Rock/pop

The latest releases reviewed.

BABYSHAMBLES Shotter's Nation EMI ***

Disentangling this brisk 12-song second album from the inevitable media circus is a challenge in itself. First, Stephen Street was a judicious choice of producer - and you suspect this was a bigger challenge for him than ever working with Morrissey or Damon Albarn. The sound is a lot cleaner than the ramshackle Down in Albion, the guitars sound like they're actually in tune, and the best possible job has been done with Pete Doherty's not very impressive lead vocals. There is some indie-by-numbers stuff that so characterises Babyshambles' peers, but many a time Doherty gets in touch with his inner poet and comes out with inspired couplets. It takes until track seven, the ballad gone awry Unstookietitled, for the album to really soar, while The Lost Art of Murder (with Bert Jansch of all people on guitar) is one of the best songs Doherty has written. Elsewhere there are an awful lot of Stone Roses bass lines and guitar riffs that have barely been disguised www.babyshambles.net BRIAN BOYD

Download track: The Lost Art of Murder

JOSÉ GONZÁLEZ In Our Nature Imperial/Peacefrog ***

From Sweden via South America, José González hit paydirt last year when his version of The Knife's Heartbeats was used to career- raising effect on a Sony TV advert. In Our Nature features another cover, a lovely if slightly askew version of Massive Attack's spellbinding Teardrop. While González's voice might not match Elizabeth Fraser's, it's still a track bound to have ad execs drooling over their strap lines. The remainder of the album - all acoustic folksiness, hushed vocals, subtle if snagging melody lines, lyrics of light, shade and sombre hues inbetween - is just as effective, with Time to Send Someone Away, The Nest, Killing for Love and Cycling Trivialities the best of a very good bunch. www.jose-gonzalez.com TONY CLAYTON-LEA

Download tracks: Teardrop, Time to Send Someone Away, The Nest

LES SAVY FAV Let's Stay Friends Wichita ****

The time is right for Les Savy Fav to feel the love. 2004's superb Inches collection was seen as a swansong of sorts for the band, but Tim Harrington and friends obviously didn't get the memo. Instead, this feel-good blast of compulsive, exhilirating and spectacular rock shows all the signs of a band happy to tussle with expectations, preconceptions and assorted bandwagon hoppers. The rebuilding work that has gone on since their last proper album (2001's Go Forth) has produced a leaner, tougher machine. Tracks such as The Equestrian and, especially, album highlight Patty Lee allow the band to showoff. Harrington's abrupt David Yow-isms have also been reined in and replaced with a strange kind of sweaty elegance. Live, though, expect it all to beautifully unravel again - they play Dublin's Crawdaddy on October 27th. www.myspace.com/lessavyfav JIM CARROLL

Download tracks: The Equestrian, Patty Lee, What Would Wolves Do?

KINSKI Down Below It's Chaos Sub Pop ***

Their experiments with piledriver instrumental psych-rock have kept this Seattle four-piece in guitar strings for seven albums. People praised Alpine Static for its thrilling mix of powerful twang, riffs and chaos, but will the addition of guitarist Chris Martin's vocals colour the reaction to Down Below It's Chaos? For all of Martin's stoned splendour on Passwords & Alcohol, it's the manic, frantic freakout of Cry Baby Blowout and the stormy, heavy-duty rush of Plan Steal Drive that will have you returning for more. It would be a pity if Kinski's move from the underground (a recent support tour with Tool was certainly a step in that direction) means a reduction in the psychedelic prowess they have shown. www.kinski.net JIM CARROLL

Download tracks: Crybaby Blowout, Plan, Steal, Drive

MURCOF Cosmos Leaf ****

Murcof's third album is a bold and ambitious departure for the Mexican electronica artist Fernando Corona. If his earlier albums, Utopia (2004) and Remembranza (2005), were unified by aspirational and memorial impulses, then Cosmos's six compositions are informed by a single monumental idea: the science of the stars. Murcof has jettisoned his signature melodic strings (deftly sampled from Arvo Pärt), warm electronic sounds and pulsing rhythms for abstract textures, angular drones (heavily treated 19th-century classical music), jerky beats and industrial found sounds to create a strange and arresting 21st-century program music. Cosmos's atmosphere of brooding awe, particularly in Cosmos I and II, reaches its apogee in the symphonic Oort, which erupts in exuberant improvisations of treated samples and eclectic instrumentation (gamelan bells, horns). www.theleaflabel.com JOCELYN CLARKE

Download tracks: Cosmo II, Oort

RUSHMORE River of Gold Mercury **

If you told Devon duo Neil and Edward Ormandy that their debut album reminded you of Stealer's Wheel or Gallagher & Lyle, they'd probably take it as a compliment. The acoustic guitar-picking brothers cite as influences such uncool bands as The Eagles, although they're closer in sound to those other doughty acoustic warriors, Turin Brakes. Still, the 1970s country-rock style of Last Chance, Rainy Day and You Want My Love can be a little hard to handle - and when they resemble Travis, as on Trying to Reach You, it could well be impossible to stomach. If only Rushmore would stretch beyond their self-imposed creative constraints, they could

be very palatable indeed. But even Destiny, the pleasant-sounding closer, can't help doffing its melodic cap to that superior (but still terminally uncool) duo, Simon & Garfunkel. www.myspace.com/rushmore KEVIN COURTNEY

Download track: Last Chance

FUTURE KINGS OF SPAIN Nervoussytem What's the Kim? ****

Those pesky "record label wrangles" delayed the release of this Dublin quartet's second album, but finally the follow-up to their 2003 debut can see the light of day on the band's own label, 18 months after it was recorded in London and Malta. Future Kings are practically old boys of Irish indie by now, but there's life in the old wardogs yet, and Nervoussystem is a confident collection of edgy pop-metal tunes that align FKOS alongside such grown-up acts as Foo Fighters and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. The addition of guitarist Karl Hussey to the original trio has not so much beefed up the sound as created more space to balance the metallic with the melodic. Singles Guess Again and Kick in the Teeth contain the crucial blend of riffola and tuneology, while Nineteen Eighty Four and the epic Chemical Burn deliver a satisfying sucker punch. www.myspace.com/futurekingsofspain KEVIN COURTNEY

Download Tracks: Guess Again, Kick in the Teeth, Chemical Burn