Exclusive to Uncut.co.uk - Today: Nicky Wire tells us about Sonic Youth in Cardiff in 1988

Since I first wrote about the new Babyshambles album, there’s been a huge amount of on-line traffic about both the initial preview and what some correspondents have been concerned is guarded praise on my part for the record.

Last night's Benicassim ended for us at about 7am this morning, after chilling out from a hard night's work by the backstage swimming pool with the Arctic Monkeys, some Horrors, Fifi Geldof and various others... so Animal Collective and Calexico were a perfect way to kick off the festival's final day.

The riff-heavy return of alt.rock's angsty messiah

Melbourne’s instrumental post-rocker outlaws dust down old faithfuls

What seems like several months since I heard The White Stripes' "Icky Thump", I finally had a few more listens to it over the weekend. Reassuringly, my usual hysterical over-excitement seems to have been pretty justified.

A few nice things arrived in the Uncut office today. One was a big compilation of Finnish psychedelic music from the late '60s and early '70s, which I can't wait to investigate properly. The second was another lavish raid on the Elektra catalogue, this time a 2CD set called "There Is A River" which collects the first three albums (plus outtakes) of David Ackles.

Conor Oberst makes great, Dylanesque, leap forward

I suspect few records released in 2007 are going to provoke as much argument as this second Arcade Fire album, "Neon Bible". A week before the official release date, you can already feel it coming, as inexorable as the tidal waves and imprecations of doom that fill Win Butler's lyrics.

You’ll have to excuse me if I sound as hoarse as a hacksaw this morning and seem more than a little rough around the edges, but I am in slow recovery from an extraordinary night in the company of The Hold Steady, who for today at least are officially the best rock’n’roll band on the planet.