ROCK/POP

Latest releases reviewed

GEMMA HAYES The Roads Don't Love You Source ***

LA is a long way from Tipperary, but it feels like home for the Ballyporeen girl and it fits nicely with the twang she's cultivated since starting on the road to singer-songwriter stardom. The making of Hayes's second album was not a smooth journey, by all accounts: she was struck by a two-year bout of writer's block, and only got her mojo back when she decamped to the wilds of Kerry. Happily, Hayes hasn't lost any of her reflective lyrical edge or her ability to blend folksy West Coast pop with crashing indie chords. Happy Sad is backed by modulating My Bloody Valentine backing vocals, while Undercover evokes visions of Sheryl Crow fronting REM. Hayes has left behind her band of local collaborators and replaced them with the likes of REM drummer Joey Waronker (who also produced) and PJ Harvey guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, but thankfully she hasn't gone for the big LA production job – tunes such as Keep Me Here and Helen sound reassuringly homespun, and the clattering, catchy Horses is a nicely-pitched penultimate track.

Kevin Courtney

SIMPLY RED Simplified Simplyred.com **

Possession is ninetenths of the law (contracts will look after the rest). So what is independent artiste Mick Hucknall to do while his lucrative back catalogue remains in the iron clutches of his former label? Well, he can rerecord all the old favourites in various shades of easy listening, from Cuban sizzle to coffee-house "jazz", throw in a couple of new numbers and release what amounts to a greatest hits album in disguise. Joining the massed ranks of the musically inoffensive – let's be honest, no mean feat for Hucknall – his Starbucks treatment yields some mildly interesting moments: Latin jazz original Perfect Love, a tolerably sedate Fairground. But for all Hucknall's maturing vocal creaminess, these new arrangements are stiflingly generic. Once garish and divisive, Hucknall's oeuvre now seems expediently rendered and over-simplified: in short, black and white and Red all over. www.simplyred.com

Peter Crawley

RADAR Navigation Gael Linn ****

Echoes of Steely Dan's Donald Fagan and Stevie Winwood filter through the nether regions of this debut album from Radar, aka Sonny Condell's latest, exceedingly tight band of compadres. Sonny's distinctive vocals are Navigation's backbone, but the band puts serious flesh on that distinctive Condell skeleton; Paul Barrett's keyboards, Mick de Hoog's violin and mandolin, and Garvan Gallagher's bass weave their way between Eddie McGinn's subtle drum lines with a fluency born of copious live performances. I Could Surprise You marries inventive harmonies with Condell's trademark catcall chorus lines; Moth lurches towards the light, fired by delirious chord changes and a flugelhorn that lures it blithely leftfield. Keeping company suits Condell's writing style superbly – he's flown beneath the radar for too long. Navigation marks a welcome return to form. www.sonnycondell.com

Siobhán Long

WE ARE SCIENTISTS With Love and Squalor Virgin Records **

Some bands are born great; others are born to grate. New York trio We Are Scientists lay somewhere between the two states, as they fuse all manner of post-punk rhythms with shots of the here and now. The result is a collection of songs that stop and start at all the right points along the way, from influence to pastiche to hagiography. Rarely do the band tread an original path; songs such as This Scene Is Dead, Lousy Reputation, Inaction and The Great Escape go over old ground so often there's a harsh groove instead of a gentle trail. It's quite simple, really – Gang of Four are back. We Are Scientists and bands of their ilk should give up right now before it all gets too embarrassing. www.wearescientists.com

Tony Clayton-Lea

VASHTI BUNYAN Lookaftering Fat Cat ****

In 1970, having left a failed pop career behind her in London and travelled by horse-drawn wagon to the Isle of Skye, Vashti Bunyan released a wonderfully romantic folk album, Just Another Diamond Day. The follow-up has just arrived, after 35 years spent living in rural Scotland and Ireland. Indeed, Bunyan's timing couldn't be better, seeing as she has been lauded of late by such new-folkies as Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, and has collaborated with the magnificent Animal Collective. Her homespun tales, delicate love songs and melancholic moods sound remarkably contemporary, thanks to producer Max Richter mapping out the melodic path for her soft, haunting voice to take. Whether it's the pitter-patter percussion on Here Before, the insistent piano on Hidden or the mournful strings on Same But Different, the music acts as a breadcrumb trail for Bunyan's yearning, plaintive vocals. The most charming, other-worldly sound you will hear this year. Jim Carroll

STARS OF HEAVEN Speak Slowly/Sacred Heart Hotel/Holyhead EP 
Independent **** 

While the kids were bouncing to Something Happens, serious musos were nodding their heads sagely to the alt. country jangle of this lesser-known Dublin foursome, and marvelling at the effortless grace and fragile beauty of their songs. Fronted by the wood-shaving vocals of Stephen Ryan, the Stars crafted songs that spoke to a deeper pop sensibility, where redemption could be found in the sweep of a guitar chord or the plaintive wail of a pedal. These fully-restored rereleases serve as a valuable historical artefact, but, more importantly, they still stand as hardy pop perennials, untouched by the fickle changes in musical climate. Unfinished Dreaming, Paradise of Lies, Three Kings Day, Moonstruck and Man Without a Shadow still sound pristine if a little weatherbeaten, while the production remains reassuringly rough'n' ready. The Stars never went supernova, but they still burn clear. www.independentrecords.ie

Kevin Courtney