This gloriously frazzled album is the finest work to date from Andy Meecham, half of hip house duo Chicken Lips and one-time Bizarre Inc member. Composed on vintage analogue hardware and propelled by generous Krautrock grooves, Aimee Tallulah Is Hypnotised could be the freewheeling soundtrack to a William Burroughs-penned lysergic head-movie helmed by John Carpenter. Meecham skilfully steers this enjoyably indulgent romp through disco, radiophonica and flute-fried psychedelia without ever losing focus, proving, on the addled odysseys “Watching Flying Body Parts” and “SH3A”, that a cracking tune always wins out. Magnificent, man.

The multi-million-selling soul charlatan cobbles together refried chunks of The Isleys, Stevie Wonder and Timmy Thomas and… it’s fantastic. Happy People is an extraordinarily buoyant record, giving off irresistible party vibes and forcing you to step like it’s 1989 and Jam & Lewis (rather than Kanye or The Neptunes) are the names to drop. He’s the black Strokes: you’ve heard it before, but it’s fun to hear again. U Saved Me is lumpy ballads full of guff about “faith” and “spirit”, but that first album, with its contrived between-tracks atmosphere and banter, is a curning, crackling, can’t-keep-still classic.

For his new band project, Mick Fleetwood uses players better known behind the scenes, rather than making it a star-studded affair. Whatever the label says, this is essentially singer/guitarist Todd Smallwood’s album. He has a hand in writing all but one of the songs, Fleetwood taking co-credit only on the drum-fuelled “Passion” which, we’re sad to relate, is no Tusk. “No Borders” drags on board Fleetwood’s long-time partner John McVie and lost Mac slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer. It’s a nod to his past on an album that might actually have been exhumed from incarceration 30 years ago. Well intentioned, well executed, but for Fleetwood Mac completists only.

Unlike the bulk of Planet Mu’s abrasive buzz-saw output, Special Forces is a carefully measured yet heartfelt album that owes a great deal to the neo-psych whimsy of The Flaming Lips and early Aphex Twin. Mostly instrumental with a few mournful vocal tracks, it’s reminiscent, too, of Mu label boss Mike

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One fears their career will be forever hindered by the ascension of The Flaming Lips, but the Stars may find, in compensation, that their long-standing association with the now notorious Toerag Studios lends them shadowy cool. Vastly underrated, they refract the spirit of Double Indemnity through originally twisted shades of Morricone, Hazlewood, Tindersticks and the Mary Chain. Max D

Hyped in some quarters as “the most respected female rapper in Britain”, there’s no doubting 24-year-old west Londoner Estelle’s proficient mic skills or innocuous dial-a-diva warble.

After years of guest spots and shop work, she scored her first Top 20 hit this summer with the syrupy childhood yarn “1980”. Like many albums by hot young stars, The 18th Day is precision-designed for mass appeal at the expense of its protagonist’s personality. A shame, as formulaic R&B like “Hey Girl” or the plastic Motown soul of “Dance With Me”, written by a squad of US producers, dilute what’s otherwise a sassy debut.

Three years on from double album Southern Rock Opera?sniping at outsider stereotypes of the South’s culture via the legacy of Lynyrd Skynyrd?Drive-By Truckers are back in familiar territory. Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to be exact. It’s where lead Trucker Patterson Hood grew up and where his dad David, as part of FAME Studio’s own Wrecking Crew, played on classics by The Staple Singers, Wilson Pickett and Aretha.

Bottling any residual gold-dust is only part of it, though, for the key to this signal band lies neither in time nor place. For them, the South is a state of mind. This record is about identity and resolve in the face of wretched fate. Awash with folklore, there’s a rare sensibility in the songs of Hood, Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell that’s gripped by mortality as much as myth.

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The Lancashire-based Palmer has a delicious hair-in-the-voice approach that gives her a tough edge over more fey contemporaries. This, her third album after 2001’s self-funded romantica obscura and predecessor A Certain Kind Of Distance, is mostly just acoustic and voice, sparsely adorned with the decorative frills of guitarist Mark Townson, fretless bass, violin, mandolin and cello (the slow string fade of “Followed Down Sundown” is outstanding). We’re in Joni Mitchell/Shawn Colvin territory here?pin-drop ballads with the faintest country-blues undertow-but, as on “Fishtails”, she can pout like the sassiest of bar-room queens, too Impressive.

Previously available only at gigs or on the Internet (along with the similarly acoustic Weed), War Crime Blues is a masterclass in bottleneck guitar and mud-caked Mississippi stomp from this most distinctive of guitarists. There are similarities to contemporaries like Chris Smither in the wounded delivery, but the Texan’s style is more aggressive, his accentuated strums?like sudden lightning forks?more akin to the late great Tucson guitarist Rainer Ptacek (see “Ghost Dance” and the title track). There are unexpected moments of sublime dexterity, too, not least on a fully-wired cover of Lou Reed’s “I Can’t Stand It” and The Clash’s “The Call Up”.

With both 2002’s Stories Often Told and the previous year’s Tremendous Efforts, Toronto’s Sadies established themselves as feverish pluralists, twisting honky tonk, psychedelia, surf and punk into new forms. More meditative, this fifth LP hones the Southern harmonies and guitar-pickin’ crosstalk of the brothers Good (Dallas and Travis) while augmenting the band with the likes of Robyn Hitchcock. “As Much As Such” and “A Good Flying Day” sound like reluctant outtakes from The Byrds’ Younger Than Yesterday. But the rest is too sussed to be mere homage, from the frontier-at-noon drowsiness of “The Curdled Journey” to the Gram-like “Why Be So Curious (Pt 3)”.

Fifth solo outing for fiftysomething Nashville maestro MILLER’S MORE ILLUSTRIOUS work as guitarist/musical director with Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle has sometimes put his solo output in the shade. A pity, because there’s much to discover in the Ohio native’s back pages. Earle swears he’s “the best country singer working today”, while Robbie Fulks calls him country’s only living auteur. Midnight And Lonesome (2002) beautifully distilled the moonstruck honky tonk of a relatively late-starting recording career (1995 debut Your Love And Other Lies came after years on the road in bluegrass bands), but this is his most complete yet.

Like Rodney Crowell and Dave Alvin, Miller seems to be undergoing a mid-life stock-take but, rather than reaching out to folk-blues or old-time country, gospel lights his way. Indeed, he blends styles as expertly here as Ray Charles did on his 1962 landmark Modern Sounds In Country & Western Music. There are strong echoes here of The Staple Singers, classic Memphis soul and the full-throated harmonies of Nashville’s Fairfield Four (guest vocalists Regina and Ann McCrary are scions of the latter’s Reverend Sam). Dylan’s influence is here, too, particularly the less-celebrated Slow Train Coming! Saved! Shot Of Love triptych?although it’s Miller’s remarkable nine-minute reworking of “With God On Our Side” from The Times They Are A-Changin’ that acts as centrepiece. His vocal and emotional range make it entirely his own, bringing added poignancy to the pathetic political lie of the Almighty as selective cheerleader for countries at war.

Concern over cultural intolerance is apparent everywhere, but it’s a record that’s ultimately redeemed by his own faith. Both the Louvin Brothers’ “There’s A Higher Power” and the churchy ecstasy of “Shelter Me” (one of four co-written with wife Julie) are as much affirmation as sanctuary. The pilgrim-soul of “Is That You?” is breathtaking, while the tender “Wide River To Cross” is a brittle duet with Emmylou Harris, acting as flipside to “Don’t Wait”‘s double-fisted rock-out. Essential.

Luna just keep on murmuring, their gliding guitars and hypnotic rhythms insistently reminding you they’re more than just the phoenix that rose from Galaxie 500’s ashes. Their own identity long established, it’s a pity then that this isn’t as precious as Romantica or the divine The Days Of Our Nights. Sean Eden’s songs and voice aren’t as fine as Wareham’s, and it moseys a little too languidly. That said, the druggy take on “The Owl And The Pussycat” is arresting, and cuts like “Cindy Tastes Of Barbecue” and “Motel Bambi” are svelte and sexy? all the cooler for not trying too hard.

With Lemon Jelly opening the commercial floodgates for a more lighthearted form of downtempo, Dan Carey (Ivor Novello nominee for co-writing and co-producing Kylie’s “Slow”) and Rob Da Bank (Sunday Best founder and Radio 1 chill-out specialist) up the ante with an imaginative cast of collaborators. Roddy Frame steals the show with the uplifting “Western Skies”, Lee “Scratch” Perry spouts coded politics on the title track, while the up-and-coming Estelle’s melodic hip hop brings soul to the party.

Over the past decade, David Dondero has been a marginalised mainstay in America’s alt.folk sector. His previous band, Sunbrain, released three LPs between 1993 and 1996 with zero impact. This second solo album will hopefully fare better. Teaming up with associates of Bright Eyes, Dondero’s tremulous vocals and brisk, gritty blues-folk is similar to Conor Oberst (who guests here on backing vocals). But he’s no pale imitator. With songs as energetic and beautiful as “The Stars Are My Chandelier”, Dondero is clearly in a class of his own.

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Taking a portable studio packed into two suitcases on the road, Bryan Adams recorded these 11 songs in different hotel rooms around Europe. Unsurprisingly, there’s a restless theme to many of them, such as “Open Road” and the title track (“You could be in Philadelphia, you could even be in Rome”), Adams’ instinctive grasp of classic rock idioms can sound as if he’s doing it by numbers, while his ballads sometimes sound like a poor man’s Rod Stewart. But despite its inherently conservative nature, Room Service is still a better record than you might imagine.