Rock/Pop

The latest CD releases reviewed

NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS
Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! Mute *****

On their new album, the antipodean poet and troubadour Nick Cave and his multi-instrumentalist troupe kick out all the jams. Their 14th studio release burns with an urgent romantic ire, as Cave's songs gleefully mash literary, biblical and mythological allusions with freewheeling urban romanticism, from the Scriptural revisionism of the title track to the splenetic critique of We Call Upon the Author ("I said prolix, prolix/nothing a pair of scissors can't fix"). The Bad Seeds mash post-rock, gut bucket blues, alt.folk and hip-hop into grinding, driving slabs of stylistic invention. Pounding percussion and skittering guitars collide with brooding electronica and churning bass. Night of the Lotus Eaters, Today's Lesson and Albert Goes West are stand-outs. Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! doesn't so much rock as roil. www.mute.com  JOCELYN CLARKE

Download tracks: We Call Upon the Author, Night of the Lotus Eaters

ADAM GREEN
Sixes & Sevens Rough Trade ***

Adam Green's fifth solo album couldn't have come at a more fortuitous time; with a resurgence of interest in the Moldy Peaches thanks to the film Juno, he's perfectly primed to make an impact on the charts. Green's previous records have displayed a tendency to charge through a variety of styles while remaining anchored to his quirky anti-folk roots, and the mostly likeable Sixes & Sevens is no different. Everything from Springsteen-esque pop-rock (Morning After Midnight) to gospel- folk (Twee Twee Dee) and dark, theatrical romps (You Get So Lucky) are spattered across the album, and they're all delivered in that offbeat baritone croon. However, 20 tracks stretched across 48 minutes borders on excess, and results in an inevitable loss of interest midway. Sixes and Sevens: an appropriate title for fair-to-middling miscellany. www.adamgreen.net   LAUREN MURPHY

Download tracks: Morning After Midnight, Be My Man, Sticky Ricki

VAMPIRE WEEKEND
Vampire Weekend XL ****

This is probably the perkiest album you'll hear in an age. It's certainly one of the very few new releases where brainbox songs about punctuation, 17th-century architecture and Dharamsala are illuminated with swabs of guitar lifted from African highlife rare grooves - the jerky funk once the sole preserve of Talking Heads - and random yet alluring traces

of Irish trad. All of this sonic patchworking makes sense in the world of Vampire Weekend, four bright New Yorkers who quite rightly feel that erudition is nothing to be scared of. Despite the mind- boggling detail in each song - you could have great fun, if you were

so inclined, playing "spot the harpsichord" - Vampire Weekend's greatest strength is actually the coherence they bring to their sack of sounds. On the whole, then, Vampire Weekend is breezy, bold, bubbly and, yes, endearingly perky. www.vampireweekend.com  JIM CARROLL

Download tracks: Bryn, Cape Code Kwassa Kwassa, Mansard Roof

AUTAMATA
Colours of Sound Lefthand Productions ****

Ken McHugh paints his musical pictures in the wilds of Wicklow, shutting himself away for much of the year. Surrounded by guitars, synthesisers and assorted instruments, he lays on the layers until he's got just the right balance of electronic and acoustic sounds. For good measure, he brings in Cathy Davey and Carol Keogh to add some vocal ear-candy, and gets Cora Venus Lunny to weave some violin into the arrangements. Not only were McHugh's first two albums critically acclaimed, they were also in demand for use in TV adverts, and Colours of Sound should spawn a few idyllic ads on the box. McHugh likes compiling lists, viz the funky What You All About and the band namechecking in Music's All We Need, but the most satisfying tunes are the simple, instrumental soundscapes of Effervescent and A Drive Through the Countryside. www.autamatamusic.com  KEVIN COURTNEY

Download Tracks: A Drive Through the Countryside, What You All About?, Cloud Seekers

CORRECTO
Correcto Domino ****

Heartened by what he describes as "confused reviews" in his local Scottish press (aka the Paisley Gazette), Correcto's Danny Saunders gathered around him a few like-minded individuals with the aim of making a noise. This he has done in quite the best fashion we've heard in months. Although there's a Franz Ferdinand member on board (drummer Paul Thomson, who also co-produces and contributes bass and synth), we are pleased to state that Saunders's muse is very much untainted and untethered. At the heart of Correcto (the band and album) is an unstylised sound that takes its blueprint from the obvious (Modern Lovers, Velvet Underground, early Brian Eno) and the less so (Wreckless Eric, Swell Maps). The result is a fine, gritty and eminently melodic album that thrums with the vibrancy and vitality of everyday life. TONY CLAYTON-LEA

Download tracks: Joni, No One Under 30, Something or Nothing

FUCK BUTTONS
Street Horrrsing ATP ****

That name, eh? Such wags. Whatever about the exasperating childishness of their chosen moniker, Bristol duo Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power take a far more together and exciting approach to their trade, making Street Horrrsing a noisy, riotous blast of sound. From abrasive, domineering drones to beautifully elegiac cinematic expanses, there's an abundance of bright ideas in the midst of an intense onslaught of white noise. It may remind some of Mogwai (and not just because of production assistance from that band's John Cummings), but the way the duo carve out melodies from the racket is a skill that owes more to binge- gigging than to nights in with various back catalogues. The percussive rasp of Ribs Out, the shining, technicoloured contours of Sweet Love for Planet Earth and the rhythmic palaver dominating Bright Tomorrow are the ones you'll want to cosy up to here. www.myspace.com/fuckbuttons  JIM CARROLL

Download tracks: Ribs Out, Bright Tomorrow

PAUL HOURICAN
Let the Enemy In Hurricane Records ****

Singer-songwriters are usually the enemy of all right-thinking rock fans, but here's a guy who can pull off the delicate Damien Rice stuff alongside catchy pop fare and grungy guitar blues. Hourican, who hails from Malahide, has been forging his own path through the whole range of pop and rock styles. Here are tunes to suit anyone's ever-changing mood, from the big-hearted tunesmithery of Even Though You're Gone to the slip-sliding blues of Alive, the surefooted One Step Forward, the laddish She's Gotta Be (The One) and the tender gospel of Let It Go. Just when you think Hourican has exhausted his palette, he shows another facet to his talent - and brings you even deeper under his spell. Even when he trips up, as on the parping Don't Know If I Do Know (it sounds like the theme for Pat Kenny's radio show), Hourican's enthusiasm and dexterity carry him through. www.paulhourican.net  KEVIN COURTNEY

Download tracks: One Step Forward, She's Gotta Be (The One), Let It Go

VARIOUS
Rough Trade Shops Counter Culture 2007 Rough Trade ****

When talk next turns to the death of the record shop, you can exhibit this compilation to show just what it is we'll miss if that ever does come to pass. Those who toil behind the counter at Rough Trade are keepers of the flame, and that shop is one of an ever-decreasing number of indie outlets worldwide that continue to provide shelf-space for out-there, interesting, fresh sounds. Rough Trade's annual round-up is always worth a punt, as much for the big indie hitters from the previous 12 months (this year's model stars Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, Dan Deacon, Justice, Battles and Panda Bear) as for those acts who didn't quite have as much traction. Acts worth investigating further from these two CDs include Los Angeles youths Mika Miko, Brighton's Pete & The Pirates and The Wooden Shjips with their fuzzy, weirdbeard grooveathon. www.roughtrade.com  JIM CARROLL

Download tracks: Wooden Ships, Losin' Time; Mika Miko, Jogging Song; Dan Deacon, Crystal Cat