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Album:Fine Cuts:The Best Of

Website: http://www.themarmalade.net/

Whilst many people wouldn't put Marmalade in the premiership of bands that straddled the sixties and seventies there's not many that would despute them being near the top of the championship. "Fine Cuts:The Best Of Marmalade" is two and a half hours of decent music, with a couple of real stand out tracks. Salvo have done a good job with the curating of the package, useful sleeve notes giving the songs their context. The irony of having two of their best known singles written by other people is that it overshadowed the very strong songs from written within the band.

Letting Up Despite Great Faults

Website: http://www.lettingup.com

Letting Up Despite Great Faults have delivered an EP of rambling indie goodness that has been attractng real interest in the US and looks like it might well do the same over here. "Paper Crush" has got that early 70s East Coast pop feel and overlaid it with some really arching, fuzzy around the edges guitar licks. This is the sort of sound that comes swirling towards up and wraps and twists around you. There are times where it becomes a little too hazy. Vocal and backing slip too close together forming an aural mush that seems more lilke white noise than music.

The Sunshine Delay

Album:Keep It Together

Website: http://www.sunshinedelay.com

Frothier than a table full of cappuccinos and with a punch like a double expresso, The Sunshine Delay, feel like coffe bar chic rolled into a band. There's a sophistication to the sound that Scots bands see, to capture so easily, from the opening track, "Last Generation To Die" through to sign off track "The Angel's Share", "Keep It Together" is an album of songs that make you feel as though they matter and that make you want to care about the thoughts and poetry captured in the songs. It helps, of course, that vocalist, Paula McKee, sounds like she was born to rock 'n' roll.

The Narcoleptic Dancers

Website: http://www.myspace.com/narcolepticdancersband

Whoever said that the two and a half minute pop song was dead obviously hadn't encountered The Narcoleptic Dancers. "Never Sleep" harks back to a more innocent time of sticks of rock, kiss me quick hats and flirting with the opposite sex on the Wurlitzer. Even when the album steps into a more indie gear, there is an element of doo-wop that helps give the vocal a dream quality. The sound definitely has a retro feel to it, but it's learnt from the best and has a classic quality to it. Pop at it's best still conjours a really pure sense of fun.

Website: http://www.theraincoats.net

Another album getting an anniversary re-release this year is "Odyshape", remarkably The Raincoat's second album and acknowledged post-punk masterpiece is thirty years old. Still sounding remarkably fresh today, it's hard top portray the impact this album had at the time and indeed since. Picking up the torch from the Slits, literally as Palmolive was in both bands, this album showed that women in modern music weren't just going to be content with being lead and backing singers, they were the band, they were the music, the world was changing and this album played it's part.

Website: http://www.labirinto.mus.br

Resplendant with swathes of orchestral instumentation "Anatema" is an album that bridges the ground between classical, world music and prog rock. Stunningly arranged, Labrinito, a Brazialian six piece, have created an album that feels as though it's distilled the best out of what it's touched, leaving the dregs for others to root through. For example the rock sides of the album have all the musicianship without the pomposity. It does shout listen to me, but not whilst wearing a gold llame suit. It's an album of pieces rather than songs and does well on it.

Bill Bourne & The Free Radio Band

Website: http://www.billbourne.com

Blues is a wide church with many schisms, it influenced and was influenced by many different folk musics, embraced the electric guitar and gave birth to rock and roll. There are times on "Bluesland" where you feel that Bill Bourne & The Free Radio Band were there at it's conception. For me the strongest tracks are where the band pick up on that proto rock 'n' roll sound, albeit with the benefit of 60 years worth of hindsight, allowing them to give "Columbus Stockade Blues" a Louisinna swamp pop swing. This may not be an album for the purests, but there's plenty for the dabbler.

Website: http://www.redskyjuly.com

Red Sky July have got oodles of experience between them, making the band something of a supergroup. Consisting of husband and wife duo Ally McErlaine(Texas) and Shelley Poole(Alisha's Attic) and Charity Hair(The Alice Band) all of whome bring their experience and influence to this self titled debut album. It's an album that draws on many parts of the acoustic spectrum, but crucially pulls them together to give this the feeling that there is a real structure to the performance rather than a collection of songs. It's moving in places and a celebration of life in others, top draw performaces.

The Miserable Rich

Album:Miss You In The Days

Website: http://www.themiserablerich.co.uk

I've got a lot of time for The Miserable Rich, as with the name of the band a lot of their songs take on a different meaning depending on where you put the emhpasis. Match that with a sound that feels like an update on the palm court orchestra, slightly carnival, slightly west bank, slightly night club and you have series of rich and lush songs that, to use the old cliche, really work on so many levels. "Miss You In The Days" is an album that lets you find something new on pretty much every play. There is so much drama contained in it, it could be it's own mini-series.

Single:Ode To The Summer

Website: http://www.sydarthur.co.uk

With what we've just had for a summer, I expected this to be a bit of a dirge, well you would wouldn't you. If you listen to the lyrics, it does generally reflect the cold, wet, soul destroying season we just had, but it also reflects the bright highlights, relationships and romance, hiding from the rain in seaside cafes and getting to know each other. The music reflects the latter feelings with a bright pop sound that is at times reminiscent of the mellower end of Cockney Rebel. As a single it shows an artist with some promise and raises expectations for the album.

Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo

Website: http://www.Emily-Barker.com

"Almanac" A handbook, typically published annually, containing information of general interest or on a sport or pastime and it truth a more accurate description of this album than song book. Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo have delivered an album of songs that pick up on the road to self discovery. Events that you discover without necessarily intending to that spark of something in the psyche, something read in a paper, something discoverd going somewhere for the first time, something that gives you a connection even though you're a visitor and a desire to set it to music.

Martin John Henry

Album:The Other Half Of Everything

Website: http://www.facebook.com/martinjhenry

Martin John Henry has produced a folk soundscape that captures the rugged feel of the Scottish landscape and people that inspired it. Like Runrig at their best, this album takes the political and social history of the region and sets it to a contemporary prog-folk sound. "The Other Half Of Everything" shows how something that has a bit of local flavour can still have a universal appeal. Be it his accent or the way he assembles his sound, there is no doubt where Martin John Henry draws on his inspiration. His strength is in the way he gives it a wider appeal.