Kula Shaker: "K"

Columbia SHAKER ICD (62 mins) Dial-A-Track Code: 1201

Anybody can do retro, but it takes someone like Crispian Mills to do it with real flares. Kula Shaker's debut album is a manic, magical carpet ride to the farthest reaches of psychedelia, mixing Eastern mysticism with West Coast trippiness. If Haight Ashbury had been transplanted to Bombay via Carnaby Street, then it would sound a bit like this. K kicks off exuberantly with the wanton wah wah trip of Hey Dude, the band's recent No 2 hit, continuing on its wayward course with Knight On The Town before settling into the tabla and sitar fest of Temple Of Everlasting Light and Govinda. When Crispian isn't waxing all spiritual in Sanskrit, as in Tattva, he's snarling and sneering with raw, 1960s energy in songs like Smart Dogs and Grateful When You're Dead. And he's smart enough not to take the retro thing too seriously, so Jerry Was Here becomes a satire on the sad, beardy sandal gazing set, while 303 trisects.

The Beatles' One After 909 with cutting lines like, `I got my stash, and I love my hash, think I'll grow myself a big old hairy moustache." Hang onto your whiskers, dudes, this is gonna be one shakermaker of a headtrip.

The Cardigans: "First Band On The Moon

Stockholm Records 533 117-2 (39 mins)

Dial-A-Track Code: 1311

Once you've been flown to the moon by this utterly brilliant Swedish band, you'll end up swinging on a star while wearing the dopey grin of an incurable knitwit. The Cardigans made their first appearance with 1994's Emmerdale, but only crept into our consciousness with last year's superb Life, which featured such favourites as Sick And Tired and Rise And Shine. This latest album speaks softly once again, but carries a creative stick that's as big as a tree trunk. The velvet, vulnerable voice of Nina Persson disguises a strength and depth which helps her deliver the killer melodies of guitarist Peter Svensson, and the band displays a combination of skill and inventiveness which would be staggering if it wasn't so understated. Songs like Been It, Heartbreaker, Happy Meal II, Step On Me and Losers are subtle and seductive, and even their obligatory Black Sabbath cover turns base metal into fine gold. If you don't love this album even more than Life itself, then there is a cold heart beating beneath that woolly jumper off yours.

The Lemonheads: "Car Button Cloth" TAG Recordings 7567-92726-2 (43 mins)

Dial-A-Track Code: 1421

Evan Dando went a bit bonkers for a while back there, doing cigarettes and alcohol with Oasis and the odd disappearing act. However, Evan has returned to the real world just in time to make the follow up to 1993's Come On Feel The Lemonheads, and if El Dando hasn't exactly been cooking with a full wok of late, at least he's managed to come up with a coherent if characteristically muddled offering. The much discussed Purple Parallelogram, which Noel Gallagher can't seem to remember co writing, is not included here, but If I Could Talk I'd Tell You, written with Eugene Kelly of Eugenius and Vaselines non fame, would surely get the Noel thumbs up for its charm and effervescence. On the other hand, C'Mon Daddy, written with Swell Maps legend Epic Soundtracks, charts a dangerous course through a child's perspective, while violence abounds in the country murder ballad of Knoxville Girl and the punked up anthem of six, in which Evan nonchalantly gives away the gruesome ending of the movie Seven. Losing Your Mind could be Evan's own autobiographical account of those wilderness years, but it emerges as one of the best tracks here.

Bawl: "Year Zero"

Dependent DEPAD005 (46 mins)

Dial-A-Track Code: 1531

This Finglas four-piece features three brothers, Mark, Darren and Jason Cullen, and in their short career, Bawl have already elicited cries of "Smiths clones!" and "Morrissey minors!" Mark Cullen does share many of Morrissey's preoccupations, and the guitars certainly emulate Johnny Marr's jangling complexity, but overall Bawl sound more like The Buzzcocks than Gene, and you can really swing your gladioli to such snappy tunes as Sticky Rock, Fake It and Ex Boyfriends.