Their debut album picks up where shoo-in first hit 'Wide Awake' (out tomorrow) leaves off: jangly guitar washes, soaring synths and tales of miscreants, drug-taking and, rather touchingly, thwarted love affairs. It's like Northside never went away. They say 'We're normal lads instead of some little posh div.
People like lads who talk about what they do with their mates, don't they?' - Lead singer Phil Etheridge Buy this if you liked Stone Roses, Oasis, Flowered Up. One tiny detail probably says more about the new Arctic Monkeys album - the follow-up to their scarily brilliant Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - than adjectives could.
Drummer Matt Helders has taken up boxing and working out in order to play these 12 new songs on tour. Faster, harder and more intense than their debut, Favourite Worst Nightmare retains all the once-in-a-generation charms of the band's debut. Tales of pulling, not getting pulled and 'dirty little herberts' abound.
But Jamie Cook's guitar has grown fangs and claws, Alex Turner's sneer has grown more pronounced and new bassist Nick O'Malley has dosed the Arctics' taut rhythmic barrage with more funk. Lead track 'Brianstorm' provides a taster of this punishing new feel, but 'If You Were There, Beware' actually ends in a twin guitar bloodbath. In the midst of all this muscularity nestle little waltz codas, mournful moments, snatches of Duran Duran, and - in 'Fluorescent Adolescent' - a pop hit the size of a yeti.
Class. They say 'We've tried to experiment. We ended up with breakbeats on the record.
' Buy this if you liked The Rapture's Echoes; Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age. Every Bjork album is extraordinary, but Volta, her latest, features a mind-boggling set of collaborators, moods and motifs. Right-hand man Mark Bell is on-side once again, but the guest list also includes hip-hop ace Timbaland, kora master Toumani Diabate, Antony Hegarty from Antony and the Johnsons, Lightning Bolt speed-drummer Brian Chippendale, avant-drummer-for-hire Chris Corsano, Congolese experimentalists Konono No 1 and an Icelandic brass section.
The point seems to be emphasising great beats, and musical meeting points, as an antidote to world strife, and she's going to tour the world with a 30-piece band. We've heard five tracks. Each is more dazzling than the last.
Most newsworthy, perhaps, is lead single 'Earth Intruders', one of two amazing Timbaland-assisted beats. It finds Bjork returning playfully to the dancefloor after a long absence, with busy, loaded rhythms and Konono No 1 on what sound like Eighties arcade thumb pianos. Radically different is Bjork's lovey-dovey duet with Antony Hegarty.
It's shaping up to be a crusading, troubled, joyous set. She says 'We're all fucking animals, so let's make some universal tribal beat.' Buy this if you liked Kate Bush's Aerial; M.
I.A.'s Arular; Nelly Furtado's 'Maneater'.
His last two albums, Want One and Want Two, made for an opulent, greedy diptych that finally established Rufus Wainwright as a songwriter of grand note. On Release the Stars his sounds are as lush as ever. 'Why does it always have to be sensational?
' warbles Rufus, batting away swelling strings and brass on the opening track. Richard Thompson plays guitar, old friends and family Martha Wainwright and Teddy Thompson drop by and Neil Tennant is executive producer. With Wainwright's ear cocked to a more mainstream audience, however, Stars boasts a few more direct tunes than usual.
Some, like 'Between My Legs', are a little raunchy. One - 'Going to a Town' - is faintly seditious. Some are just feelgood radio shoo-ins, like 'Rules and Regulations'.
Brandon Flowers will make straight for 'Tulsa', Wainwright's ode about the Killers' frontman. He says 'I'm going for the sound of cash registers.' It's been a while since the last offering from Jeff Tweedy and Co, but three years of slavering from fans is about to be rewarded with this seventh studio album.
And, boy, was it worth the wait. Though Wilco are known as purveyors of alt country rock, Sky Blue Sky is an astounding demonstration of their ability to move between soulful acoustic folk, jazzy blues, country skank and pumping rock. Tweedy has the vocal range of three people, from country lilt to blues ache to folk sweetness - all this often in the space of one song.
And what songs they are. 'You Are My Face' is a classic Wilco segue, as a sleepy Beatleseque ditty is suddenly interrupted with a jazz guitar explosion twinned with Tweedy's achy blues voice before returning seamlessly to piano tinkle and smooth vocals. There are stories of love lost and found, told with originality, humour and sweetness.
'How can I warn you my tongue turns to dust? Lack of disgust doesn't mean that I don't care. It means I'm partially there,' sings Tweedy on the delicately beautiful 'Please Be Patient With Me'.
The instrumentation is a mini-rock opera in itself. Glorious riffs, thumping piano and virtuoso guitar solos from Nels Cline are orchestrated with skill, complementing the intricately composed and woven melodies. Simple and soothing, yet rich and rewarding, this is an album you unknowingly yearn for, like a cool hand on a hot forehead.
A great album from a band in their prime. Jeff Tweedy says 'I'm not throwing up so much these days, and I don't have to get up every five minutes for a smoke. I can get into a deeper recording groove.
' Buy this if you liked Bonnie Prince Billy's last, The Letting Go. Gilles Peterson's latest protege is a singer/songwriter/producer as eclectic as Massive Attack. Like MA, Ben Westbeech comes from Bristol and has a sound that stems from soul yet unfolds into diverse offshoots, including jazz, ambient, R B and drum'n'bass, over which Westbeech's voice flutters like John Legend with a British indie lilt.
He was signed to Peterson's new and burgeoning Brownswood label on the strength of Gilles hearing one demo track - the sunny 'So Good Today' - in the back of a car at Creamfields last year. The success of this assured debut will depend on the courage of radio playlisters. He says 'My style is nearly as broad as my record collection.
' Buy this if you liked Jill Scott, Portishead, the Cafe del Mar compilations. When the Raconteurs evolved from a hobby band to a serious outfit, many assumed Jack White would be on indefinite leave from his day job. But in January, Jack and Meg White returned to the studio for three weeks of recording (an indulgence for the wham-bam Stripes).
The result is Icky Thump; the title is a bastardisation of the Lancastrian 'ecky thump', an expression we can trace to Karen Elson, White's wife, who comes from Bolton. White says the new sounds are 'really heavy'. New instruments include bagpipes and trumpet, in addition to Meg's drums and Jack's guitar.
Jack White says 'It has everything from a song I wrote in 1998 to something we wrote and recorded yesterday. It was a really happy experience. Meg was on fire.
' Mark Ronson might be one of the hottest DJ/producers of the moment, lusted after by Christina Aguilera and Amy Winehouse, and his second full-length, after 2003's Here Comes the Fuzz, may be one of the most eagerly anticipated releases of the spring, but Version is, in essence, a covers album. Once you make peace with the concept, however, it all begins to make sense. The British-born New Yorker has an arsenal of superb funk samples at his disposal and tracks by the Smiths, Coldplay and Radiohead are blasted into a different groove entirely.
Vocalists such as Lily Allen, whose 'Littlest Things' he produced, give each version an extra twist. He says 'I've only received one death threat so far, from a disgruntled 13-year-old Morrissey fan, so I guess that's pretty good.' Buy this if you liked Amy Winehouse's Back to Black, which Ronson co-produced.
Because of the Times (Columbia, 2 April) The Kings return with a grungier, more introspective sound on their third album while retaining that trademark dustbowl feel.
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