The latest CD releases reviewed

THE CARDIGANS
Best Of Polydor ****

Release of a Best Of or Greatest Hits in February indicates a problem in marketing and direction. Over the past few years, Sweden's The Cardigans have gone through a few creative/artistic changes, in the process transforming from a stylish pop band into a vehicle that appears to be tailor-made for lead singer Nina Persson's engaging and elegant bouts of melancholia. Indeed, The Cardigans seem to have come full circle - their 1994 debut album, Emmerdale, was a rather introspective acoustic work, later smartly referenced on the band's superb and criminally underrated 2003 album, Long Gone Before Daylight. What comes next is anyone's guess. This Best Of, then, acts as either a taster for those that have heretofore ignored the band, or a swan song. Whatever way the cookie crumbles, the signs - gathered here in varying shades of intelligent, pristine pop music - are very good indeed. TONY CLAYTON-LEA

Download tracks: Lovefool, My Favourite Game

TEGAN & SARA
The Con Sire ****

Ann and Nancy Wilson aren't the only sister act from Canada - twins Tegan and Sara Quin have been building up their rep over four albums. Though their music may

not have much in comming with the AOR of Heart, it does revel in the joys of an old-fashioned melody and a reliably grungy guitar riff. The quirky duo have seen one of their songs, Walking with a Ghost, covered by

The White Stripes, and they've toured with everyone from Neil Young to The Killers, so a Feist-like crossover seems highly probable. It helps that their fifth album displays a fiercely individual style and a creative scope. The sisters write separately, building their ideas into fine, steely tunes with fragile hearts. I Was Married, Knife Going, Are You Ten Years Ago, Back in Your Head and Burn Your Life Down share a single pop vision that should see the twins expand their family of fans. www.teganandsara.com   KEVIN COURTNEY

Download tracks: The Con, Back in Your Head

BABY DEE
Safe Inside the Day Drag City ****

Transsexual former tree surgeons from Cleveland, Ohio rarely feature in these pages. Baby Dee's unorthodox life has included spells as a music director in a south Bronx Catholic church, accordionist with a Coney Island carnival, and harpist with Antony & The Johnsons. Safe Inside the Day is one of her more glittering works to date. The album, produced by Will "Bonnie Prince Billy" Oldham and Matt Sweeney, is one you don't meet every day of the week. Baby Dee's one-off cackle of a voice illuminates heartfelt torch songs and bawdy ballads drawn from childhood observations. In a sense, Safe Inside the Day is an attempt to reimagine an ideal childhood sanctuary, yet it's also an album that tries to make sense of Baby Dee's own growth from boy to girl. With dollops of tenderness, violence, openness and utter flamboyance, it's an album that swings as much as it sobs. www.babydee.org  JIM CARROLL

Download tracks: Only Bones That Show, The Dance of Diminishing Possibilities

CITY AND COLOUR
Bring Me Your Love Hassle ***

It seems that Devonte "Lightspeed Champion" Hynes isn't the only musician to kick his way out of noisy chrysalis and metamorphose into a folksy butterfly. Also changing course and flapping his acoustic wings is Dallas Green, former member of post-rockers Alexisonfire. Under the City and Colour moniker (a pun on his name), Green gets back both to basics and nature. These 12 tracks come off as plaintive prairie tales, a hitchhike across a vast canvas of yearning and regret. When he's on form, it's as good as Neil Young's campfire moments, but too many of the tracks peter out into forgettable almost-rans. What binds it all together is Green's voice, which is soft, melodic and wide-ranging. Musically, it's distilled down to acoustic guitars and a hint of percussion, as on the haunting The Girl. There's much to like here, but inconsistency undermines its finer moments. www.cityandcolour.ca  SINÉAD GLEESON

Download Tracks: Confessions, The Girl

ROYAL WOOD
A Good Enough Day Dead Daisy Records ****

Established as a talented multi- instrumentalist in his native Canada, the wonderfully named Royal Wood makes his Irish debut with this album of beautifully arranged, sweet and graceful melodies fronted by Wood's voice, which is a peculiar hybrid of Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright. Influences, from early Elton John

to Billy Joel and Paul McCartney's Wings, are lightly worn throughout the album, resulting in instantly memorable tunes. Juliet is a gently persuasive letter to a reluctant

lover and Acting Crazy a strangely optimistic anthem for the lovelorn. The Tom Waits vibe of Siren and the Aimee Mann-ish Step Back, with its spooky take on "there's no place like home", give a saccharine-cutting edge to the work. With the airwaves dominated by brittle mainstream

pop masquerading as indie, Wood deserves a chance to give old- fashioned songwriting a new lease of life. www.royalwood.ca  CLAIRE LOOBY

Download tracks: A Mirror Without, Step Back, Acting Crazy (It's a Breakdown)

HOMESPUN
Short Stories from East Yorkshire Homespun Records ***

Bathed in the world-weary sensuality of Sam Brown's throaty vocals, ex-Beautiful South guitarist Dave Rotheray has piloted a curious conglomerate of tunes under his newly minted Homespun collective. There's a touch of kitchen sink drama in the first single, Short Story, soap operas tumbling over one another in languid order. Mary Coughlan and Eleanor McEvoy make surprisingly subtle cameos, with Coughlan in particularly languorous form on The Driver, her vocals agreeably denuded of the full-force gale that's defined them in the past. Rotheray's songwriting is a dark, brooding thing of beauty, as it swerves in and out of the hairpin bends of everyday life, from Memo to Self, a prescient meditation on the perils of genetic inheritance to Watching, a cautionary tale of platonic relationships. A crisp and salutary take on life's not-so-fine moments. www.homespunrecords.com   SIOBHÁN LONG

Download tracks: Short Story, Watching

LA ROCCA
The Truth Dangerbird ***

Dublin lads decamp to California, write a bunch of catchy, American- sounding songs, and get Tony Hoffer to produce their debut album. Sound familiar? La Rocca are not The Thrills, but in making a move to LA, the band from the suburbs of Delgany and Rathcoole are heading straight to the lions den in their quest for pop's golden fleece. Led by vocalist/guitarist Bjorn Baillie, La Rocca deal in songs that evoke an instant feeling of familiarity, whether in the Springsteen-indebted Eyes While Open; the beardy musings of the title track; or the catchy current single, This Life, which is so like a Gregg Alexander composition, Ronan Keating is probably ringing La Rocca up right now. To the band's credit, they have the edge to back up their tunes, and the whiff of rock authenticity that should steer them smoothly to the big-time. If they can just rein in their Razorlight penchant for musical posturing, they should enjoy a thrill-ride into our hearts. www.larocca.ie  KEVIN COURTNEY

Download tracks: This Life, Sing Song Sung, Sketches (20 Something Life)