POP/ROCK

Latest releases reviewed

BELLE AND SEBASTIAN
The Life Pursuit
Rough Trade
****

If you've previously written B&S off as bedsit-wetting shoegazers, now might be a good time to take another look at this surprisingly resilient Scots collective. Far from shrinking deeper into violet, Stuart Murdoch and his cohorts are coming out of their indie shell and stretching confidently across the rock'n'roll spectrum. The band have brought in Tony Hoffer to corral their varied influences into a consistently satisfying sound. Opening song Act of the Apostle 1 references those Italian Cinecittà soundtracks of the 1960s, while White Collar Boy struts on a T Rex stomp and Song for Sunshine hangs on a stoned-out Sly beat. But these are just clever little diversions along a route that's marked by ever-more-mature songwriting and increasingly smart lyrics. I'd get in hot pursuit of a copy right away. www.belleandsebastian.co.uk - Kevin Courtney

SPARKS
Hello Young Lovers 
Gut
**

If Eno was performing Phantom of the Opera he probably wouldn't sound as off-Broadway as Ron and Russell Mael. The super-eccentric brothers have always toyed with schmaltzy showbiz on their increasingly out-there output, and such songs as Waterproof, (Baby, Baby) Can I Invade your Country, There's No Such Thing as Aliens and - deep breath - As I Sit to Play the Organ at the Notre Dame Cathedral see them perfect their avant-garde take on Tin Pan Alley. Ron piles on the repeated keyboard lines while Russell delivers the ironic lyrics with deadpan composure. Dick Around dicks around a bit too long for comfort, but Perfume has a nose for sharp social satire, and Metaphors offers a novel way to impress the ladies. They're more musical exercises than actual songs, though, and too precise to be truly poptastic. www.allsparks.com - Kevin Courtney

REGINA SPEKTOR
Mary Ann Meets the Gravedigger (and Other Short Stories)
Sire
**

The CD cover is suitably Tim Burtonish, and that isn't where the kooky spookiness ends. NYC-based singer Regina Spektor is the kind of artist who will always have a following among those who consider it a sacrilege for a song to have a tune. Stubbornly "out there" yet incredibly focused for all of that, Spektor fuses piano-driven material with pithy lyrical vignettes about poor little rich boys, bitchy girls, mothers, fathers and famous people (F Scott Fitzgerald, Benjamin Franklin). The record serves two clear purposes: it's a compiled introduction to Spektor's wilfully bizarre song structures, and it highlights the need for record companies to always be adventurous. You won't like all you hear, but what you hear is most assuredly different. Check out Spektor's idiosyncratic squall of sound when she plays Whelan's, Dublin, on February 9th. - Tony Clayton-Lea

THE OPEN
Statues
Polydor
**

Sometimes musicians decide to try something new. Lou Reed did it, cruelly, with Metal Machine Music. Radiohead did it, bravely, with Kid A. And now The Open do it, discreetly, with Statues. Liberated from any expectations by a debut rock album that set critical pulses racing without causing a palpitation in the charts, the Liverpool group have discovered a more meandering route for their proggy intentions. The lyrics are fragmentary, guitars trace doleful circles or tumble into frenzies, and downbeat jazz embellishments trickle along it like rain on a windscreen. Sadly, though, jazz is a discipline, not an optional extra, making a straight-up pop stomper, We Can Never Say Goodbye, sound more convincing than the languorous title track or assorted other free-associating ideas. The Open have found a path, then; now they need to find their way along it. www.theopenmusic.com  - Peter Crawley

ALEX MCEWAN
Beautiful Lies
Forge Records
**

And the first sensitive strummer up for the 2006 Housewives' Favourite Award is Glaswegian Alex McEwan. Alex is a university graduate who gave up a secure job with a multinational company to go busking around London and bar-hopping around Nashville and Los Angeles - you may already see where this is going. With his creatively-poised hat and wistful gaze, McEwan treads the familiar path of his predecessors, delivering a collection of nice, Americana-lite melodies and magnolia rhyming verses, wiping any trace of gritty Glaswegian heritage in favour of an antiseptic, Radio 2-friendly veneer. Yet, in his Zeitgeist anxiety to conjure up the spirit of the Blunt/Gray/Rice trinity, he ends up also invoking that of Deacon Blue, from which no good could ever come. Alex McEwan: he's a good soul, but he's not a soldier. www.alexmcewan.com  - Johnnie Craig

BOO HEWERDINE
Harmonographh
mVine
*

Some years back, Boo Hewerdine covered Nick Cave's Ship Song. Cave, upon hearing it, referred to it as "one of the biggest heaps of shit I've ever heard". That Hewerdine has spent a sizeable chunk of his career writing songs for other artists makes this something of an irony, as his songs fare better in the mouths of others. On Harmonograph, he reclaims tracks that Eddi Reader, Natalie Imbruglia and others have made famous, dubbing it an album of his own covers. But despite his mile-long music CV and obvious experience, it's hard to ignore just how pedestrian these songs are. Whether foundering in twee lyrics or humdrum arrangements, it's tricky keeping your finger off the forward button. Given this unremarkable batch, Hewerdine would be better off allowing others to be his mouthpiece. www.boohewerdine.net - Sinéad Gleeson