Oo-er, missus. The thought of basking in the afterglow with a tall, bald female singer named Skin might sound scary, but the title of Skunk Anansie's third album actually refers to the post-touring comedown which many bands experience after a protracted period on the road.

Britain's hardest-rocking band have still got the asphalt in their souls, judging by such road-killer tunes as On My Hotel TV and The Skank Heads, but they've also got fire in their bellies, and songs such as We Don't Need Who You Think You Are, Cheap Honesty and Charlie Big Potato mix the brain-mashing guitars of Ace with the blood-curdling screams of Skin. There are some chilled-out moments where Skin lets her emotional wounds show, and though the Skunks can often smell like stale teen spirit, at least they're trying to stage-dive past the confines of grunge-metal. By Kevin Courtney

dEUS: "The Ideal Crash" (Island)

European bands are getting quite good lately, aren't they? The Wannadies and The Cardigans have saved Scandinavia from the scourge of Roxette, and now dEUS have come along to erase the awful memory of Plastic Bertrand from the Belgian collective psyche.

Ca plane pour moi, guys. The third album from this eclectic five-piece (whose singer happens to be Scottish) shows - on such songs as Sister Dew and Instant Street - that the band's penchant for pastoral flavours and laid-back folksiness is still in evidence, but where dEUS differ from your typical American bluesy-rock band is that songs such as Put The Freaks Up Front, The Ideal Crash and Everybody's Weird sit on just the right side of dislocated and only a little short of demented. By Kevin Courtney

The Mutton Birds: "Rain, Steam & Speed" (Shhhh! Records)

At the launch of the Hot Press Yearbook earlier this year, Hot Press editor Niall Stokes, attempting to prove that Ireland had the edge on New Zealand in the international rock arena, posed the question, "How many people have heard of The Mutton Birds?" To his surprise, the crowd answered loudly in the affirmative, proving that Crowded House aren't the only Kiwis making waves in this hemisphere. This is the fourth album from the band, and it grinds to a start with As Close As This and Winning Numbers, chugs along slowly with Small Mercies and The Falls, stalls a bit on Last Year's Shoes and Jackie's Song, only finding its stride on the current single, Pulled Along By Love. While Rain, Steam & Speed might propel The Mutton Birds out of the crusty backwoods, they still need to shake off a lot of dust. By Kevin Courtney