POP/ROCK

The latest releases reviewed.

MORRISSEY
 Ringleader of the Tormentors
Attack
****

There's rejoicing at the news that pop's most famous celibate is finally "doing it", as if he were a panda named Moz-Moz who has at last managed to mate. We don't even know the gender of Morrissey's mysterious lover, and there are few clues in the lyrics of Dear God, Please Help Me, a ballad of pent-up sexual longing given added ache by Ennio Morricone's arrangements, or in the heady emotional rush of You Have Killed Me. But there's no doubt that Morrissey's recent move to Rome has reawakened a long-dormant romantic streak. At Last I Am Born, he asserts in the closing track, but happily he avoids getting too evangelical about it, and his mood swings from bleak (Life Is a Pigsty) to bolshie (The Father Who Must Be Killed) to boldly expressive (To Me You Are a Work of Art). To their credit, Morrissey's musical cohorts manage to keep up with their boss's ever-changing moods, going from the T.Rex-type glam-a-billy of In the Future When All's Well to the Bedouin beat of I Will See You in Far Off Places. Ride on, Moz! www.ringleaderofthetormentors.com - Kevin Courtney

NEKO CASE
Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
Anti
****

Neko Case solo is a much better proposition than Neko Case encased by a bunch of musicians, whose individual and/or collective creative vision occasionally blurs her own. This is her fourth album and, along with the latest Cat Power record (The Greatest) positions her as a prime candidate for credible female crossover act of 2006. Forgoing the pop base of her regular gig with The New Pornographers, Case ventures into strange Americana in the company of equally strange and fitful people such as John Convertino and Joey Burns (Calexico), Garth Hudson (formerly of The Band), and Mr Consciously Weird, Howe Gelb (Giant Sand). The overall results are fine examples of focused, emotive and superbly performed country/pop, with strategic hints of carefully positioned serrated edges. www.nekocase.com - Tony Clayton-Lea

EMBRACE
This New Day
Independiente
***Embrace's re-emergence on last album Out of Nothing made the rising of Lazarus look like a cheap circus trick. It was thanks largely to Chris Martin donating the semi-classic Gravity, plus a few barnstormers of their own. This time there's no Martin. Instead they have Nature's Law, a cracking, soaring epic that skilfully masks frontman Danny McNamara's poor voice with a typically Embrace-like, strings-laden anthemic chorus. And they have a different way of working. Rather than the brothers McNamara writing everything, the entire band have been wriggling out loose jams "conducted" by producer Youth. Exploding Machines is multi-sectioned indie prog that is not advised, while Even Smaller Stones is dark and mean but just doesn't ring true. It's not often you slate a band for trying something new, but Embrace worked their one trick well. They didn't need to turn into a big-chorused Radiohead. www.embrace.co.uk  - Paul McNamee

JINX LENNON
Know Your Station Gouger Nation
Septic Tiger
***

How to describe the unique worldview of Jinx Lennon? The Louth musician is a poet, comedian and performance artist with a huge agenda. Delivering soapbox monologues, he could be Mike Skinner or Jello Biafra in another life, doing Scooby Doo impersonations on warped nursery rhyme Fireplace-itis. Stand Up For Your Hospitals could pass for a brass-led Ian Dury number. Rants aside, Jinx is self-effacing, detailing his experiences of going bald in Accept Your Hair Loss and of over-eating as "Eating Machine/I got a Hitchcock shape/And I used to be lean". For all the humour, serious issues are tackled, from racism, Nigerians (Stop Giving Out About) and dangerous driving (Northern Pup Motor Menace) to domestic violence (Bruised Banana). If he ever turns his back on plaintive duets with sometime co-vocalist Paula Flynn, Jinx should consider a career in politics. www.jinxlennon.com - Sinéad Gleeson