TAYLOR SWIFT: Love Story. US songstress whose brand of pop comes with a surprisingly countrified crash, bang, wallop. Her album, Fearless, has topped the US charts for seven weeks.
SKINT AND DEMORALISED: This Song Is Definitely Not About You. Talky ska from their forthcoming debut album, Love And Other Catastrophes. Not the sunniest outlook on life from a band obsessed with lost loves and bitter enemies even though you find yourself singing along without realising it. If this is anything to go by, the album should be something dry, wry and really rather wonderful.
LEMAR: Weight Of The World. Another one finding life a burden despite the imploring velvet voice and the fact that he went to Los Angeles, Miami and Sweden to record his last album. Surely life can’t be that bad.
INDIGO ROAD: Hey It’s Alright/Up For Air. A double A side with Hey It’s Alright something Barbara Dixon or Elkie Brooks would have crooned back in the 70s while the sax-strewn Up For Air would have been the B side.
SHINEDOWN: The Sound Of Madness. Such huge, chunky – nay, almost medallion man-style heavy rock never looks like veering towards the edge of sanity. Track titles such as Sin With A Grin, Cyanide Sweet Tooth Suicide and Cry For Help would beg to differ, but they only end up begging. The Florida fivesome exploded onto the US rock scene in 2003 followed by their debut album, Us And Them, a couple of years later. This, though, is their debut UK album – and things look promising with a sell-out UK tour earlier this month. They sure are monstrous in the melodic rock department – even the ballads are ear-botherers – showing more warp factor thrust than the Starship Enterprise. The difference is this lot can take much more, captain. They aim to be up there in the stars alongside the likes of Whitesnake, Van Halen and Led Zeppelin.
ABAVUKI: Africa Got Soul. Certainly an unusual one this – Abavuki are a group of young musicians from a township near Cape Town in South Africa who have got hold of some legendary soul tracks and done their own thing to them. The African instruments work well on the likes of Stand By Me, Hold On I’m Coming, Say A Little Prayer, Let’s Get It On, Lovely Day and Soul Man – but the best of a darned fine bunch has to be a soothing, virtually instrumental rendition of US soul singer William De Vaughn’s glorious Be Thankful For What You’ve Got. The instruments used include brass, steel pans and marimbas.
