With Blake re-accessing his quirkier side after years of solid songcraft, and Childs guided away from his more loopy excesses. A hatful of memorable tunes, too.

Given that it's for dancing, Butler's production tends toward the cool--even plodding--but his polishing up of 20-year-old stylistic tics still entertains.

Theirs is a music of doomed melancholy –- plaintive, dark, and uneasy.

The son of Richard Thompson is capable of writing his own striking lyrics but sometimes they are straining a little too hard.

Their second album combines ballistic rave pop with tougher bass-laden sounds and is an effectively youthful update on the Prodigy's formula.

In weaker moments he veers into mawkish troubadour territory, but Blake's musical alchemy can be capable of matching the urban, nocturnal beauty of vintage Massive Attack.

There are a couple of lesser chug-alongs, but mostly it's as good as anything in the Motörhead canon.

It's certainly good to have West's unique talent back in music, but this ambitious behemoth may be easier to admire than to listen to.

The fortunes of this soundtrack will ultimately rest with the success of the film but its brooding mix of old and new styles certainly wets your appetite to see it.

What makes this a really exciting debut, however, is the Kanye West-style genre-bending on Grenade, The Other Side and Our First Time, which joins the dots between between Michael Jackson and Bob Marley.

Most tracks here aim to be an anthem, but none has the requisite melodic clout. It's hard to see them entering the super league on this visit.

There are a few tasty future-pop moments, but mainly it's predictable r&b, weighed down with tiresome, ersatz sexiness.

Harlem River Blues (Bloodshot Records) ranks alongside the best American roots music being made at the moment and his concerts should not be missed.

Gretchen Wilson's version of Don't Come Home A Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind) is feisty and Lee Ann Womack is helped by having Buddy Miller on accordian and Patty Griffin on backing vocals but several of the 12 songs are pretty routine covers that add little particularly interesting.

Atkins makes the material sound genuine, largely because it is perfect for her. Where previously her slight, observational songs seemed barely able to carry her powerful voice, the emotional and musical heft of these styles enables her to really spread her vocal wings.

Content is their best record since the late-Seventies, packed with savagely danceable riffs and rousingly incisive lyrics about consumerism, domestic fragmentation and political resistance.