Zrazy: "Private Wars" (Alfi)

This may be the single most sensuous, moody, set of love songs released by any Irish act this year. In fact, Private Wars is so low-down and dirty it sounds like it was recorded in bed. Songs like Remember (That You Did It First With Me) and Ecstasy certainly celebrate, in no uncertain terms, the delights to be discovered when a bed ain't used simply for sleeping. Wonderful stuff, with lyrics written mostly by Carole Nelson and then dipped in the honey that seems to permanently drip from singer/composer Maria Walsh's lips. Nelson also knows how to handle a saxophone. Beautifully. At this point in their career the lesbian question is irrelevant; the only thing we need to know is, do they deliver as musicians? On the strength of this album, a thousand-fold.

By Joe Jackson

Beth Orton: Central Reser- vation (Heavenly Recordings)

If ever an artist was signed to a record label with a name seemingly designed to accommodate her music, that artist is Beth Orton and the label is Heavenly Recordings. But our Beth is a dark-hearted angel, which is what made so many of us hook into her 1996 debut album, Trailer Park. Here the heartache continues, softened by the underlying optimism of songs like Couldn't Cause Me Any Harm. Even the ghostly Stolen Car, with its chilling lyrics, sounds hopeful, if only as a result of Orton's characteristically defiant voice and that evocative mix of back-beats and samples. So Much More is simply beautiful and beautifully simple, and the same is true of so much of this album. Trailer Park deserved its Mercury Music Prize nomination in 1997 - but this album deserves to win.

Van Morrison: "Back On Top" (Exile)

In his twilight years, Van Morrison has become less the songwriter and more the stylist; his tunes have become little more than templates on which his musicians can superimpose their sonic colours, and his lyrics tend to stroll down familiar, leaf-strewn paths. Back On Top shows Van in his usual fine fettle, rolling along merrily on the r & b train, helped by some dextrous piano work by Fiachra Trench and some nifty Hammond licks from Geraint Watkins. Get beneath the blowsy harmonica and the drizzling strings, however, and there's not much in the way of trenchant thought or spiritual salvation. I guess Van has done all his soul-searching and can now just settle back and watch the sun go down.

By Kevin Courtney