This week's rock & pop releases reviewed

MARC CARROLL

Dust of Rumour, High Noon ****

Dubliner Marc Carroll, formerly of Puppy Love Bomb and The Hormones, has been ploughing his own furrow for more than 10 years to very little public recognition or commercial acceptance, yet he continues with his perfect distillation of Irish folk idioms within a notably American pop/punk format. Now based in Los Angeles (after an extended period in London), Carroll releases Dust of Rumouron his own label (following some years of being courted and then disowned by various major labels). It is a record of sweet liberty, beautiful melodies and superbly crafted songs that hint at emotional loss and glass-half- empty sentiments, but with a joyous mix of lilting airs and guitar jingle-jangle that tumble from each song. Another great record from a guy who remains one of Ireland's virtually lost yet truly great songwriters. www.marccarroll.com TONY CLAYTON-LEA

Download tracks: Against My Will, You Just Might Be What I've Been Waiting For

LA ROUX

La Roux, Polydor ****

The pressure is on for La Roux. Not only were the synth-pop duo touted as one of this year's breakthrough acts, but they've got fierce competition from the likes of Little Boots et al. Kudos, then, to Elly Jackson and Ben Langmaid, who have ignored the hype and simply crafted a brilliant pop record that owes more to Visage and Yazoo than it does to their contemporaries. Whether it's In for the Kill'ssmooth synth rampage, Tigerlily'stheatrical flourishes or the lovelorn minimalism of Reflections are Protection, La Roux is everything a modern pop album should be. True, it may not date particularly well, and Jackson's love-it-or-hate-it falsetto often sounds like it's about to collapse at any given moment. As an encapsulation of the girl-power zeitgeist, though, La Roux is an undoubted triumph. www.laroux.co.uk LAUREN MURPHY

Download tracks: In for the Kill, Tigerlily

SIR RICHARD BISHOP

The Freak Of Araby, Drag City ***

The latest album from Sir Richard Bishop, the guitar wizard from Sun City Girls, is an exotic creation. His previous solo runs have also been influenced to some extent by sounds from North Africa, but The Freak Of Arabygoes about its task of paying tribute to both Bishop's Lebanese heritage and the work of Egyptian-born guitarist and composer Omar Khorshid with considerable relish. Bishop's guitar playing has long been noted for its finesse, and he is capable of emulating Khorshid, marking out similarly simple, evocative sounds, though he stops short of trying to mirror the spiritual ecstasy of Khorshid's original recordings. Instead, there's a strong Morricone drag to certain sections, especially Essaouiraand the superb Taqasim for Omar. www.sirrichardbishop.net JIM CARROLL

Download tracks: Essaouira, Taqasim for Omar

NELL BRYDEN

What Does It Take, RMG ***

Slick production can't compensate for the hard slog of trying to find one's own unique voice, and New Yorker Nell Bryden has been hard at this task since her 2007 recording, Second Time Round. She cuts a gutsy swathe through the torch-song terrain so beloved of Dionne Warwick, Lucinda Williams and Bobbie Gentry, with a nod in the narrative direction of Guy Clark. Curiously, What Does It Take?includes a staggering eight tracks from her last recording, revamped by Grammy award-winning producer David Kershenbaum. Bryden's songwriting occupies an impressively wide canvas, from the elegiac Helen's Requiemto the Brazilian-lite Goodbye, but however spit-polished it may be, such rampant repackaging is hardly essential fodder in difficult economic times. www.nellbryden.com SIOBHÁN LONG

Download tracks: Meridian