Dubstar
I Will Be Your Girlfriend
(Food)

After a spell of disappointing record sales, desperation has set in for Sarah and the boys and as a result their latest offering makes this tempting proposal. Unfortunately, the CD got cracked in the post so we can only guess at what this actually sounds like. We’re guessing at fey synth-pop with northern kitchen-sink drama style vocals. Still, James is looking forward to Sarah fulfilling her promise. Let’s hope it’s her and not the drummer.

Some uses for a cracked Dubstar CD: coaster, frisbee, bookmark, lock-picking tool, vanity mirror, ‘Odd-job’ style implement of death and decapitation, spirograph component, revolving wall-mounted Dubstar ornament, hamster sledge.

Insane Clown Possee
Halls Of Illusion
(Island)

Aren’t clowns funny? Amusingly ramshackle parping cars, buckets of confetti, ‘gags’ with ladders, rotating bow ties and custard pies. Our sides are quite literally splitting even now. However, even more funny are the Insane Clown Posse, whose wacky take on hip-hop is set to reduce the nation to tears. The clown prince of rock, Slash, even turns up to lend a hand, with his comedy fright wig and laughable guitar technique. The joke however is on him as this is probably the worst record we’ve ever heard, bar Slash’s ill-conceived Snakepit.

Five
Slam Dunk (Da Funk)
(RCA)

Five strapping young men thrusting their manly torsos around to the sound of pumping bass-lines and manic disco beats. Well that’s enough about the Baggage exec, now onto Five, a new boy band featuring such funky fellas as J and Abs. I presume Abs stands for ‘particularly impressive abdominal muscles’ and not ‘anti-lock breaking system’. Anyway, this is a hip-hop pop collision featuring a bass-line culled directly from that other gender-specific fivesome’s classic ‘Wannabe’. Never let it be said that I am one to knock a new bubbly boy band, but I just can’t help hoping that like Channel 5, Five end up with nothing less than overwhelmingly shit reception. Roll on Easter.

Glitterbox
Scared Of All The World
(Radar)

Average rock gets above its station courtesy of Manics producer Dave Eringa. Lest we forget however, Dave was also responsible for production duties for Northern Uproar. Bland, bland, bland Stereophonics-esque rock. Expect a TFI Friday booking soon.

Radiohead
No Surprises
(Parlophone)

We’ll assume that most of you are familiar with ‘No Surprises’. It’s Radiohead at their most effortlessly affecting and is commercial enough to be one of the more obvious single choices off the album. Once again there are two CDs to choose from, CD2 being the Parlophone blood-sucking cynical live track cash-in option. CD1 however, contains two engagingly diverse b-sides. The first, ‘Palo Alto’, harks back to Radiohead’s less scary, yet equally essential rock-deconstruction based noise of yore. ‘How I Made My Millions’ though, is one of those Thom Yorke on a piano jobs that he always pulls off with aplomb. Unsurprisingly brilliant, less of a surprise that we just sunk to using that pun.

Lambchop
Your Sucking Funny Day
(City Slang)

Where they make absolute sense. A bitter, sad, revelry; uplifting indignation. That emotion when the wounds have scabbed and bitterness is too self-punishing. When you cry “enough” and raise your spirits with anger and an impulse to stand up, put your head on straight and walk into the daybreak. Then the Petrified Florist is a desolate track of dependence and weakness, the prelude and epilogue to the first track. And the final track makes me laugh and dance like a lunatic. Single of the century for covering my life; indignation when you have the energy, sadness when you don’t and joy when drunk.

A
Foghorn
(London)

A is for absolutely abysmal, awful, abased, appalling, abnormal, abhorrent, abject, atrocious, anti-climax, abominable, annoying, aggravating, America, absurd, a shambles, acrid, anti-social, Alanis, antique, anthrax, alarming, anal, aardvark, anachronistic, anaemic, amateur, amusing, anodyne, antediluvian, aimless, agony, antiquated, asinine and arse. Phrrrrrp.

Merz
Many Weathers Apart
(Lotus)

This beguiling concoction begins with the kind of tribal drum loop that you expect to lead into to some kind of Tricky-esque stoner ramble. Instead, here a mad bloke starts wailing in a loud, distorted and most unexpected manner. Having set the cauldron a-bubbling, Merz then throws in some dub-bass, sprinkles on some gentle keyboards, garnishes with understated guitar noodlings and leaves to simmer. What we are left with is an interesting concoction made all the more appetising by its creator’s combination of such piquant ingredients. Very tasty indeed, now what’s for afters?

Oasis
All Around The World
(Creation)

I’ve been thinking and maybe ‘Be Here Now’ isn’t such a very bad record. I bought it, I heard it twice, I didn’t listen to it for four months. Now however, I’ve come back to it and a lot of the tunes sound just as good as any that came before them, some are better and most probably didn’t deserve the slagging that befell them. ‘All Around The World’, on the other hand did and remains a semi-decent refrain force-fed with orchestration until it became a bloated, unwieldy nine-minute cliché. Used properly, strings can lift a song into the stratosphere, but here everything just sounds forced and empty. The best Oasis songs are the simplest. Noel Gallagher should bear this in mind.

Space
Avenging Angels
(Gut)

Space are one of those bands that should be negligible rubbish and indeed they often are, but on occasions they come up with insidiously catchy, off-kilter pop such as this. ‘Avenging Angels’ gets in your head and like some kind of crazy squatter armed with a gun and a range of comedy keyboard effects, it just won’t budge.

Unbelievable Truth
Higher Than Reason
(Virgin)

A tricky one this and ultimately a bit of a disappointment after being massively hyped by insider big nobs. However, ‘Higher Than Reason’ is a sporadically elevating record and as such acts as an encouraging debut. Nevertheless, James remains unimpressed by its classical guitar leanings and superficially lush production values. Guy on the other hand just thinks it’s nice. Let’s all hope that Unbelievable Truth don’t become overshadowed by the inevitable Radiohead comparisons, for although it is easy to see Andy Yorke as a Dannii to brother Thom’s Kylie, it is important to remember that these days it’s Dannii who has the biggest hits.