Grudgingly admitting that his new album might be slightly “alt.country”, John Doe adds that it’s “more Elliott Smith than Gram Parsons”. Suffice to say that it’s a collection of mostly slow-moving, often acoustic-based songs underpinned with a lingering aura of melancholy. Doe’s voice is warm yet weary, frequently framed by acoustic guitar and plinking piano, sometimes battling it out with fuzzy guitars and clattering drums, and intermittently thickened by harmonies from guest stars including Jakob Dylan, Juliana Hatfield and Aimee Mann. If Doe intended to create an interlocked set of pieces that sustained a mood of pensive reverie, he succeeded, though there’s a marked shortage of ear-grabbing, individual songs.

The Sgt Pepper-style cover suggests a counterpart to OutKast’s Stankonia, but Common’s emphasis is more on social and historical awareness. Tracks like “Aquarius” and “Star’69 (PS With Love)” recall the utopian psychedelic soul of Rotary Connection?though the lyrics are firmly rooted in reality?but the fabric stretches from the wonderfully seductive “Come Close” duet with Mary J Blige to the brilliantly askew deployment of Stereolab in “New Wave”. “Jimi Was A Rock Star”, featuring Erykah Badu, is a fabulous freeform mantra and one of the best Hendrix tributes extant.

To be filed alongside the Roots’ recent Phrenology.

Long before The Hives were peddling their Stooges-infused rock, The Hellacopters were turning out hedonistic heavy metal on a series of obscure albums for the Ruin label. Then, in 2000, they signed to Mercury, delivered the exhilarating High Visibility, and suddenly Noel Gallagher was at their gigs.

By The Grace Of God continues to mix Beggars Banquet-era Stones with the breathless energy of the Ramones, only with a more polished, if slightly repetitive, sound. There are infectious choruses aplenty, especially on the anthemic title track and “The Exorcist”. Those Mercury big bucks have been put to good effect.

In 1992, Billy Corgan and guitarist Matt Sweeney decided to form a band, once Corgan had completed his prog-grunge masterplan with Smashing Pumpkins.

Ten years later their plot has come to fruition. With the four-piece Zwan, Corgan is aided and abetted not just by the aforementioned Sweeney (ex-Chavez and Skunk) but also by drummer and longtime musical foil Jimmy Chamberlin, as well as guitarist/bassist David Pajo, formerly of Tortoise and the highly regarded Slint.

The results sound as if Corgan has plundered a few moves from Dave Grohl, since the songs keep one boot in heavy metal but mostly get straight to the point while piling on the hooks and harmonies.

Corgan’s macabre whine of a voice will never be pretty, but songs like “El Sol”, the scintillating “Ride A Black Heart” or the country-ish “Come With Me” are blisteringly effective. For Pumpkins-fanciers, the title track proves that symph-rock never died.

Much like one of the Ole’ Time Religion preachers sometimes alluded to in his lyrics, those who worship at the Church of Nick Cave know exactly what they are letting themselves in for.

His last, 2001’s No More Shall We Part, seemed musically and thematically the quintessential definition of his art: tear-soaked ballads of a grown man’s heartache and many a meticulously arranged God-fearin’ dirge. Nocturama sees Cave purposefully attempt to add new flavour to an old recipe. Written and recorded with relative haste, this is his conscious attempt to inject a sense of urgency probably not heard on a Bad Seeds album since 1994’s Let Love In.

For an album borne of such restlessness, it rarely drops its guard of poised confidence. The anaemic “Rock Of Gibraltar”?rhyming “Malta” with “altar”?is a disappointing exception, and while the closing “Babe, I’m On Fire” is the kind of torrential punk-rhumba that’s been missing from Cave’s past couple of albums, at nearly 15 minutes it risks hammering the song’s experimental novelty to death.

But such transgressions we can forgive when faced with the heart-exploding delivery of Cave and former Saints vocalist Chris Bailey during “Bring It On”, the majestic opener “Wonderful Life” (with its smoking “Come Together” bassline) or the lurching odyssey “There Is A Town” which drifts dreamily upon a wistful sob of violin. And it’s surely a triumph in itself that both “Right Out Of Your Hand” and “Still In Love” are as tender as anything from 1997’s soul-baring The Boatman’s Call.

As the first of three such ‘quick-fire’ albums planned before 2005, Nocturama could be the start of one of the most creatively rich chapters yet in Cave’s career.

Twisted Nerve’s best kept secret, David Tyack started out under the alias Dakota Oak before reverting back to his birth-name for a series of enchanting EPs and mini albums. A multi-instrumentalist, he’s also collaborated with label boss Andy Votel and drummed for acts on the label including D.O.T and Misty Dixon.

On Rip Van Winkle, he teams up with ex-Can singer Malcolm Mooney for a heartfelt tribute to Washington Irvine’s classic short story about an idle fellow who falls into a deep sleep and wakes up to find those he once knew have passed away. Mooney’s abridged reading was recorded in Yonkers?not far from the Catskill mountains where the story was set?while Tyack’s accompaniment was composed and produced in his hometown of Manchester, alongside the nine instrumentals that comprise the first half of the album.

The twist in the tale comes with the news that Tyack went to Corsica a few months after completing the project and never returned. There’s been no trace of the man?whom The Guardian recently compared to Debussy?since September. Friends and family continue to search for him.

Uncut hope he’s working on his new opus somewhere, because Rip Van Winkle is a bewitching album, and a fine introduction to one of Manchester’s finest young artists.

SARAH-JANE

Since quitting ’90s US indie sirens Tsunami, Toomey has emerged as a solo artist of some repute. Tempting carries the same strain of smoky weariness and subtly-layered elasticity as 2001’s self-penned Antidote, explaining why she gravitated towards Bruno in the first place. Calexico supply the uncluttered back-up (“Your Inarticulate Boyfriend” is a typically barrio’d-up Burns/Convertino stakeout), allowing Toomey’s torchy delivery to infuse gems like “Empty Sentiment” and “Masonic Eye” with all the noir ambience of a Michael Curtiz movie.

Raymond Carver’s opinion was that happiness only comes when you forget to think about death, ambition or love (in that order). In which case, conveniently for us, Ed Harcourt isn’t lined up for too much happiness too soon. His second full album is all about death and love, and it’s impressively ambitious. Lucky for him Carver was being uncharacteristically grandiose, rather than dryly accurate.

Harcourt cites Carver as an influence, besides Salinger, Tom Waits and David Lynch. Others have tagged him alongside such historic figures as Harry Nilsson and Brian Wilson. That’s the trouble with being labelled, nominally, a “singer-songwriter”. The term reeks of the past, and a contained, unstartling, unthreatening quaintness. Whereas Harcourt wants to be timeless and wants to be timeless now. His songs are not quaint. They’re as vitriolic and bitchy as Costello’s, as wounded and romantic as Alex Chilton’s, as baroque and demented as Cave’s before he eased into self-parody. He revels in the dying art of wordplay, yet the emotion’s authentic. And musically, yes, he likes to muck around with things like Waits, but he hangs onto a pop consciousness, a love of classic structure and craft, which veils his songs’ darkness, but only superficially. From Every Sphere is the ultimate grower, which moves, in your mind, from quite nice to utterly compelling and addictive over a matter of days, or better, nights.

Harcourt, still only 25 but purportedly much-travelled, originally conceived the follow-up to his Mercury-nominated debut Here Be Monsters (2001) as a double album, The Ghosts Parade. That confused people, so he scaled it down to these 12 songs, and shifted the emphasis from ghosts and dreams to love and loss. But there are still a lot of ghosts and dreams in there. Mingling with the love and loss. As they do.

It’s beautifully produced with the adaptable Tchad Blake, who’s worked with Waits, Low, Pearl Jam and many others. The songs always stay within the bounds of what’s recognisable as a ‘song’, yet there’s a sinister, savage, subterranean smell to them. On a cursory listen you might think that Harcourt makes the perfect Later With Jools Holland music?adult and smart but perhaps a touch cosy, witty, correct, white. Manageable. It is, though, much darker than it seems, and for all the fleeting shafts of huffy humour, its overriding feel is of someone wishing for something they can’t have. Which is, in case I’m being unclear, very high praise. It don’t mean a thing without the yearning.

“Bittersweetheart” sets the timbre at once. “If I could only see straight, I wouldn’t be lonely these days,” he begins, precise piano and shuffly drums ushering in what James Stewart in Vertigo had diagnosed as acute melancholia. The singer questions his own worth, admits that his outlook on life can be bleak, yet allows neither himself or the listener to wallow. Basically, it’s quite a chirpy song. But the key, as for the rest of the album, lies in the skilfully gauged vocals and that word “bittersweet”. If the record’s anything at all, it’s bittersweet.

“All Of Your Days Will Be Blessed”, the first single, might seem perky enough, with its uplifting chorus and “oooh”s. But a bluebird’s died in winter in the first line?dreams down, “the engine’s run out of steam”, and when the lovers “fly away”, they do so “into the void”. Like another major British work of poetic genius, The Faces’ “Cindy Incidentally”, the song lulls you into thinking it’s a beacon of positivity when in fact it’s full-on fatalism.

Are we getting too bespectacled and lit-crit here? Harcourt is, after all, enjoyed by people with high-maintenance haircuts who think, say, Groove Armada are important. He is, in a minor way, trendy?but “Jetsetter” proclaims “never have I been part of any scene”. It’s that urge for timelessness again, though he’s pushing it with “I’m Not Postmodern”, a lyrical excerpt which, let’s face it, doesn’t rock. “Ghostwriter” is a Jim Jarmusch riff, a man in a prison cell banging on a drainpipe with a toothbrush. “The Birds Will Sing For Us” is another song that reveals itself to be about death, the drinking song raised to an art form. Harcourt’s voice is loaded with sandpaper and tiny bits of glass.

“Sister Rene

By 1995 Pavement were already being taken for granted, so it’s easy to overlook how potent this record remains. “We Dance” is perhaps their most tender song, but their net spreads much wider to include warped Americana (“Father To A Sister Of Thought”), Meat Puppets-style rural studies (“Rattled By The Rush”), and the Neu!-meets-“Sister Ray” workout of “Half A Canyon”. Here, songs derail into unexpected territories?hear how “Grave Architecture” rises from Style Council-like repose into H

An oft-overlooked Great British Lyricist, Newell’s work is littered with a closely-observed cast of oddballs, eccentrics and losers. Helped out by XTC’s Dave Gregory on guitar, and Louis Philippe, who arranged the strings and produced the whole affair, the album took just 23 days to make. Newell’s ’60s-influenced songs provide an emotional, personal and social commentary on fin de siecle Britain. Additional tracks include two readings from Newell’s book, This Little Ziggy, and a live DVD of “The Jangling Man”.

TRUE LOVE AND HIGH ADVENTURE

BOTH BMG/GRAVITY

The first two albums from brothers Julian and Danny Wilson’s Grand Drive, both originally released on Loose, established them as leading British exponents of Americana. Last year’s third album was the band’s most assured to date, but still lacked that killer song to confer immortality. All their influences are on parade on these earlier albums, from Jayhawks to Teenage Fanclub. The harmonies are top drawer, the guitars shimmer, and all that’s missing is that indefinable extra spark. Never mind. It took the Fanclub three attempts to come up with Bandwagonesque and for the Jayhawks to arrive at Hollywood Town Hall. Listening to Grand Drive, you suspect it’s just a matter of time.

The first significant rock act to emerge from the ailing communist states, Yugoslavia (or Slovenia’s) Laibach were disconcerting to some, hilarious to others. Their militaristic posturing and musical fanfares, totalitarian iconography, gravel-scrunching backbeats and antlers drew accusations of fascism, but Laibach were explicitly anti-Nazi. In fact, their music, like “Hrava Gruda?Pldna Zemjla”, is best taken as a poker-faced, complex satire on totalitarianism. They were also wryly aware of the latent fascistic tendencies of pop music. Sadly, their version of Queen’s “One Vision” is not included, but their take on Opus’ “Life Is Life”, administered like a whip-master’s chant to the galley slaves, is here in all its

pseudo-pomp.

Though Mo’Wax and Metalheadz compilations were apparently the primary influence behind the new wave of French dance, these tracks have a spaciousness inherited from ’80s techno?basically, they reinvented French dance music in the ’90s. The first CD is by far the better: familiar tracks like Air’s “Modulor Mix” and Daft Punk’s “Musique” are joined by the ominous calm of Motorbass’ “Bad Vibes” and the distorted scrawls of guitars and film samples filling Alex Gopher’s “Mandrake”. The second CD is mostly an MOR morass, the standout being the multilayered Rubik’s Cube that is I:cube’s “Power Sandwich”.

COLTRANE

BOTH IMPULSE DELUXE EDITIONS

Just when you think you’ve collected everything by The John Coltrane Quartet, the Impulse tape fairy devises another way of reselling you Trane’s back cat. But what the hell. Truly, this music sounds even fresher today than when it was recorded at the dawn of the ’60s. Over the years, the saxman’s post-A Love Supreme spiritual quests tend to overshadow the lush, lyrical side of his work, and Ballads again focuses upon such virtues. The addition of alternate takes (Ballads includes five of “Greensleeves” and seven of “It’s Easy To Remember” while Coltrane offers four extra takes of “Tunji”) and newly discovered tracks has expanded the 12-inch albums to double CDs. Listen and marvel.

MENDOCINO

TOGETHER AFTER FIVE

ALL ACADIA

San Antonio’s Sir Doug was christened during the British Invasion but never let too much beat bother him, aside from the catchy “She’s About A Mover”. With his band of hombres, Doug Sahm sung for the hippie era, extolled the virtues of exotic cheroots and helped invent the faux cowboy renegade movement on “Mendocino” and “Lawd, I’m Just A Country Boy In This Great Big Freaky City”. His early, raucous recordings have stayed fresh, and the plethora of bonus tracks will keep fans buzzing.

Various Artists

THE ORIGINAL ELECTRO ALBUM

EMI GOLD

Various Artists

THE VERY BEST EUPHORIC OLD SKOOL BREAKDOWN

TELSTAR

Various Artists

RAVE ON! 16 RAVE CLASSICS 4 PARTY PEOPLE

DEMON

Hell is other people’s irony. You may have had one of the most enjoyable, miserable or meaningful nights of your youth as Wham! or Five Star or Blue Pearl pounded away in the background. You’d relish the tackiness of your own nostalgia except, trouble is, everyone does. You are no different for being aware of tragic-comic juxtaposition than are pop quiz hosts, or TV schedulers, or the people who bung together these compilations, which will briefly sell by the lorry-load. Your granddad’s Chuck Berry is your Paul Hardcastle, your dad’s Alvin Stardust is your Adamski. It goes on. You are a face in the crowd.

Choose 80s Dance is as good as it could be?for every staccato killer (Shannon, Tone Loc) there’s a bloated belch (Falco, Yazz). Frankie Goes To Hollywood, an idea gloriously beyond its era, transcends it. Stock, Aitken and Waterman don’t. Paula Abdul was, one feels years later, terribly underrated.

The Original Electro Album is svelte, though there have been plenty of similar ‘electroclash blueprint’ albums appearing lately. The synthespians are all here?The Human League, Spandau Ballet, Simple Minds. Japan, as ever, sound a plane above, and Ultravox’s “Thin Wall” is a much-maligned stonker. “Things were much better 10 years ago!” hollers The Very Best Euphoric Old Skool Breakdown. Can we beg to differ? The repetition is cloying; ‘euphoria’ a cheapened noun. Black Box (actually from 1989) dominate; Snap, M People and Technotronic try to, like bullies. Rave On! thumps from that irksome twit Moby to Rozalla screeching that everybody’s free to go baaah with the rest of the herd. You are advised to dance with tears in your eyes.

“The best band in the world” is how Kurt Cobain described Glasgow’s finest after hearing their 1991 landmark, Bandwagonesque. For others, TFC’s rock classicism reeks of retrograde conservatism. In their decade-plus existence, though, these Glaswegians have neither conquered the globe nor become a malign trad rock presence. Instead they’ve evolved into an alternative national institution.

Just check this pristine 21-track pop jukebox. The brilliantly realised Big Star pastiche “The Concept”, “I Need Direction” and its endless flow of hooks and harmonies, or the massive chorus of “About You”?they all show that, when it comes to richly melodic guitar pop, Teenage Fanclub have a 100 per cent strike rate.

It helps that Norman Blake, Gerry Love and Raymond McGinley are such individually strong tunesmiths. Endowed with this much talent, it’s churlish to demand breakbeats or abstract electronica from them. Even at their most ragged and fuzzbox-charged, such as on first single “Everything Flows” and 1991’s “Starsign”, you can’t deny their innate pop sensibility. Here, the influence of Brian Wilson, The Zombies, The Byrds and Big Star doesn’t induce drab mustiness, but a vitality that ensures “What You Do To Me”, “Ain’t That Enough” and “Sparky’s Dream” sound freshly minted.

There’s little here that’s afraid of ambition and mass acceptability. After all, there is a track called “Radio”?precisely where Teenage Fanclub have always wanted, and indeed deserve, to be. Quite simply, it’s a travesty that commercial success has consistently eluded them, even with a record as perfect, and perfectly timed, as 1995’s Grand Prix. And quite why they’re not as sainted as those other classic pop alchemists, The Stone Roses and The La’s, is a mystery, too. Maybe they’re just too nice, too un-fucked-up.

Nevertheless, for Teenage Fanclub’s diehards?indie kids turned couple-bound thirtysomethings?the band make more ‘sense’ than ever. Their heart-on-sleeve romanticism and uncynical love of love resounds with the joys of monogamous bliss. Despite their name, there’s very little about the Fanclub that’s adolescent.

Best news of all is that such goggle-eyed brilliance doesn’t end here. New track “The World’ll Be OK” continues where last year’s Velvets-tinged Words Of Wisdom And Hope left off, while “Empty Space” sees bassist Love refine his knack for silvery, autumnal melancholia.

Their electroclash album, however, will have to wait. For now and forever, it’s five-part harmonies and West Coast smarts all the way. Got a problem with that?

Thought not.

It was almost genius. Capitalising on an eccentrically dedicated fan base while exploiting the fragility of the ever dwindling singles market, in 1992 The Wedding Present, hitherto tagged as “shambling”, achieved the momentous feat of 12 consecutive Top 40 hits from January to December, each limited to seven-inch vinyl, each featuring a typically lovelorn original backed with an esoteric cover.

A lone victory for romantic indie-schmindie in the age of Snap and Right Said Fred, it ensured “the Weddoes” a permanent place in the Guinness Book Of Records, their only Top 10 hit (“Come Play With Me”) and David Gedge, patron saint of the recently dumped, on Top Of The Pops practically every other month.

With a decade’s hindsight, the music itself as collated on this double CD is a rag-bag, although the highlights are sublime in their three-chord splendour. Of the A-sides, the effervescent “Flying Saucer” and the perv-grunge of “Love Slave” were both extraordinary chart coups, while Bowie’s “Chant Of The Ever Circling Skeletal Family” (incorporating The Fall’s “Bremen Nacht”) and a heart-ripping revision of Julee Cruise’s Twin Peaks theme “Falling” feature the sort of invention that, like the scam itself, is depressingly absent among today’s white indie guitar hopefuls.