Rock/Pop

The latest releases reviewed

The Brunettes Structure and Cosmetics Sub Pop ***

Take a boy and a girl from New Zealand. Give them a name that suggests a penchant for Phil Spector 1960s-inflected pop. Add lashings of kitsch, an irritating genre tag ('twee pop') and songs about spaceships, hairstyles and origami. And what do you get? Well, something a lot more original than what you'd expect.

Opener Brunettes Against Bubblegum Youth (spot the acronym) is deliciously catchy, mostly thanks to a mixed choir that wouldn't sound out of place on a Sufjan Stevens album. Jonathan Bree and Heather Mansfield have a knack of copying their throwback influences and pasting them on to contemporary templates. Like Rilo Kiley's country pop (Small Town Crew), early Architecture in Helskini (Obligatory Road Song) Air's nostalgic electronics (Her Hairagami Set) nailed to the Wall of Sound. www.lilchiefrecords.com/brunettes  Sinead Gleeson

Download tracks: Brunettes Against Bubblegum Youth; Her Hairagami Set

New Buffallo Somewhere, Anywhere Arts & Crafts ****

There are some familiar tones to be heard when Sally Seltmann sighs her way through the opening track Cheer Me Up Thank You on her second album as New Buffalo.

Similar tones, of course, are to be found on 1234, the hit that Seltmann wrote for Leslie Feist. As on her The Last Beautiful Day debut, Seltmann's speciality lies in penning songs that are distinctly up close and personal in their intimacy.

Delivered with just creaky, ghostly textures from a century-old piano and the odd woodwind sound here or there, the songs take you deep into the private world of the Australian performer's one-woman show, a place where her notes from a long-term relationship are the guidelines.

From the golden rays of Stay With Us to the hypnotic spell cast by Emotional Champ, Seltmann's elegant and graceful new-school folk-pop is something to relish. www.newbuffalo.net  Jim Carroll

Download tracks: Cheer Me Up, Thank You; Stay With Us

Black Lips Good Bad Not Evil  Vice ****

Best known to date for their ramshackle and buckwild brand of greasy garage rock, Atlanta, Georgia bad boys Black Lips have turned in a record that could well warrant a spot of revisionism.

Whatever about the juvenile and spirited high-jinks that have dominated the dispatches from their live shows, Good Bad Not Evil shows a sense that there's much more going on here now than mere tomfoolery.

Right from the off and Veni Vidi Vici's three jaunty, looping steps to heaven, it's obvious that these desperados are no longer simply looking for new ways to pay homage to Nuggets.

There are melodies bursting out as far as the ear can hear, from the spooked cow-punk on Lock & Key to the shining groove on It Feels Alright and the wonderfully dumb-ass Bad Kids.

While it might be pushing it a little to term this fifth album "slick", it does show that sometimes even the freaks want to go pop. www.myspace.com/theblacklips  Jim Carroll

Download tracks: Veni Vidi Vici; It Feels Alright

Iron and Wine The Shepherd's Dog Sub-Pop ****

Recent visitor Iron and Wine is principally Sam Beam, a bearded former movie studies professor from South Carolina who knows a thing or two about building word pictures.

This is his third and most adventurous album to date, a compelling and challenging collection of mostly ornate tunes rendered in complex and dense electronic patterns or alternatively plaintive folk simplicity.

It is both bewitching and beguiling, lyrics rich in metaphor and language whispered over a backdrop of layered instrumental invention with nods to blues, jazz and rock'n'roll.

His dalliance with desert music kings Calexico continues to bear fruit, with Joey Burns clearly an influential figure, as is Beam's sister Sarah. www.ironandwine.com  Joe Breen

Download tracks: Pagan Angle and a Borrowed Car; Lovesong of the Buzzard; Carousel