Faze Action: Moving Cities (Nuphonic)

Brothers Simon and Rob Lee have always made the connection between disco and house, but rarely with such psychedelic panache and raw emotion as on Moving Cities. Here is an album which bristles with life, refusing to accept that erudition must also mean a lack of passion. Tracks like Kariba and Got To Find A Way are subtly and suitably buckwild, heading for the feet while taking mind and soul along for good measure. Instead of checking its brains in at the door, Moving Cities shows that funkiness can often be found next to godliness in the strangest of places. Quality house music, you see, is never out of fashion.

- Jim Carroll

Nitin Sawhney: Beyond Skin (Outcaste)

The new Talvin Singh with the new OK? Comparisons to the wee man with the Mercury Music gong are inevitable, but Nitin Sawhney is coming from quite a different corner. The sleeve notes describe a philosophy which is "beyond politics, nationality, religion and skin", and this assertion flows magically through every track on the album as Sawhney's search for something beyond traditional definitions also extends to the music. Here, gorgeous arrangements and rhythms bridge Asian and western musics, from the beautiful tablas underlining Broken Skin and the magical sound of the RizwanMuazam qawwali group on Homelands to the fusion of found sounds, loops and samples throughout. Triumphant from start to finish.

- Jim Carroll

Westlife: Westlife (BMG)

The Westlife story is a tale of supreme market penetration and skilful manipulation of teenage hormones, with the music playing second fiddle to the image and merchandising. Westlife have been groomed specifically to take over from where Boyzone are soon to leave off, and this debut should position them nicely in the bedrooms of the world's schoolgirls. The songs are mostly soft r&b ballads, dripping with syrupy arrangements and clogged up with mawkish lyrics, sprinkled here and there with Oirish fiddle and tin whistle, and topped up with a couple of cover versions. It's the same old boyband formula, upgraded for the next generation of teenyboppers - is it any wonder that, posing in their Persil-white jim-jams, Westlife look just like five squeaky-clean, conveyor-belt clones?

- Kevin Courtney