Tanya Donnelly: "Lovesongs For Underdogs" (4AD)

The former Belly girl's first solo album is free of the kind of navel-gazing which usually happens when band leaders strike out on their own. Unlike her half-sister Kristin Hersh, whose efforts outside Throwing Muses tend to be a bit folksy and earth-mothering, Donnelly keeps things upbeat with The Bright Light, Landspeed Song and Breathe Around You. She can still do the acoustic ballad thing, however, and Mysteries Of The Unexplained and Acrobat manage to be personal without getting too close. The 4AD stable of US indie girls, which includes Hersh and Breeders leader Kim Deal, is almost ready to be put out to pasture, but Donnelly still has a bit of a race left in her.

Kevin Courtney

Murray Lachlan Young: "Vice and Verse" (EMI)

Not many poets "proper" have crossed the great divide into rock culture. John Cooper Clarke and, maybe, Linton Kwesi Johnson. Well, Murray Lachlan Young could be the next. And should be. Because, believe me, this is the stuff of rock'n'roll. Not just in terms of his savagely acerbic insights into rock culture in poems such as "I'm being followed by the Rolling Stones" but because he is a post-modern ironist par excellence. And frantically humorous at that. Check even the working-class cry of "Oi" that follows the punch-line in the latter. Or "MTV Party" and "The Super Model". Bono, take note of this guy, before you take one step deeper into the Warholian world of PopMart. The musical settings are just as magnificent, from football chants to Latin love tunes and dance-orientated tracks. But best of all is the scathing social satire "The closet heterosexual". Irresistible.

Joe Jackson

Summercamp: "Pure Juice" (Maverick)

Good news from America: grunge is dead, post-grunge is dead, Hootie rock is dead and even sub-psychedelic jam session rock sleeps with the Phish-es. Welcome to the bright new era of Yankpop, where every song is three minutes long and catchy, the lyrics are meaningless but singalongable, and the guitars crispier and crunchier than a fresh box of cereal. Summercamp are the latest addition to the Yank-pack, and songs like Drawer, Should I Walk Away and Keep An Eye On You are sonic bursts of sunshine to brighten up even the dullest plaid shirt. However, while it's great to finally shed the lumpen weightiness of bands like Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots, methinks these light-headed new bands might blow away on the smallest sea breeze.

Kevin Courtney