The second single, here because it’s been reissued in a limited run of 1000 copies on a Detroit label.  Obviously as raw but more alive that the subsequent albums and it’s wonderful stuff.  The A-side is electric folk-blues which explodes into punk rock; the B-side is a straight acoustic blues, sung not screamed.  The Rough Trade shop might still have it if you’re quick. 

Reviewed by Ged

DRUGSTORE Baby Dont Hurt Yourself (Global Warming)

From their early spiky tales of dreams and heartache to their recent melancholy tinged ballads, Drugstore have made a wine stained home in my heart.  Baby, a reworked version of a track from the latest album, is a gentle langurious piece that builds slowly around Isabel's husky vocal, with pedal steel, strings and vibrophonisms to create a daisy atmosphere of folk tinged sadness.  In short this and the other tracks (a French version of Baby and French session version of the Velvety Party is Over) are perfectly taken snapshots from the sad but beautiful world of Ms Monteiro.  Note this single is only available via mail order from the label -  Global Warming.              

Reviewed by Kev

HALO Still Here EP (Sony)

Debut EP from tipped Bristolians.  The A-side, Still Here, treads a tuneful line between Muse and JJ72 but the best track is the rockier Radiohead-esq Sanctimonious.  No duffers on here and it's free to the first 2000 UK surfers who request it from their website. 

WHITE STRIPES Hotel Yorba (XL)

A marvellously infectious skiffle style number from the band currently hotter than Joan of Arc's big toes.  It is of course completely unrepresentative of their normal more serious rock n roll output but fantastic all the same. 

SKY DIVING PENGUINS outspoken EP (glmpstar)

5 track release from a band who may or may not be Russian on a label that may or may not be Manc - all web addresses listed are "coming soon".  Whether they're from Leningrad or Levenshulme, it's the Beta Band doing White Album Beatles, all catchy choruses, strange backward effects and bleepy er bleeps.

THE VINES Factory (Rex Records)

Shambling garage punk from Down Under that sounds like it was recorded in my bathroom with all the taps running and the boiler struggling to cope but... it's great!  The awful production adds to the appeal as first, Factory, a slightly ska tinged 60s plodder leads into Ain't No Room, a more full-on rocker and then Drown the Baptists, a mellower ditty.  Enjoy! 

CANDIDATE Talk About Troubles EP (Snow Storm)  

Competent, unthreatening and frankly underwhelming release that sounds like a cross between the Beta Band and Frank Black on an off-day.

BIS brainclouds (Chemical Underground)

Once upon a time Manda Rin and the fresh out of nappies boys were at the forefront of the teen-c revolution with their 270 mph garbled electro chanty pop.    Now fat, bald and in their forties their sound is less silly but lawks a lawdy, distinctly 80s retro. The first track sounds like sub-OMD or Ultravox, the second track, The European, sounds like Visage or Heaven 17 or any other uptempo synth pop band of that era. You really didn't expect me to play the third or fourth track, did you?

GONZALES Take Me to Broadway (Kitty-Yo)

Uh oh, off go the sirens... it's the novelty record alarm.   This is an Eminem rap done cabaret style over a catchy Lou Bega Latin beat.   Quite likeable for a couple of plays but soon irritation kicks in and if you hear someone singing "I got an extra testicle, But you're so sceptical about spectacle.." then Gonzales is to blame. It's accompanied by renditions of a couple of famous classical pieces which although cheesier than anything the LSO might stick out I guess are there to say "Hey we are classically trained musicians so don't dismiss us as a novelty act!".  Too late. 

JESSE JAMES Shoes EP (Deck Cheese)     

This London band feature a 3 piece horn section which is always a great start for me and their music is good in a punk/ska Rancid/Snuff style.   Sadly the appreciation is dimmed somewhat by the crap lyrics that accompany the main track which are very much from the Bloodhound Gang school of misogyny.  Shame.

CHARLATANS A Man Needs to be Told (MCA)

Imagine a slightly funked up and gospely Neil Young and you have this lovely record, the second single off the excellent album.

According to the promo blurb this band are from 6th Street, Austin.  Is that Austin, Texas?  Wherever, they have definitely been listening to a few early 90s Brummie pop gems on their Dansette because this is a jaunty little number very reminiscent of Size of A Cow by the Wonder Stuff.

THE PATTERN No Caress EP (Wichita)

US 60s garage punk style recorded two blocks down from the Strokes and the Hives.   Probably.  The first track, She's a Libra, is a bit too cliched but No Books and Untold are both spunky punk bubbles well worth blowing. 

KENNEDY SOUNDTRACK Wrong Day EP

Heads down moshing rap metal from South Wales which if the title track ever gets played on the radio will have to be so heavily bleeped for expletives during the chorus it will sound like a ZX81's mating call.  Still, having said that, the second track, Killing Music is tuneful enough to warrant a listen and the rest, veer from Rage Against the Machine to Limp Bizkit to yes, The Police (they'd deny the latter but Here 4 U is definitely something they'd have churned out during there Zenyatta Mondatta days). 

THE MUSIC You Might As Well Try To F*** Me (Virgin)

Think early Oasis, think early Verve, think brash cocky Northern scum, think tired plodding rhythm accompanied by wah wah guitar and woah woah gutter mouthed vocals.  And the 3 b-sides are no better.  Think, is this really the main future hope of British guitar music?  Think, not.

TREMBLING BLUE STARS The Ghost of An Unkissed Kiss (Shinkansen)

Former Field Mice er mouseman still producing quaint little pop ditties though this is a lot fuller than their former sound and features a rather splendid shimmering guitar riff.  Nice.

FEEDER Just a Day

Very catchy punk pop somewhere between the Wannadies and Blink 182 and not as irritating as some of their earlier stuff.  B-side is a cover of the Police's Can't Stand Losing You...uh oh, it's the 6th form disco all over again.

I AM KLOOT 86 TV's

Reissue of a lovely but all too short acoustic pop ditty by Manc band that sounds very similar to the wonderful Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

STINA NORDENSTAM Lori Glory 

Stina's not exactly the new girl on the block as her long-term Scandinavian fans would no doubt vouch and this saxy little marching song is eminently toe tappable.

THE STROKES Last Nite

At last a new Strokes track!  No not the a-side, which has already been released once as a b-side and once on the album, but the extra track When it Started.  It's a shuffling number that changes pace a few times and whilst not immediately a jewel, a few buffs in the CD player and it slots in nicely in that little red velvet case reserved for all Strokes songs.  CD#2 has live versions of three LP tracks and all prove that great though that album was, the band are even hotter live.

DAFT PUNK Harder Better Faster Stronger

One of the more immediate tracks off the Discovery album, it could be a boogie remix of their Around the World hit.  Probably sounds better in a club than in my damp bedroom though.

AMERICAN HI-FI Another Perfect Day  

Melodic acoustic opening builds to stadium rock ballad from US band.  Zippos at the ready.

DEPECHE MODE Freelove

Talking of stadium rock, a release from the band who somehow made the unlikely journey from producing bubble gum electro-pop to a couple of mates in Basildon to er serious electro-rock in football stadiums in Kansas.  Dave Gahan's voice has come a long way over the years and whilst musically they stopped doing anything paticularly original some time ago his vocals can now carry a fairly average song.

THE DROIDZ Standing on My Own

And like a smooth flowing thing I er flow smoothly into this number on Some Bizarre.  Yes that's right, the label Depeche Mode first recorded on way back before they went mega-Stateside.  It's one of those Kraftwerk/Stephen Hawkings numbers and is mildly catchy but not as much as the extra track W.O.M.A.N which will go down well with fans of the French band, Air.

CINERAMA Health and Efficiency

Tender reminiscences of innocent-ish sexual conquests (We tried to make love by this lake.  I remembered you began to shake, I was far too scared to ask if you were coming) set to an orchestral backdrop with the inevitable Gedgy thudding guitar kicking in occasionally.  Gedgy of course is incapable of writing a pooch of a song so Swim, the second track is also great, like Brian Wilson riding the Hawaii surf but on a Fender.  Then there's an eery version of the Shirley Bassey great Diamonds are Forever.  And finally on the 7" version you get Gedgy coming over all Sacha Distel on us with a French version of Health and Efficiency, which as one wag round here said "You can stick a string of onions round a pig's neck but it'll still grunt". 

CURE Cut Here

Tubby Bob Smith croons over a techno beat accompanied by the overly-familiar Cure by numbers guitar riff.   You too can flail around like a windmill on speed. 

GORILLAZ Rock the House

The cartoon characters lift another track off their ragbag of an album.  This is a rap over a 60s style comedy theme tune with the addition of some dreadful recorder playing.  That joke isn't funny anymore.

STARSAILOR Lullaby

A riproaring Bavarian drinking song with oompahs, flugelhorns, yodelling and yells of "Bring me a big buxom woman!". Oh, I made it up (apart from the yodelling).  It's another pleasant Buckley-esq plodder with acoustic guitar and tinkling piano. 

B.R.M.C. Whatever Happened to My Rock 'n' Roll (Punk Song)

A punked up Jesus and Mary Chain style effort from a cocky American 3 piece.  A band to watch out for.

BJORK Pagan Poetry 

Why do people not realise that this feisty little Icelandic pixie has been peddling the EXACT SAME RECORD for years now?  Anyway this is a slightly oriental angle for her usual off-key delivery.

DANDY WARHOLS Bohemian Like You

"cos I like you" sing the Dandys as they persuade you to buy yet another mobile phone.  Irritating though ad tie-ins may become, this is a good catchy song and worthy of reissue.

BEACHBUGGY They Came from the South

Aah the Pixies, a rose in the shitty garden that was the 80s are back with their bass led punk.  Close your eyes and you can see Black Francis felating the mike as he growls out the words....  er... an enduring image.  But hang on this isn't Black Francis and co at all, it's some young upstarts called Beachbuggy.  Not bad, but no Debaser.

Reviewed by Mawders