"Simply Red: "Blue" (Warner) Mick Hucknall has been telling the media that he's blue because he broke some woman's heart. It's a pity she didn't crush his soul to shreds that could only be gathered together again by making a great album. This is not that album. It's a gesture towards such feelings, full of passionate intent and no passion. Worst of all are Hucknall's own songs, like Blue itself, with its bewildering lyrics (such as: "I can't get emote to try and tell you"; sorry, Mick?) and an insipid melody to match. This was to have been an album of cover versions, and Neil Young's Mellow My Mind and Dennis Brown's Ghetto Girl capture what might have been. But do we really need, not one but two new versions of The Air That I Breathe? Depressing music, for all the wrong reasons. Joe Jackson

Sonic Youth: "A Thousand Leaves" (Geffen) The grandaddies of grunge are still spreading discord through the body politic of American rock, and though Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon are now playing happy families, their songs are still nightmarish snapshots of suburban life gone awry. A Thousand Leaves is layered with SY's trademark guitar sound, and songs such as Female Mechanic On Duty and Karen Koltrane are extended, wired-up workouts which allow Gordon, Moore, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelly to explore the full scope of their scattershot vision. Whether all this lo-fi rambling is relevant any more doesn't seem to matter too much to Sonic Youth - they just want to tie rock'n'roll down on to a gurney, pluck its wings, give it some electroshock therapy and see what it does. Kevin Courtney

St Etienne: "Good Humor" (Creation) Welcome to the good-humored world of St Etienne, where trip-hop meets easy-listening, and melodies go up, up and away in a beautiful balloon. The fourth album from the trio of Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs and Sarah Cracknell is a period piece of languid English pop with a distinctive international aroma, Cracknell playing a cross between Georgie Girl and Astrud Gilberto on songs like Woodcabin, Split Screen and The Bad Photographer. It's been so long since St Etienne's last album that their seat in the great pop lounge has been grabbed by the likes of Dubstar, The Cardigans and Air. But as songs such as Sylvie, Lose That Girl and Dutch TV prove, St Etienne are still nicely out of time, and admirably chilled in aspic. Kevin Courtney