A compendium recorded the globe over, the bulk of Soft Commands is given over to rolling, near-baroque piano balladry, as on “When U Find Someone”, which hews as close to late-’60s, post-SMiLE Brian Wilson as a late-summer burnt-orange sunset. The standout rocker is “Don’t Die”, with its biting guitars and double-tracked vocals, but it’s “You Drew”, an abstract love song with a soaring melody reminiscent of “American Pie”, that has the most staying power.

At 78, Burnside is old enough to remember sharecropping in the Delta, but his latest album is as cutting-edge a slice of nu-blues as you will hear. Remixed and reworked by hip hop heroes such as Lyrics Born, there will be those purists who will find A Bothered Mind an abomination. Anyone with a more open mind?and fans of Moby’s Play in particular?will love its raucous boldness.

Stockholm’s Karin and Olof Dreijer are the Grammy-winning brother-sister pop duo who record as The Knife. A stark collision of boxy ’80s electro-pop and flinty modernist vocals, Deep Cuts is a fetching item, with a creeping sense of arty unease lurking beneath its not-quite-techno surface. Bj

In early 2002, TSOOL’s Grammy-nominated Behind The Music should have put the six-piece on a commercial footing with The Strokes and White Stripes, but their blend of slashing riffs and nimble, flowing psychedelia was perhaps too subtle. This fourth album offers a slightly simplified version, stripping back the riffs and stepping up the anthemics. Their pastoral side is still here (“Midnight”), but no longer dampens their overall attack. Majestic, life-affirming and touched by magic, right now TSOOL sound like they’re on top of the world.

Ever since Andrew Oldham discovered his “angel with big tits”, as he described the teenage Faithfull, the best moments in her career have come from being mentored by a strong, sympathetic figure who understood her talent and knew how best to showcase it. Oldham teamed her with a songwriting duo called Jagger-Richards, who came up with “As Tears Go By” for her then virginal voice. The late-’70s reinvention of Broken English was masterminded by Chris Blackwell, who brilliantly suggested she wrap her now ravaged vocal cords around such material as “The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan” and “Working Class Hero”. Her best album of the ’80s, Strange Weather, was conceived by Tom Waits and produced by Hal Willner. And in the ’90s, Angelo Badalamenti produced and added the music to her lyrics on A Secret Life.

On Before The Poison, Faithfull has two key collaborators in Nick Cave and PJ Harvey, and it’s particularly fascinating to hear her working so closely with another woman for the first time. Harvey wrote three tracks outright and co-wrote two more, and her presence is so forceful that songs such as “The Mystery Of Love.” and “My Friends Have” risk sounding like outtakes from her own Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea album. Yet Faithfull inhabits them so convincingly that it never becomes a takeover, more a case of the two women finding an intuitive connection.

The three collaborations with Cave are more democratic. He provides the music to Faithfull’s lyrics and clearly worked hard at creating the musical context to maximise the theatrical qualities in her delivery. In addition, Damon Albarn contributes “Last Song” and Jon Brion juxtaposes a fairytale-like melody to some dark Faithfull lyrics on the closer, “City Of Quartz”. Overall, the result is probably the most potent album she’s made since Broken English a quarter of a century ago.

Julie Doiron was formerly bass player with psychedelic folksters Eric’s Trip. Since they split in the late 1990s, she’s embarked upon motherhood, photography, and a slightly hesitant solo career.

Like her previous two solo albums, Goodnight Nobody offers sparse, intimate and rather morose lo-fi-folk.

“Snow Falls In November” is on a par with Damon & Naomi’s finest, while “Dirty Feet”‘s hallucinogenic ambience showcases Doiron’s knack for affecting, minimal arrangements. Unfortunately, she doesn’t sustain the initial magic as her flat, characterless voice begins to grate. Too often, Doiron simply moans, forgetting the melancholy.

Cut loose last year from Vic Twenty (the band she shared with Adrian Morris), Angela Penhaligon’s solo debut (as Piney Gir) is carte blanche for a loose-footed spirit. It’s easier to list where she doesn’t go, but let’s say that the early-’80s analogue of “Creature” (equal parts Human League and Depeche Mode) is as effective as the kooky country of “Greetings, Salutations, Goodbye” and the Gallic ’60s pop of “Sweet”. Her voice?sticky-sweet with a dark aftertaste?is the key, capable of tearing apart “My Generation” one minute then playing cupid to Simple Kid (lounge-swinger “Nightsong”) the next.

Jon Brooks is regent of a timelocked region whose anthem was composed by Delia Derbyshire, where the first lady is the Slimcea Girl and Robert Moog is a knight of the realm. Bordered by the eerie plains of the Boards Of Canada and the dreamy suburbs of St Etienne, with a prevailing climate of wistful reverie, the principal exports are poignant reconstructions of half-remembered TV theme tunes. When they drift beyond the generically pretty (as on the mournful “Divertissements” or the noir of “Crazy Lions”) the results are delectable, but much here seems destined to soundtrack commercials for soft furnishings.

What a relief to find a female songstress not being marketed as the new Katie Melua or Eva Cassidy. Kate Aumonier has a sharper focus, assisted by the fact that she’s served her time in the business, including singing backing vocals on Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt’s 1999 album, Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions. Her songs are confessional and full of sharp observations on the mating game (“I just fell for Mr Wrong, isn’t that amusing?”), and there’s no disputing the appeal of her voice. Sadly, the album’s anonymous, identikit rock production lets her down.

The shocking thing about Richard Buckner’s latest isn’t its low-key magisterial elegance, which is always a hallmark of this fiercely individualistic songwriter. It’s that, rather than mimic his intense noise-rock/punk stage show of recent times, Dents And Shells essentially comes on as Impasse II, unassumingly echoing his 2002 album’s obtuse, impressionistic, non-linear songwriting. As ever, Buckner’s dense, elliptical melodies and bits of whispered wisdom, given half a chance, will get under your skin and put you in a darkly meditative state. Best song: the hypnotic “Her”, which, like his best material, is no more concrete than a long, late-afternoon shadow.

Driver was signed to Island as a singer-songwriter in the early ’90s, but was then offered a lead role in the film Circle Of Friends?and that was that. A decade later, she’s finally found time to record a rather fine debut album. Backed by members of The Wallflowers and Pete Yorn’s band, she’s got an appealingly bittersweet voice and, with the exception of one cover (Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart), wrote all the songs herself. The title track has a chilled, Morcheeba-ish feel, and “Wire” sounds like surrogate Dido. But that’s as commercial as it gets?the rest is classic country-folk fare.

After critically lauded ’97 debut The Angel Pool, The Autumns became a big draw on the US college circuit, and could now do the same in the UK. Mixing silvery guilar patterns with raging feedback and FX pedals, they successfully harness shoegazing’s euphoric tendencies, coated with Snowpatrol/Keane anthemics (they’re well equipped in that department by singer Matt Kelly’s soaring falsetto). Searing drama rock with potential.

It’s hard not to feel a little sympathy for The Sex Pistols’ original bassist. Ridiculed by the rest of the band for his haircut, love of melody and white-collar background?and vilified by history, essentially for not being Sid Vicious?Matlock has had quite a burden to bear. On the evidence presented here, rehabilitation isn’t gonna happen any time soon. On Something is a grim trudge across pub-rock terrain, each relentlessly chugging, jukebox-composite tune done further disservice by Matlock’s flat, nasal tones. Whither the talent that magicked up “Pretty Vacant”?

David Steele drove Fine Young Cannibals and The Beat, and there’s still a hint of ’80s wine-bar soul about his neat new project. Nonetheless, the slick sound’s given a lift by New Orleans singer Jonte Short. On the swooping “When You Get Out Of Jail” (with guest rap by RZA), she whips a cracking chorus till it whimpers. Beth Gibbons co-wrote “Stranger In This Land”, and Steele’s shrewdly taken ’90s trip hop tricks on board. As pop, it works best in short bursts, but for all the calculation there’s also a smouldering heart. “You’re With The Wrong One” is “It Shoulda Been Me” for the Macy Gray generation.

In the mythic America some of us carry around in our heads, every bar boasts a house band like The Blasters. It’s pointless to suggest they still miss Dave Alvin’s songwriting, as it’s 18 years since he quit and, if they can get over it, so can we. That said, the best song here is probably a cover?”Daddy Rollin’ Stone”. But brother Phil Alvin is still on board, and the rootsy mix of blues, rock, country and soul continues to provide the perfect soundtrack in the roadhouse of our minds.