Natalie Merchant: "Ophelia" (Elektra)

A strange album. Concept by design, dedicated to "visionary poet" Allen Ginsberg and containing Dion de Marbelle's 1887 poem, When They Ring The Golden Bells as set to music by Merchant herself. Pretty left-of-field, right? But is this song-cycle telling the tale of the "sweet" Ophelia any good? It's better than that. It's haunting, hypnotic, seductive and dark to its deepest roots, the kind of solo work that might be delivered by the likes of Beth Gibbons from Portishead. Merchant is backed by a brace of ethnic and classical musicians, including N'dea Davenport and Fretwork and though all the songs sit as a seamless unit some, such as My Skin, well, wrap themselves around you more immediately than others. An album you will love or hate.

Joe Jackson

Brian Wilson: "Imagination" (Giant Records)

By all accounts, Brian Wilson has found happiness with his new wife and their two baby daughters, and has rediscovered the creative drive which he dropped somewhere along Sunset Boulevard. The songs on Imagination are co-written with top lyricists like Carole Bayer Sager, J.D. Souther and Jimmy Buffet, and three tracks, She Says That She Needs Me, Keep An Eye On Summer and Let Him Run Wild are old Beach Boys songs revisited. Wilson handles the intricate layers of vocal tracks which give a shimmering quality to Your Imagination, Dream Angel and Cry, and there's a sunny, slightly melancholy sense of longing in songs such as Where Has Love Been? and Happy Days. Although Wilson will never again reach the creative high tide mark of Pet Sounds, this album sometimes laps tanatalisingly at its feet.

Kevin Courtney

Embrace: "The Good Will Out" (Hut)

Just as surely as The Verve follows Oasis, this Huddersfield four-piece will inveigle its way into the pop consciousness. The seven-minute long single, All You Good Good People, was an orchestral riposte to Oasis's D'You Know What I Mean, and with their debut album, brothers Danny and Richard McNamara are throwing down the gauntlet to the Gallagher brothers and Richard Ashcroft's army. The Good Will Out is a huge album and no mistake, tailor-made to take its place beside Definitely Maybe and Urban Hymns in the collection of every teenager, college student and young professional, and songs such as Come Back To What You Know, One Big Family and You've Got To Say Yes are destined to be sung (badly) by buskers up and down the land.

Kevin Courtney