how tedious and up themselves they’d got in the final days and can ignore how dated and clumsy some of their white reggae sounds now, then there may indeed by secret pleasures in reliving memories of Roxanne, Message In A Bottle, Walking On The Moon, Don’t Stand So Close To Me, Every Breath You Take and the still irritating De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da.

These and a load more, some of which you’ll wisely have forgotten (Tea In The Saraha anyone?) have been duly repackaged for a self-titled double disc A&M anthology, though obviously just banging that into the CD player won’t substitute for the thrill of seeing Sting strut across the stage like a preening chicken on the opening leg of the UK dates or watch out for signs of the, er, ‘creative tensions’ that have been making the reunion such an electrifying spectacle.

Keeping it in the family, Fiction Plane, the London outfit featuring frontman son of Sting, Joe Sumner, have been given the job of dragging punters away from the bar. Slimmed down to a  trio, new album Left Side Of The Brain (Bieler Bros) is a competent but unremarkable album of occasionally social politics rock that, not surprisingly often evokes dad’s music (Death Machine, Two Sisters, Presuppose) but also takes stabs at stadium bombast with Anyone, Cross The Line and the title track. 30th year reunions seem unikely. 7.30pm. £85-£40. NIA

Wednesday September 5

Regina Spektor

Presumably currently working on material for a new album, the Russian born chanteuse, part Tori Amos, part Suzanne Vega, takes time out for a handful of dates to promote the latest and, you’d suspect last, single to be lifted from Begin To Hope (Sire). A breathily soaring guitar and piano mid-tempo rocker it’s unlikely that Better’s going to be setting charts ablaze but if it serves to attract a few more ears to album compatriots like the pizzicato Fidelity, finger snappy 60s flavoured Hotel Song or Billie Holiday torch song homage Lady then it’s all to the good. 7.30pm. £16.  Carling Academy

Wednesday September 5

Ben’s Brother

Uninspiringly named for singer Jamie Hartman’s older sibling, you’d be forgiven to think this lot were some boy band. Maybe that would have been better than their debut album, Beta Male Fairytales (Relentless) sounding like a watery version of Rod Stewart. Pleasant background music with plenty of hook choruses to hum along to when they waft out of the radio with the Blunt-like Rise, piano ballad Bad Dream and male self-empowerment anthem I Am Who I Am standing out from the crowd, but if you want AOR soul rock delivered with passion in a Stewart-like voice, there’s it’s the Ben from X-Factor you really should be listening to. 7.30pm. £7. Bar Academy

Wednesday September 5

Polyphonic Spree

They may have put away the flowing robes in favour of a military uniform look, but quite how they’ll still cram all 20 members on to the stage here will be an interesting feat. However, assuming the whole contingent are along with Tim DeLaughter and Julie Doyle, the chance to catch them in such intimate surroundings really shouldn’t be missed. Having parted ways with major label status, they arrive now signed to Gut Records with new album The Fragile Army, still boasting their fulsome choral pop sound with Running Away sounding not unlike Blondie’s Dreaming while Get Up And Go could easily be a Roy Wood tune lifted from the first ELO album.

Exploring a theme of  reaching for love and rediscovering a zeal for life in the face of loss, confusion and George Bush, there’s plenty of the familiar big soaring anthemic sound in numbers like Younger Yesterday, Watch Us Explode, The Championship and Mental Cabaret with Guaranteed Nightlife sounding like it’s auditioning for a Broadway musical. But its the relatively quieter moments that impress most on We Crawl and the brass marching title track’s response to the war in Iraq where a poppy swagger hides some barbed lyrics. Unlikely to restore their somewhat diminished star, but as a live experience it’s a bit like being baptised in Niagara Falls. 8pm. £15.  Glee Club

Friday September 7

Richard Hawley

Arguably the most lushly romantic singer-songwriter currently plying his trade in the UK,  Sheffield’s burnished voice crooner returns with his fourth album, Lady’s Bridge (Mute), the title, like Lowedges and Coles Corner, another reference to a hometown landmark, namely the oldest bridge across the Don that linked the poor and the rich parts of town.

Opening with the Orbison-esque end of romance Valentine, it’s also a deeply personal album, the theme of crossings much informed by him turning 40 and the death of his father from cancer. Indeed, the cover shows Hawley on the same stage where his dad played 30 years earlier.

As with previous outings, the dominant musical mood is melancholic slow dancing, rippling through The Sun Refused To Shine, Lady Solitude, Roll River Roll (about the victims of the Great Sheffield Flood), Our Darkness (a love song to the domestic hearth),  and the country swaying ballroom floor title track. Those Scott Walker, Leonard Cohen and Jim Reeves reference points are undiminished,. but the midtempo cascading timeless splendour of Tonight The Streets Are Ours, a song attacking the brutality of ASBOS, also suggests Morrissey had he been raised in the Brill building.

  It’s not all cheek to cheek shuffles though; Serious finds him skipping down the street, heart singing to love with a skittering percussion and rockabilly guitar, while I’m Looking For Someone To Find Me  rustles along in gentle on my mind thoughts of  Glen Campbell hanging out with Buddy Holly.

  Aside from the Chris Isaak meets Costello rockabilly image with the slicked hair quiff, glasses and sharp silver-grey suit, his country influences poke through frequently. You can hear them rustling in the leaves of Lady Solitude and in the shanty tanged The Sea Calls, but they really make their presence felt on the marvellous Dark Road, its twangy guitar, loping rhythm and Hawley’s world weary dark voice firmly summoning the sound and spirit of  Hank’s Lost Highway as sung by Henson Cargill or Jimmie Rodgers. If he ever decided to do a  cover of There’s A Heartache Following Me, Nashville and the Opry would be waiting with open arms.

With a  set likely to feature prime cuts from this alongside enduring nuggets from his back catalogue, this promises to be one of the month’s best nights out.

Even more so with support coming from Kate Walsh back pushing current album Tim’s House (Blueberry Pie) with such wistfully sensitive acoustic songs about broken hearts, bruised lives and yearning optimism as countrified slow waltzer Talk Of The Town,  unrequited love story French Song and the warbling lilt of new single Your Song. 7.30pm. £17.50/£15. Symphony Hall

Friday September 7

Gossip

Fronted by the fulsome Beth Ditto, the Portland bred dance punk blues trio may have only managed to scrap the Top 40 with recent single Listen Up, but after the Glastonbury triumph they’re back with the far stronger throbbing of Jealous Girls (Back Yard). Hammering out a CBGB’s pulse, it’s again lifted from the Standing In The Way Of Control album, a live version offering persuasively firm encouragement to catch them in the flesh. 6pm. £13.50, Carling Academy

Saturday September 8

Operator Please

Riding the Levi’s One To Watch tour bus, this Australian pop punk teen quintet made an instant splash back home with their debut single Just A Song About Ping Pong (Brille).  A blistering punk firecracker positively exploding with summer hormones and crashing through comparisons to the B52s mashed up with Yeah Yeah Yeahs, it’s an undeniable crowd pulling magnet but they’re going to have to have a few more substantial tricks in the set to sustain a whole gig. 7.30pm. £5. Barfly

Monday September 10

I’m From Barcelona

They’re from Sweden, are named for Manuel in Fawlty Towers, comprise a Polyphonic Spree style collective of some 29 friends and make the sort of annoyingly catchy summery pop that’s an infectious as Chicken Pox.  Which also happens to be the title of  one of the tracks on Let Me Introduce You To My Friends (Interpop), a lively  ditty that parallels the illness with love’s broken hearts.

Imagine a cross between Scissor Sisters, Magic Numbers and Cartoons, and you’re getting close as they gleefully romp through the Europub singalong of We’re From Barcelona, the clappy chorus and double tracked vocals of Treehouse,  and Collection of Stamps, basically a listen of countries set to a sort of kiddy playschool melody line. Barcelona Loves You throws in some Northern Soul beats and The Saddest Lullaby a flourish of brass to go with the oohaahhing, all inconsequential nonsense, but still guilty fun.

Support comes from Anglo-French pop-folk singer songwriter Jeremy Warmsley whose debut album The Art of Fiction has inexplicably seen him likened to Rufus Wainwright and Sufjan Stevens. As 5 Verses and I Knew That Her Face Was A Lie shows,  he writes clever lyrics and wraps them in inventive arrangements edged, but his voice is all rather watery and the melodies don’t really linger. 7.30pm. £10. Carling Academy 2

Tuesday September 11

Catherine Feeny

Reversing the process whereby English acts go to America to get discovered, the Philadelphia born singer-songwriter moved to Norfolk to build her career. She needn’t have bothered really because on the evidence of  recently reissued debut album Hurricane Glass (Charisma) she’d make it wherever she chose to base herself.

Possessing a soft sepia voice somewhere between husky and breathy and adopting an acoustic folksy rock style, she’s been variously likened to such names as Joni Mitchell, Aimee Mann, Sheryl Crow and Suzanne Vega and there’s definitely traces of all them here. However, Feeny’s much more than the sum of her influences, her introspective songs of romantic melancholy and the knots woven by relationships gently melodic and attractively arranged affairs, warmed by strings, piano and brass. There’s even some perky flute on the breezy Always Tonight.

 The tinkling sweetly sad early morning love song Mr Blue has already found its way on to the soundtrack of Running With Scissors and numbers such as Touch Back Down, Radar (where she gets a little spiky and swears), Shape You’re In and Forever are ideally suited to those emotion jerking moments in similarly inclined grown up chick flicks.

With its line about bombing Baghdad, the bluesy Unsteady Ground reveals she’s got a political streak to go with the tear smeared mascara while the swaggery handclappy title cut shows she can kick up some rockier Crow traces if the mood takes. If she’s got the live charisma to go with her undeniable performing chops, it shouldn’t be long before America’s begging her to come home. 8pm. £9. Glee Club

Tuesday September 11

Tiny Dancers

Back on the road giving another push to debut album Free School Milk (Parlophone), the West Yorkshire quintet are one of the brightest things to have happened to glam folk pop music this year, quite capable of making even Mika seem miserable.

I’ve Got To Go is all 60s pop, Bonfire of the Night conjures Neil Diamond round the campfire, Baby Love strolls down the street with arms linked  fizz, I Will Wait For You stomps along while, to offer up the diversity,  Ashes And Diamonds is a lovely acoustic sway, arms and Sun Goes Down a bluegrass knees up. Bubblegum perhaps, but very chewy with a long lasting taste. 7.30pm. £6.50. Little Civic

Thursday September 13

Unklejam

Having so impressed Justin Timberlake, he personally requested them as support on his recent tour, the funky  Hawaii-Miami-Northolt trio certainly won new friends with recent single  What Am I Fighting with its hip-twisting mix of electro pop, old school soul and P-funk. They amply deliver on the promise now with debut album Love Ya (Virgin), the title track all Sly & The Family Stone era funk,  the electro soul beats of Luving U and Just Like Me nodding to a meeting between Eurythmics and Seal, r&b ballad Cry harks to the influence of early Prince, while The Touch conjures vintage Alison Moyet fronting Depeche Mode,  Hello is Erasure as Grace Jones and Stereo even hints at Gary Numan, Philly soul and Bee Gees disco. An interestingly eclectic melting pot of sounds, they seem guaranteed to prove the big name in dance music in the upcoming months.

They’re supported by a couple of other upcoming names being given solid record label push. David Jordan’s been called a cross between Mika and Lenny Kravitz, though that falsetto vocal on catchy debut single Place In My Heart (Mercury) suggests he’s probably got a bunch of Michael Jackson albums in his bedroom. 

Then there’s Ava Leigh, a blonde from Chester whose debut single, La La La (Virgin) clearly illustrates the influences of Bob Marley,  Marcia Griffiths and Matumbi. Her debut album currently remains pending, but advance samples of  the jazz and blues filtered Breathe  and a rock steady Who Told You suggest it’ll be well worth the wait. 7.30pm. £5. Carling Academy 2

Thursday September 13

Christopher Rees

Although Cautionary Tales is his third album, the Welsh singer-songwriter is still a relatively unknown name on the Americana and folk roots circuit. This should improve matters with its persuasive mix of Appalachian folk, delta blues, chugging backwoods roots rock and dirt country ballads, dappled with banjo and strings and featuring guest contributions from Victoria Williams on the Jerry Jeff Walker-like Bottom Dollar and Calexico’s Belgian chanteuse on the narcotic Until Love Comes Around.

There’s a bit of a concept going on too, with the songs covering the deadly sins of gluttony (Bucket Full Of Holes), envy (How Did You Sleep Last Night), sloth (the waltzing It Won’t Come Easy), lust (A Cautionary Tale), pride (Don’t Let Your Heart Grown Cold), greed (A Sinner’s Serenade) and anger (stark Bad Seeds-like murder Ballad Mary Lee).

He does have a cheerier side, finding love’s redemptive virtues in the darkest corners in something like The Calm Will Follow The Storm, but chances are it’s the broodier elements that will keep audiences too busy to crowd the bar tonight. 7.30pm. Tower Of Song, Pershore Rd South, Kings Norton

Friday September 14

The Holloways

The fiddle friendly, guitar jogging Cockerney ska pop crew return for another bout of promotion for So This Is Great Britain (TVT), a rabble rousing bunch of good time tunes stitched with a social and political conscience and seasoned with shots of Madness, Sham 69, and The Clash on tracks like Dancefloor, Malcontented One, Happiness and Penniless, the Caribbean calypso bouncing Generator and reissued, remixed new single, the fiddle friendly, guitar jogging Cockerney ska pop Two Left feet.

Sharing the bill and getting in shape for their upcoming stint with The Enemy are Scouser crew The Wombats. Having created a solid buzz and following with three indie singles, they signed to 14th Floor and quickly established their worth with the suitably bouncy ramshackle pop of Kill The Director. With an album due at the end of next month, they follow up now with upcoming similarly catchy rowdy punk pop and girlie chorus single Let’s Dance To Joy Division, a  timely choice given its lyric reference to the just reissued Love Will Tear Us Apart. 7pm. £11. Carling Academy

Saturday September 15

Captain Wilberforce

It can only be a matter of time before Simon Bristoll finally gets the awareness that is his due. He certainly warranted it after the release of Mindfilming, a stunningly accomplished collection of classic pop steeped in Beatles and Brian Wilson influences, Vaselined Eyes a meeting between XTC, Crowded House, Squeeze and John Lennon, the sunny lost love pop of Teaching You To Swim recalling the days when Paul McCartney wrote great songs and The Incredible Commuting Mole (Must Die) brimful of California sunshine while Singer Wanted, Preferably Dead marries ELO and Big Star. He’s currently busy recording the much anticipated follow up, so expect a healthy clutch of tasters in the set tonight. 8pm. £4. Jug of Ale, Moseley

Saturday September 15

The Softcore Tour

Put porn thought from your mind, this brings together a trio of former hardcore vocalists now plying the  folk trade. Best known name will be former Million Dead singer Frank Turner, now reinvented as a latter-day Billy Bragg with his Sleep Is For The Week album of 21st century alt-folk songs.

He’s joined by ex-Gratitude man Jonah Matranga who’ll be unveiling his succinctly titled debut solo album And (Xtra Mile), a decidedly summery sounding collection of songs about love and loss, attractively dressed up with piano, strings and, on the jangling Not About A Girl Or A Place, highway cruising 12 string guitar. A mix of radio friendly power pop inclinations and folksy ballads delivered in an achingly bruised voice, there’s plenty of highlights here to look out for in the set, most especially the ringing I Want You To Be My Witness, a gently pulsing pop Waving Or Drowning, the stadium anthemic Every Mistake, a song written about his daughter, and the hushed balladeering of I Can’t Read Your Mind and the fragile Fathers And Daughters. Punk’s loss is clearly the singer-songwriter devotee’s gain.

 Labelmate leader of Boston’s Six Going On Seven for seven years, Joshua English is now going it alone, making his solo debut with Trouble None. Apparently inspired by the novels of Raymond Carver, it’s a more musically upbeat and uptempo than his touring buddies, rocking out on such cuts as Miles, Los Angeles Killed Me Complete and getting into the folk blues for No Ready Answer, No Ready Reply and Sharks. Not that it doesn’t have its own fair share of quieter moments for him to apply his acerbic lyrics, but while things like  Little Betty, the harmonica wheezing Flight Risk and a plaintive Married In Memphis are attractive enough, there’s not quite the same staying power to them as Matranga’s songs, suggesting it’s going to be the latter who proves the real hit of the tour.  7.30pm. £7. W’hampton Civic Hall Bar

Sunday September 16

Colvin Quarmby

One of the biggest dates they’ve played locally in a fair while, this is a special welcome back to Gerry Colvin, Nick Quarmby, Dave Dutfield and Mart Fitzgibbon with their classy roots pop and witty banter. Aside from the tour promising to include some of the more neglected songs from their past four albums, it will also serve to launch the follow up to A Short Walk To The Red Lion. Unfortunately, there’s no info to share on it other than the title, From The Old Court to Cropredy, the latter of course the Fairport annual fest they played some four years back and are surely overdue a return appearance.

If you’ve not encountered them before, history notes that Gerry was once half of Birmingham skiffle-country duo Terry & Gerry and Nick is a regular with the Phil Beer Band, while anyone with good musical taste will bore you for hours extolling Colvin’s ability to pen brilliant songs that range from the heartbreakingly romantic to the politically scalpel sharp. That and his irrepressible stage presence.  They won’t be playing here again this year, so get in for the Christmas treat early 7.45pm. £12. Crescent Theatre

Sunday September 16

Erasure

Their star’s dimmed considerably since their late 80s/early 90s  peak produced a seemingly never ending string of colourfully camp electro pop and Andy Bell’s spangly stage costumes, but they’ve still notched up an incredible 35 Top 40 hits with only one this year’s Sunday Girl charting outside of the 30. Their covers album Other People’s Songs, and 2005’s The Nightbirds were a touch disappointing but they seem to have regained some ground with the current Light At The End Of The World (Mute) which, while lacking songs the equal of Blue Savannah, A Little Respect or Always, plays to its Morodor-like Europop gay disco strengths on such numbers as Sucker For Love, Darlene and I Could Fall In Love With You. And, as something like Glass Angel and How My Eyes Adore You show, few can do glitter kitsch romantic melodrama as well they can. With what looks like being a Greatest Hits set, there’ll be singalongs and swaying arms wall to wall. 7.30pm. £25. W’hampton Civic Hall

Monday September 17

iliketrains

They don’t do things the easy way. Their last single, Spencer Perceval, was a 9 minute epic folk dirge about the only British prime minister to be assassinated while, underlining their obsession with historical events and figures, as well as railways,  the mini-album debut, Progress Reform, featured darkly melancholic songs about Bobby Fischer, Scott of the Antarctic and Dr Beeching’s 60s decimation of the rural rail network alongside an eight minute murder ballad.

And here they go again, still sporting Victorian railway uniforms, with their Beggars Banquet debut, Elegies To Lessons Learnt, casting the net wide to embrace such subjects as the Great Fire of London (Twenty Five Sins), the tragic tale of yachtsman Donald Crowhurst’s attempt to fake his round the world trip (The Deception), the Salem Witch trials (We Go Hunting), the plague (We All Fall Down) and martyrdom (The Voice of Reason).

While the pace rarely rises beyond the sort of funereal dirge that makes Tindersticks and Nick Cave sound like Right Said Fred, once again they achieve a glacial splendour of Sigur Ros proportions, soaking their morose, sombre tunes in ghostly, cavernous pianos,  the bones of haunted guitars, sonic squalls and doom heavy orchestrations. Not exactly a night for glo-sticks and chorus swayalongs, but as the musical equivalent of  a history class campfire sleepover in a graveyard they have no rivals. 7.30pm. £7. Barfly

Tuesday September 18

Patrick Watson

The name of the piano-playing frontman as well as his Montreal based quartet, new album (their first proper UK release) Close To Paradise (V2) has had reviewers positively wetting themselves as they gush praise and talk in new Jeff Buckley comparisons. Perhaps, more accurately, they might be seen as Canada’s answer to the Guillemots.

Having spent his childhood in church choirs and playing in classical and jazz bands during his teens, Watson clearly has experience and craft to his advantage and the album floats on a raft of soaring vocals, lazy rippling piano lines, lush strings, sensual guitars and brushed beats. There’s a definite night-time streets prowling mood to numbers such as Weight Of The World and Close To Paradise while the likes of Slip Into Your Skin, Bright Shiny Lights and The Storm have an opium narcotic sweetness.

There’s plenty going on here, the band constantly throwing surprise curves in the arrangements, at times harking to the influences of the Beatles, Brian Wilson and Devendra Banhart, at others casting eyes towards trip hop clouds. Live they’ve even been known to use a balloon and an electric toothbrush to play with the guitar sounds. Not immediately accessible, which suggests they may get better reviews than they do sales figures, but you can place bets now on them rising to Flaming Lips heights in the years to come. 8pm. £6. Glee Club

Wednesday September 19

The Harrisons

Sheffield’s ska punk n soul outfit  keep bashing away at their No Fighting In The War Room album, making angry young man social politics you can dance to with such ditties as Dear Constable, the Jam echoing Man Of The Hour, the white reggae punkpop of Monday’s Arms and recent single Wishing Well.

Making their long awaited hometown return Birmingham’s own ska-popsters  Dexter should be in celebratory mood after preaching to the London scene with debut EP Flings and Roundabouts with its own Jam flavoured Play Your Cards Right. They’ll be packing the gear off to the studio after this to record the follow up, so expect some early previews tonight. 7pm. £6. Carling Academy 2

Thursday September 20

Ruarri Joseph

The Newquay based singer-songwriter continues to promote his newly released debut album  Tales Of Grime And Grit (Atlantic), a refreshing cocktail of reference points that embrace names as diverse as Pete Atkin, Django Reinhardt and, on the shrugging clanking lope of Patience, Tom Waits.

Basically retro acoustic folk pop with jazz and blues colours, there’s plenty worth exploring with highlights including the vaudeville flavoured Won’t Work, acoustic blues shuffle new single Blankets, Randy Newman styled piano ballad Early Morning Remedy, the Leon Redbone-like lullabying Relying On Lying and More Rock N’ Roll, which sounds like his rework of Richard Thompson’s I Wish I Was Simple Again. See him now, he’ll be headlining larger venues before long.  8pm. £8. Glee Club

Thursday September 20

Kosheen

A reminder that Bristol was and remains the hope of British trip hop dance, still fronted by Sian Evans, the drum n bass trio’s third album of electronica dance grooves, Damage (Moksha), finds its strongest moments in such moody, narcotic realms and the dark lyrical content they embrace.

Cases in point, the six minute opening title track with its steady steamrollering groove and Evans’ folk textured vocals suggesting a meeting between Portishead and Clannad,  the emotionally fragile, strings-washed acoustic balladeering Cruel Heart with its theme of adolescent anguish and, another potently folk coloured number, Not Enough Love.

It doesn’t all come off, their attempt at old school goth rock swagger on Professional Friend is all rather tiresome and the Moyet-bluesy Overkill merely shows how much better Gossip are at that sort of thing. They also have a an unfortunate tendency to drag things out past the five minute mark when a little more economy would work better. However, armed with the radio friendly Krautrock Blondie appeal of Like A Book, Guilty’s Euro electropop, the early Eurythmics hints behind Chances and Under Fire’s trance-folk, they score more bullseyes than they do overshoot the target. 7.30pm. £14. Wulfrun Hall

Friday September 21

Foy Vance

Last time the Irish  singer-songwriter was at the venue he was promoting then current single Be With Me, a funky Southern blues gospel groove shaded with the influences of Sly Stone, The Temptations, Prince and Tom Waits. Now he’s back with the accompanying album, Hope (Wurdamouth) and even stronger arguments that he’s a force with which to be reckoned. It reprises the magnificent bare-boned acoustic Indiscriminate Act of Kindness, first heard two years back on the Birth of the Toilet Tour EP, and the heart-stopping storysong parable Gabriel & The Vagabond, but otherwise this is all new to disc. And, recorded at a home studio in the Mourne mountains, with lyrics that bear testament to his background as a preacher’s son, mining the doubt as much as the faith, stunning stuff it is too.

Steeped in the Celtic soul of his birthplace as well as the gospel, r&b and country imbued growing up in Oklahoma, New Orleans and Alabama, he inevitably calls to mind Van Morrison, especially so on the likes of  Shed A Little Light, Fifteen, and Elshaneed; but Van’s not turned out anything of this consistent quality in years.

Elsewhere Treading Water, First Of July (written by his piano player Jules Maxwell) could stand arm in arm with sandpaper voiced Waits circa his first two albums. And, to illustrate the range, a smouldering jazzy jamming soul gumbo Hope, Peace & Love shows his funkier grooves with a marriage between Led Zep riffing and Donna Summer slink while Pull Me Through and Dry Wells curl like blue smoke round the late night piano bar and a half drunk glass of whisky.

Unquestionably one of the year’s finest albums, the buzz is building fast with copies of the Toilet Tour EP fetching around £100 on Amazon. If you were looking for a name to place bets on becoming an international superstar in the next couple of years, Vance would have to be the odds on favourite. 8pm. £7.50. Glee Club

Friday September 21

Joe Brown

Not, as many believe, a Cockney but born in Linconshire, although the brush-haired cheeky charmer’s been a professional musician for almost 50 years, starting out playing guitar before Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Billy Fury before starting his own thing with the Bruvvers, Brown’s never really been accorded the popular acclaim he deserves.

A small clutch of 60s hits like A Picture of You, Sea of Heartache and That’s What Love Will Do  were early indications of his love of country music, a genre he’s been mining ever since. As well as a fine singer and adept guitar and mandolin player, he’s also pretty nifty on the ukulele, providing one of the highlights of the George Harrison memorial concert when he performed I’ll See You In Me Dreams on the instrument for the show’s finale.

Now 66, he’s out on the road performing a collection of old favourites from his lengthy career as well as material from current album, Down To Earth (Track), a mix of rootsy trad, covers and self-penned numbers that easily stands him shoulder to shoulder with Mark Knopfler.

Bill Monroe’s bluegrass staple Uncle Penn provides a fine showcase for his fiddle prowess, a suitably sun-kissed Hoagy Carmichaels’ Lazybones finds him on slide guitar, sharing vocals with daughter Sam Brown, while a cover of old McGuiness Flint hit Malt & Barley Blues sees him strapping on the dobro and melodeon to perky effect. Elsewhere the album steers its way through songs by Dylan (Well, Well Well), Paul Simon (One Tick Pony), Tony Joe White (the swampy blues As The Crow Flies) and Richard Thompson (Dimming of the Day) as well as Brown’s arrangements of Gallows Pole and folk blues stomper Black Betty while All Worked Out and Blood Is Thicker Than Water serves reminder he can pen a strong tune of his own.

Though his shows may attract the retro nostalgia crowd, they really out to be in the diary of anyone who appreciates American hued folk music. As an added bonus, his special guest will be another underrated homegrown talent, Dave Edmunds who, as chart statistics will remind, found early success with his breakneck guitar on Love Sculpture’s 1968 No 1 Sabre Dance before re-emerging in the 70s to notch of a string of country-inflected New Wave rock n roll and rockabilly hits, among them I Hear You Knocking, I Knew The Bride, Girls’ Talk, Born To Be With You, Queen Of Hearts and Crawling From The Wreckage. He’s not been treading the boards much since he had a quadruple bypass, but appears to be in fine form for this collaboration with Brown, serving up solo hits as well as teaming up for some shared numbers. 8pm. £22.50-£17.50. Symphony Hall

Saturday September 22

Does It Offend You, Yeah?

Quickly following up jazzy cosmic surfing chilldebut single Weird Science, the indie-electronica trio parade their spikier side with Let’s Make Out (Virgin), a ragged punky steamrollering aggressive mosh of bleeps and beats with drain cleaner vocals, largely built around them spitting out the unambiguous title line. Expect some flayed flesh, live. 7pm. £6. Bar Academy

Saturday September 22

Milburn

Obviously having realised that, if they didn’t pull their socks up, they were embarrassingly going to be forever dismissed as Sheffield also-rans in the wake of their former fans who now comprise the Arctic Monkeys,  the baby faced quartet clearly spent considerable effort in honing These Are The Facts (Mercury), the follow up to last year’s competent but unremarkable debut Well Well Well.

It’s certainly paid off. This is far more assured sounding with stronger songs, more interesting arrangements and buckets more self-confidence, shrugging of the simian comparisons and even sounding more like vintage Oasis with 60s surf guitars and dark northern folk influences on the opening brace of stand outs, Lo And Behold and What Will You Do (When The Money Goes). They don’t lose the impetus either, Wolves At Bay conjuring thoughts of Peter Green’s guitar breaks on Fleetwood Mac’s Green Manalishi while kicking up its own moody 50s film noir rumble, Summertime sounding like an indie rock shanty, Cowboys & Indians pummelling through some clattering percussion and Being A Rogue filtering reggae chops into its catchy 60s pop melody line. It could possibly have done with a little more of the variations on mood and tempo shown by the closing Beatlesy ballad Genius And The Tramp, but had this been their debut, it’s possible it would now be Alex Turner and his mates trying to escape their shadow rather than the other way round.

Brandon Darnley having recovered from his recent life-threatening stroke, support’s provided by Iowan four  piece The Envy Corps. With their swirling pop marchalong Story Problem currently figuring on the soundtrack to Run Fat Boy Run they’re out plugging new single Rhinemaidens (Mercury) , another dose of chiming guitars, rippling rhythm lines and yearningly nasal vocals. With debut album Dwell due in November, they’ll be taking the chance to get in some early previews. 7pm. £9. Carling Academy 2

 Sunday September 23

(Hed) PE

California rapcore that fuses punk, nu-metal and hip hop into a form they term G-punk, they’ve been around since 1994 though these days only frontman founder Jahred Shane, bassist Mawk and turntablist DJ Product remain from the original line up. They’re here in support of new album Insomnia (Suburban Noize), a quasi concept steeped in global social politics and journeys of self-awakening, tapping into the Iraq fall out mood and the unrest of Bush America (to which end Children is actually a  cover of Buffalo Springfield’s Vietnam protest song For What It’s Worth) but equally happy to turn their hand to stoner metal and, with Mirrorballin and Wind Me Up, songs about dirty sex. Extreme and migraine inducing at times, like System Of A Down ripped to the max, they don’t seem remotely like ever making their way into more mainstream channels, but for the no compromise crowd out there, they give solid hed. 7pm. £10. Barfly

Monday September 24

Brian Wilson

After decades as a recluse, now you can’t keep the old surfer boy off the stage. He’s back yet again for another paddle through old Beach Boys favourites and nuggets from his solo career. This time round, though, he’s also promising some new material from an album that may or may not see the light of day sometime this decade. This should apparently include That Lucky Old Sun (A Narrative), a number he describes as comprising five round and some spoken word. If the prospect of Wilson mumbling incoherently doesn’t thrill you with anticipation, there’s also rumours he might possibly, maybe, but don’t count on it, do a cover of something of Sgt Pepper. Just pray it’s not A Day In The Life. 7.30pm. £50. Symphony Hall

Monday September 24

Manchester Orchestra

They’re not from Manchester, nor are they an orchestra. Rather, led by bearded teen Andy Hull, they’re a five piece from Atlanta with an average age of 19 whose debut album, I'm Like A Virgin Losing A Child (Columbia) has been winning swathes of admirers with its widescreen, brooding emo-esque sound and densely layered songs. Couching the album’s title line, Wolves At Night gets things running with moody organ and chugging guitar riffs that actually hark back to the psychedelic rock of the 60s as well as sitting comfortably in the current emo template. From then on, they don’t much lose their grip.

 Now That You’re Home is all spectral desert waltzing to a crisis of faith that explodes in volcanic guitars, The Neighbourhood Is Bleeding channels Conor Oberst in its bitter bubblegum pop while I Can Feel Your Pain is a brief, stripped to the nerves acoustic ballad about bereavement, a mood and theme echoed in the starkly intimate cracked vocal of Sleeper 1972 and the self-explanatory bare boned Don’t Let Them See You Cry.

Balancing such hushed, soul baring confessions with the swelling cinematic scope of Where Have You Been, the ebb and flow Golden Ticket and the closing epic muscle flexing Colly Strings, it’s a mightily impressive calling card. Make the most of catching them at such close quarters while you can, stadiums loom over the horizon. 7.30pm. £6. Bar Academy

Monday September 24

Fortune Drive

Having laid the ground the singles With My Girlfriend’s An Arsonist, Recent Advances Vol II, and Sparkle, the Bristol quintet finally unleash debut album A Modern Question. Other than how closely From Start To Finish resembles The Smiths, there’s no major surprises here, just solid riffing rock n roll swaggerers; mostly about drinking and having sex. The comparisons to the Faces are a bit unfounded and at times (as with To The Rye) they veer close to routine hard rock while Clown Factory is a bit of a lumbering closing time swayalong. But armed with such numbers as Roses, the Oasis tinged Sparkle, an up and running Said It All and pub rumble punching new single Girl In Stripes, they shouldn’t have much trouble keeping the crowd happy. 7.30pm. £5. Barfly

Tuesday September 25

Gwen Stefani

Sometime lead singer with No Doubt, occasional fashion designer and intermittent actress, Stefani’s also been ploughing a hugely successful solo career, splicing the band’s ska  and reggae veined rock with her own r&b and dance inclinations, working with such names as Outkast, Pharrell and Akon. It’s this that brings her over for a belated tour in support of sophomore album The Sweet Escape (Polydor), the title track of which reached No 2 in February this year. With Wind It Up marrying a Sound of Music yodelling sample with a Neptunes beat, you can’t say she’s not got a sense of humour and the absurd, but far too much just feels like slickly polished hip hop styled rock padding for an album that had to be available before it was satisfyingly finished.

Surely she’d never have inflicted 4 In The Morning on the world had she had time to come up with something better! And, really, Yummy! It may be rippled with sex, but did the world need more songs from mommies about their new babies? 

Served live, things like Fluorescent and Don’t Get It Twisted might just measure up to the early fire of Hollaback Girl and What You Waiting For?, but it’s hard to imagine what it might take to persuade even her dedicated fans to sit through Orange County Girl or cell phone song Breakin’ Up without wincing. 

Support comes from CSS, a Brazilian quintet of four girls and a guy whose name and album title, Cansei de Ser Sexy (Sub Pop) is Portuguese for  ‘tired of being sexy’. They trade in trashy fun electro-pop dressed up like an accident in a fashion designer factory, populating the album with such hedonistic dance crazy pop culture referencing spine-benders as Let’s Make Love And Listen to Death From Above and Krautpop meets bubblegum Meeting Paris Hilton. There’s definite B52s, Madonna and Waitresses colours splashed over the likes of Art Bitch. Music is My Hot Hot Sex, the punky Talking Heads massaging Patins and casio pop lurcher Alcohol which, along with their exuberant live shows, make it easy to forgive their roughshod nature. Though perhaps not a second time. 7.30pm. £32.50/£28.50. NIA

Wednesday September 26

Alabama 3

Over their many albums, the Brixton combo have variously filtered their music through  gospel, Deep South Americana, funk, blues, country and techno dance to generally thrilling and atmospheric effect. However for new album M.O.R. (One Little Indian), it’s the beats that dominate, the emphasis much more on the groove. As such, those looking for something to bend the limbs around will doubtless be founding getting on down, as they say, to Monday Don't Mean Anything To Me where gospel testifying meets spine shifting ramshackle greasy funk, the trip hop soul Fly, and the country-blues slip and sliding of Hooked and the sultry Are You A Souljah?

As ever, it’s a pretty eclectic set, flipping from covers of Jimmy Reed’s swampy Amos Moses and an unlikely honky tonk twangy lope through Gil Scott Heron’s The Klan to Lockdown’s catchy technopop attack on the prison system, stripped back talking dust country lament The Doghouse Chronicles and the (almost) highway cruising rock of The Middle of the Road.

 Peppered with samples and globs of humour that probably sounded better under chemical stimulation, it’s not the easiest set of musical clothes to slip into, but perseverance pays off big time when you reach the soaring gospel piano ballad Holy Blood and the drum thudding bass throbbing muscles soul Proclaimers collaboration, Sweet Joy. It’s unlikely you’ll go home humming too many of the new tunes, but your feet will certainly have worked a few floor miles. 7.30pm. £14. Carling Academy 2

Wednesday September 26

Justin Nozuka

Born in New York, raised in Toronto, the 18-year old’s getting much attention for his debut album Holly (Outcaste), an acoustic cocktail of  blues, folk and soul that belie his somewhat tender years and should encourage comparisons to the likes of  Paul Simon and Josh Ritter. The voice needs deepening, but he certainly knows his way round a fretboard and has the ability to pen attention grabbing lyrics that cut with insight and emotion.

Down In A Cold Well explores isolation and unfulfilled life, Supposed To Grow Old reflects on the end of what should have been a relationship for life, Mr Therapy Man’s another broken love affair fall out, Oh Momma derives from her raising the family after the marriage fell apart and Criminal sketches out an amusing scenario in which a young kid fantasies about going on the run after an act of thoughtless vandalism. His strongest moment though is Save Him, an imagined tale of domestic abuse heard through thin walls that seems likely to turn up the intensity when he plays live. Practice the name, you’ll be asking for it later. 8pm. £8. Glee Club

Thursday September 27

Darren Hayes

While he’s not seen the inside of the Top 10 quite as often as he did with Savage Garden, the breathy voiced Hayes has proven no less consistent a chart presence. However, with that difficult third album he’s obviously decided it’s time to also prove himself the serious artist. Thus it’s a double set of 25 tracks that opens with A Fear Of Falling Under, a pulsing Celtic ambience track that might have fans checking to see if they’d bought a Clannad album by mistake.

The fact that several other numbers distinctly recall Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush (Casey even sounds like Running Up That Hill), Neverland has him being Enya and Listen All You People and the Prince channelling Me Myself And (I) head for the club floor will only add to the confusion.

It just feels as if Hayes thought he had to prove his stylistic range and musical diversity while titles like A Conversation With God, A Hundred Challenging Things A Boy Can Do, The Future Holds A Lion’s Heart, How To Build A Time Machine and The Great Big Disconnect are nothing of not overly portentous. Thankfully, for the most, they also turn out to be rather good, cleverly arranged songs with thoughtfully considered lyrics, the latter an acoustic political lament for the state of the modern world. The digitilised vocals of Bombs Up In My Face also wed his socio-political conscience to a rapping  Madonna electro mash. Of course, a  Buggles-like Waking The Monster and the dreamy balladeering of Sing To Me, The Sun Is Always Blinding Me, and Maybe show he’s not forgotten to appeal to fans who just want down the middle classic pop. Ultimately, there’s probably just too much here to fully succeed, but better to have too many ambitions than fail by not having any at all. 7pm. £26.50. Symphony Hall

Thursday September 27

Motion City Soundtrack

The Minneapolis boys take time out from putting finishing touches to the new album, giving a chance to preview material for their follow up to Commit This To Memory as well as giving another airing to past nuggets such as the summery anthem chug of Everything Is All Right and stadium power fisting Hold Me Down. 7.30pm. £12. Carling Academy

Thursday September 27

Rich Batsford

Many moons ago he used to be in Birmingham outfit Serene Machine, these days he performs with Beach Boys tribute outfit Gidea Park and writes soothing, meditative piano music. The latter he’s assembled into a self-released album titled Valentine Court Flat One,  a collection of self-penned instrumentals variously running from just over 60 seconds to just over six minutes with titles like Ralph’s Trip To The Orient, Namaste and, betraying a groaning sense of pun, Sensawunda and Gudonya. Some are ripplingly calm others more skitterish, it either works for you or it doesn’t. Either way, he’ll be tinkling the ivories with them at thus intimate solo showcase, fleshing out the set list with some of his songs and, for those who couldn’t fork out fifty quid for Brian Wilson, some covers of numbers from Pet Sounds. 8pm. £5. Old Joint Stock Theatre, Temple Row West

Thursday September 27

Guy Clark

Recorded following chemotherapy treatment for cancer, Clark’s voice on Workbench Songs (Dualtone) sometimes betrays the effects of his illness and treatment, lacking some of the dusty resonance of his earlier work, occasionally sounding drained of energy. That said, paradoxically the weariness also brings strength to numbers such as Walking Man’s tribute to Guthrie, Chuck Berry and Gandhi and the difference they made, Magdalene’s plea to move to Mexico, Funny Bone’s sad lament for a former rodeo clown and Out In The Parking Lot snapshot of drunks outside the barroom, a song that’s stained with the sadness of people drowning their desperation.

There’s a fine cover wistful Townes Van Zandt’s No Lonesome Tune while more uptempo moments rise up on a funky country swinging Tornado Time In Texas, Analog Girl’s  TexMex  flavoured tale of defiant refusal to join the techno revolution, and the fiddle flashing dance tune Expose, all prime examples of the craftsmanship Clark always brings to the table.

Doubtless, he’ll be digging into the old classics that made his name too, songs like LA Freeway, Desperadoes Waiting For A Train and Last Gunfighter Ballad, but it’s good to hear he’s still coming up with material of the same calibre.

Opening the show is Indiana born but Texas raised singer-songwriter  Jace Everett whose Old New Borrowed Blues (Fullfill) mixes new material with songs from his previous self-titled debut in one take live acoustic recordings that serve as fine companions to cool brews in the fists of  denim-clad working men in spit and sawdust barrooms.

He opens up with his own version of Your Man, the cover of which  Josh Turner took to the top of the country charts, a song that pretty much encapsulates his brand of Nashville hewn country with its themes of love, life and relationships.

There’s nothing here likely to scare away the mainstreamers; Bad Things, Turn It On and his cover of I Gotta Have It are rowdy bluesy swaggers with some nifty guitar picking, the gravelly Between A Father And A Son is placed firmly in the tradition of country sentimentality, The Greatest Story Never Told a textbook failed romancer and Doing Nothing With You one of those lazy afternoon let’s go somewhere and love tunes.

Indeed, the only real surprise comes on new number Angel Loves The Devil Outta Me when, breaking out of the Willie and Waylon influences that dominate, he nods to a love of old school soul by breaking into  the chorus line from Joe Tex’s Show Me.

Having fallen victim to a label overhaul that saw his deal with Sony disappear before he could really capitalise on the first album, essentially this is a new start. Shorn of the standard Nashville production of his debut, the raw honesty it puts across should go a fair way to putting him back on the country ladder.

7.30pm. £22. Wulfrun Hall

Friday September 28

Kate Rusby

Forged in the fire of a divorce from John McCusker and the death of various relatives, Awkward Annie (Pure), Rusby’s first self-produced album,  pulls off the seemingly impossible trick of actually improving on The Girl Who Couldn’t Fly. While the songs themselves are not necessarily autobiographical, the pain she went through leaks through the self-penned likes of the title track (“I gave to you my heart you tore it all apart”), The Bitter Boy (“I hold the saddest song, and wish to God I cannot feel it”), Planets (“now the future's gone, and all behind me”) and Daughter of Heaven’s aching lament for the death of a child.

 The mood continues with the traditional doomed love/murder ballad Andrew Lammie but it’s not all such gloom. Hope spreads rays on the banjo and brass dappled High On A Hill, the traditional  Streams Of Lovely Nancy and a lovely reading of  John Barbury. Even Farewell’s tale of lovers torn apart by death looks to a reunion in the life beyond. And it’s hard not to feel the heart uplifted by her rousing version of  Blooming Heather where opera singer John Hudson joins in for a stirring finale.

Having found wider exposure with her Ronan Keating duet All Over Again and her folk-rock cover of The Kinks’ The Village Green Preservation Society recorded for the BBC’s Jam and Jerusalem (included here as a bonus track), as the venue here tonight suggests Rusby’s well poised to become one of the few names from the young tradition  generation to really break out of the folk circuit. 7.30pm. £20. Symphony Hall

Friday September 28

Rachel Unthank and Winterset

There’s some serious trad folk moods in store here. Tynesider Unthank, sister Becky, pianist Belinda O’Hooley and fiddle player Niopha Keegan are hitting the road to promote  new album The Bairns (Rabble Rouser), a stark, atmospheric and somewhat downbeat collection of the traditional, self-penned and covers performed on just piano, cello and violin with the occasional additions of melodeon, ukulele and double bass.

Two traditional Tyneside numbers, Felton Lonnin and Newcastle Lullaby, provide the bookends with Unthank singing in heavy dialect while elsewhere tracks such as Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk, I Wish and whaling song My Donald give the album the air folk torch song cabaret. O’Hooley’s two contributions,  the stark Whitehorn with its account of the ordeals of women in 19th century Ireland and the more upbeat poppy Blackbird prove standouts, as does their salty cover of Robert Wyatt’s desolate Sea Song and the hops and harvest flavours of Fareweel Regality by Northumbrian songwriter Terry Conway.

Great harmonies, haunting voices and accomplished playing and intelligent choice of songs and arrangements, add up to an intoxicating album, its sober and sometimes sombre moods likely to be leavened by the girls’ more exuberant stage presence and banter. 8pm. £12.50. mac

Friday September 28

My American Heart

Over here supporting Madina Lake, the San Diego quintet  formerly known as No Way Out will be looking to stimulate ears for forthcoming album Hiding Inside the Horrible Weather (Warcon), due out next month. Driving first single The Shake (Awful Feeling), Boys Grab Your Guns and the title track mark them out as a familiar brand of  guitar led pop punk emo with  album tracks Tired and Uninspired and the Maroon 5 like jazzy Dangerous offering a glimpse into their more introspective ballad personas, but there’s nothing to get overly excited about. 6pm. £10. Carling Academy

Saturday September 29

Cloudstreet

Australians Nicole Murray and John Thompson impressed last time they were here playing songs from The Fiddleship, the title track, a rousing number inspired by one of Murray’s sculptures and evocative of the work of  Stan Rogers. They return now to deservedly take the headlining spot with new album Dance Up The Sun (Roots), another fine collection of material drawn from the Celtic, English and Australian traditions as well as their own numbers.

Of the covers, Killing Floor is a potent political track from Oz outfit Redgum while, working from the Peggy Seeger version, they do a magnificent unaccompanied harmony cover of First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. Elsewhere,  Murray contributes Wooden Spoon’s jazzed up tribute to her mom’s cooking and the value of the family table while Thompson provides the title track’s sprightly celebration of the morris tradition and Sweetest Complexity’s love song to late night whisky and conversation with good friends. Indeed, alcoholic refreshment looms large with The Wine Song and evergreen folk chestnut John Barleycorn also on draught.

Mixing anthropology (Scots of the Riverina’s account of displacement in New South Wales), wit (The Van Song’s advert in song) and sterling old school folk ballads (Time Is A Tempest), they’re a captivating duo both on disc and on stage where their tales and banter add extra lustre to the occasion. Not to be missed. 8pm. £9. Red Lion, Kings Heath.