Latest releases reviewed

COLDPLAY X&Y Parlophone ***

Good news for EMI shareholders: the new Coldplay album is a biggie, and if it doesn't outsell Parachutes and A Rush of Blood . . . combined, I'll eat my portfolio. Good news also for fans of the band's patented brand of open-faced emotional pop: X&Y is Coldplay to the power of three, with bigger songs, bigger choruses, bigger-hearted lyrics and - it would seem - bigger U2 heads. While everybody from Keane to Natalie Imbruglia mimics their style, Coldplay have their sights on a bigger target: this is the neutron bomb to counter U2's atomic bomb, an album of resistance-crushing scale and impressive melodic depth, packed with such radio-frotting anthems as What If, Fix You, Talk (built on Kraftwerk's Computer Love) and Swallowed by the Sea. But when your retina has adjusted to the dazzle and dash of this album, you might feel that the sweeping synths and Edge-like guitars have pushed the whole thing to sonic saturation point. Those who loathe Coldplay's middle-management angst will despair - the rest of the world will welcome this big, friendly, over-produced giant of a record, and of course the shareholders will get down on their knees and thank the Lord. www.coldplay.com 
Kevin Courtney

JOY ZIPPER The Heartlight Set Mercury ****

Americans do two things rather well, you have to admit: making and hyping blockbuster movies, and making the kind of febrile pop/rock that often makes you wonder what would have happened if Brian Wilson had been the main songwriter for Velvet Underground (or, indeed, if Lou Reed had been the main songwriter for The Beach Boys). Joy Zipper (partners Vinny Cafiso and Tabatha Tindale) are clearly the kind of band that lay in the sunshine reading books by Kathy Acker and Nick Hornby. Darkness and light inhabit their world in fairly equal measure: on the one hand there's the sweet reminiscence of 1 (the best song Fountains of Wayne have never written), and on the other there's the rather charged, dissolute For Lenny's own Pleasure. In between there are songs of sexy, potent and lush guitar pop that might just give an indication as to why the band are so named. www.joyzipper.tv
Tony Clayton-Lea

BRIAN ENO  Another Day On Earth  Rykodisc  ****

Brian Eno describes songwriting in a recent press release as "actually the most difficult challenge in music now", so how better to fill those hours not already taken up with pointy-headed lectures, cheerleading for the Liberal Democrats, production and exhibitions than by knocking out his first song cycle in some 25 years? Another Day on Earth contains a bunch of delicate, beautifully poised songs wrapped in exquisitely brittle sounds and effects. While the sculpted, soft shapes of And then So Clear and Just another Day are breathtaking in their simplicity, Eno's unhurried, unadorned voice is what really catches the ear. Intriguing noises ebb and flow throughout, but it's Eno's steady, unstarry observations about what's going on around him in both a micro and macro sense that draw you in. Another day perhaps, but certainly not just another album. www.rykodisc.co.uk
Jim Carroll

TURIN BRAKES JackInABox Source ***

There was a time when Turin Brakes were at the vanguard of the new acoustic movement, and their Mercury-nominated debut, The Optimist LP, tempted many a rocker to dump his Strat and replace it with a Tanglewood 12-string. But rock's dominance has since been restored, and the gently-twiddling tunesmithery of Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian seems to float in another universe altogether. Which is a good thing, because with their last album, Ether Song, the south London duo seemed to be trying too hard to fit in with ours. For JackInABox, the pair sequestered themselves away in their newly-built Brixton studio, and set about regaining the innocence. They Can't Buy the Sumshine, Fishing for a Dream, Last Clown and Building Wraps Around Me are finely etched indie-folk tunes that see the Brakes settling back into their familiar cosy groove - it suits them well. www.turinbrakes.com
Kevin Courtney

STEPHEN MALKMUS Face the Truth   Domino ****

Stephen Malkmus is an unlikely addition to that elite music faction of the chameleon. Like a goodfella, with Face The Truth he is finally a made guy, rubbing coat-draped shoulders with the likes of Frank Zappa and Beck. Minus The Jicks, the ex-Pavement frontman explores the nooks of alt country and hazy rock, and pokes around in the dusty corners of funk and jazz while he's at it. A rash of styles are thrown up like an iPod Shuffle, but there's an allegiance to guitars throughout. Freeze the Saints, It Kills and Post-Paint Baby carry that Pavement trademark of being compositionally adept while managing to sound lazily off-the-cuff. Malkmus has funnelled his band and solo experience into an exceptional album that experiments at every twist. Superb. www.dominorecordco.com
Sinéad Gleeson

COLLEEN The Golden Morning Breaks Leaf ****

Named after a lute work by 16th century composer John Dowland, The Golden Morning Breaks - Cecile Schott's follow-up to her critically acclaimed 2003 debut Everyone Alive Wants Answers - offers a remarkable new direction in Colleen's sound. Featuring acoustic instrumentation and drawing on such diverse influences as gamelan, baroque fugues and aleatory music, multi-instrumentalist Schott jettisons her debut's collages of digital textures and found sounds for a more expressive and performative compositional style. The Golden Morning Breaks combines warm acoustic sounds (guitar, harmonicon and cello, among others) with languorous melodic fragments and sinuous polyrhythms to create an album of unusual sensuality and feeling - from the bright tones of The Heart Harmonicon and the delicate analogue distortion of The Happy Sea to the gleaming drone of Everything Lay Still. www.colleenplays.org
Jocelyn Clarke