Nyles Lannon has evolved three separate projects to enable him to explore his musical interests: song-based slowcore with the band Film School; instrumental glitch as n.Ln; and, as N. Lannon, the territory somewhere in between. Rather than a stylistic no-man's-land, Chemical Friends maps Lannon's natural habitat. His sweetly downbeat tunes and reverbed murmur recall Elliott Smith, but it's the setting of this against programmed beats that sets him apart. Like Simon & Garfunkel reared on Loveless, or perhaps Nick Drake meets Fennesz, but N. Lannon is in a felicitous field of one.

"I WAS AT MY smartest when I was 11," said Matthew Friedberger recently, "and I never really got any smarter." Little wonder, then, that the second album by Friedberger and his long-suffering sister Eleanor often sounds like the work of preternaturally brainy, hyperactive children. Gallowsbird's Bark, their 2003 debut, suggested The Fiery Furnaces were a playful garage-pop band with an unusual surfeit of ideas. Blueberry Boat, however, is an extraordinary leap into the wide blue yonder, where every song contains at least three great pop tunes battling for supremacy. At first, it seems like an epic self-indulgence; Matthew's short attention span played out on a preposterous scale. It lasts 76 minutes, and several songs stretch beyond eight. But the Furnaces rarely stick with a theme beyond 30 seconds. Instead, they build collages where genres are haphazardly stapled together: nursery song, manic carny music, the interlude themes at hockey games, prog, indie rock, Beefheart, The Who, Pavement, crotchety electronica and, frequently, avant-garde sea shanty. Gradually, the Friedbergers' method reveals itself. While their debut was informed by Eleanor's international wandering, Blueberry Boat is the product of Matthew's imaginative crunching together of history books, old maps, the glossary to Moby Dick and a vivid, detailed nonsense vision that's like Edward Lear relocated to Brooklyn. His point, he claims, is to create a history of American travellers. Blueberries are the quintessential American product, and the blueberry boat symbolises cultural imperialism. The Furnaces, though, are too entertainingly impatient to keep their allegories tidy. As the music relentlessly shifts, so Eleanor and Matthew's deadpan duelling vocals trip off on endless digressions: the blueberry boat is attacked by pirates on the South China Sea; European Championship football fixtures confuse American sales reps in a Damascus cyber-cafe; "Little tender-footed crabs meet my knuckleduster." It's a lot to take in. And sometimes, as another brilliant tune ("My Dog Was Lost But Now He's Found", say) flies past with lunatic haste, it seems they can be eccentric to the detriment of their own songs. Persevere, though. What initially resembles a mess slowly crystallises, after six or seven listens, into a polyhedric and endlessly fascinating album: bright, daft, wise, infantile and far more memorable than one would ever have guessed.

When Dave Faulkner and Brad Shepherd, brains and balls of the Hoodoo Gurus, split up five years ago to explore trippy fusion and nugget punk respectively, fans only prayed for this day. A permanent schism? What are the chances? Nil, as Mach Shau?title nicked from The Beatles in Hamburg?proves. Faulkner's super-smart lyrics still here? Check. The consummate golden guitar crank and grind still firing? Check. They blitz through "Sour Grapes", rise and fall anthems like "Girls On Top" and the tear-jerking "Song Of the Year" with renewed grandeur.

Having spent much of the '90s steeped in drum'n'bass as Boymerang, Graham Sutton became disillusioned when the genre got stuck in a cul-de-sac, and has now resuscitated Bark Psychosis, his post-rock group. Codename: Dustsucker will be pleasingly familiar to BP fans, but startling also. The trademark cocoon of limpid, rippling guitar figures and jazzy adornment is buffeted by sharp leftward turns, such as the AR Kane-style catastrophic collapse of guitars on opener "From What Is Said To When It's Read" and the extended squiggle of acid on "Miss Abuse".

By adopting the name Racine, Wendy James undoubtedly hopes to suggest both street smarts (it's apparently the name of the Chicago strip from which Al Capone once ran his empire) and classical poeticism. Sadly, this is a supernaturally banal, bloodless thing, with the 38-year-old affecting the breathy tones of a self-conscious teen over clumsy, programmed beats and DIY melodies. James misses her target of kittenish cool by miles, and her artless lyrics would have her namesake groaning in his grave. The first and last in the series, hopefully.

Trailing yourself as an evolutionary shift in dance music is asking for trouble. But the debut LP from electro-funkers Spektrum is a seductive oddity, blending post-punk and electronica elements with heavily treated disco-pop. Purring multiple, overlapping vocals, Lola Olafisoye sounds like Macy Gray dancing the Charleston to Squarepusher, although the mannered delivery and samey pace pall as Spektrum stray into Moloko or Morcheeba territory. Pleasant, but hardly evolutionary.

This large-scale progressive piece has emerged via Oslo's rambunctious Smalltown Supersound, which has released many CDs by Swedish sax mangler Mats Gustafsson. Nine open-ended improvisations recorded live at an art gallery four years ago are mixed by Jim O'Rourke: the kind of thing that these days tends to test the Youth's 'hardcore' following to the limit. Gustafsson's playing is percussive and textural, but his spit is supremely polished. Meanwhile the Youth party like it's 1985, with the ratcheting and girder-grinding of LPs like EVOL and Sister making a welcome return.

Most 'proving myself' albums?solo efforts by musicians perceived to have 'lucked into' major rock bands ?are tooth-pulling affairs. Charlotte Hatherley, the guitarist roped into Ash in 1998, bucks the trend with a vivacious pop record more indebted to The Breeders or Madder Rose than Ash's bubblegum metal. Grey sparkles with a sassy wit?a Belly-style bouncer about having your guitar nicked by a Spanish one-night-stand is entitled "Bastardo", while "I wanna do/Something that has merit/To it" is gurgled over a peerless hook on "Paragon". Almost makes you fearless of an Alan White solo album.

Well, somebody had do it. And with the outrages being committed by his government in the name of war (and peace) mounting daily, Steve Earle decided to pick up the gauntlet. In the past ("Christmas In Washington") he's invoked the spirit of Woody Guthrie, and here he seizes the activist-rallying mantle. The foolhardy zeal of a reformed addict on 12-step may drive him, but Earle's stance is both vibrant and refreshing. The unashamedly polemical Jerusalem (2002) was the strongest album of his career, a defiant and thought-provoking response to Dubya's America. And, as partisan as his friend Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, ...Revolution continues where its predecessor left off. The opening and closing title track is a riposte to the last album's sour left-wing requiem, "Amerika V 6.0". The Stones/Creedence riffs and cute handclaps aligned to a clarion-call lyric make for a song of defiant purpose and clarity. Continuity is one of Earle's strong suits?the clattering "Home To Houston" has the hapless trucker who hit the "Hillbilly Highway" on his debut (Guitar Town, 1986) on a perilous road out of Basra, "ice water in his veins", vowing never to drive again?if he gets out alive. The rank injustice of the War On Terror is seen from the perspective of both US-bred cannon fodder and a Palestinian-recruited suicide bomber on the wounded but righteous ballad "Rich Man's War". The vernacular punk blitz of "F The CC" is a snarling free-speech tirade, and the non-PC nature of Earle's revolution throbs on "Condi Condi". Lubricated by sleazy Caribbean garage rock, he gets into a froth over US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice's hidden charms. File under justified harassment, possibly. Although an Emmylou duet provides respite, the agit-rock triumph isn't total. There are a few turgid moments, but these are minor quibbles: the heart beats loud and strong and, mostly, Earle's music matches his intent.

Eight years down the line, Ric Menck and Paul Chastain have decided it's time to shred the nerves of power-pop freaks with an album both luminous and agreeably bleak. Aided by guitar wunderkind Adam Schmitt, Stereo Blues bristles with intent from the wondrously down "Rusted Star" to the country-fried "Great To Be Fine". Chastain's depressive vocals and Menck's madcap drumming have few equals, and they apply all their harmonic skills to both the Neil Young-esque "The Connection" and the moody "California Incline". Schmitt's trickery is buried in layers, but this isn't a garage item-it's a classic on the forecourt.

What with the likes of Adem and The Earlies, folk-flavoured 'rock' is enjoying a resurgence. Like the latter, Clayhill are retro-modernists whose enchanting, occasionally rousing songs suggest both an affinity with Americana and a working knowledge of electronica. Which is no less than you would expect from a trio whose line-up boasts Beth Orton sidekick Ted Barnes plus singer Gavin Clark, a onetime member of cult folk-rock group Sunhouse and film director Shane Meadows' regular collaborator. The result is an album that, as "End Refrain" and "Alpha Male" gloriously illustrate, adds a hint of Four Tet's grace to Richard Ashcroft's swagger.

On 2003's Clutch, the veteran singer/songwriter Hammill mused on the ravages of time. With Incoherence, he concerns himself with the multiple difficulties and impossibilities in using words and language to communicate. Musically, the acoustic backdrop of Clutch has been succeeded by sober, drumless electronica. Although the occasional aggressive guitar riff ("Cretans Always Lie") sneaks in, this is an austere but accessible recital. It's noticeable, however, that Hammill's still magnificent voice is most powerful when he abandons language altogether?which probably proves his point that, to express pure emotion, words sometimes aren't necessary.

Why aren't Grand Drive hailed as alt.country heroes? Perhaps it's down to prejudice: that, because they're from south London rather than southern Texas, somehow they're not authentic. On the fourth release from the prolific Wilson brothers, the potent songwriting and fine harmonies remain little changed. But what kicks the album into the grown-up league is the atmospheric production of Malcolm Burn, who produced the last two Emmylou Harris albums. He gives their gentler side a mysterious, shimmering quality and adds a previously missing garage-like conviction to their attempts to rock out. By some way, their best yet.

In the reflected glow of Elephant, the Zep-on-Harleys blues savagery of Lincoln's 22-20s sounded, last year, like Britain was joining Detroit's mission to start rock music from scratch. In Libertine-loving 2004, however, their debut emerges as an anachronism, albeit with a fire in its chest. The likes of "22 Days" and "Devil In Me" exist in a world where only John Lee Hooker and The Stooges have ever made records, while the Afghan Whigs-ish "Shoot Your Gun" is a timely sign of 22-20s' melodic marrow. The blues duly revitalised?next up, Nu Skiffle.

What are Selfish C*** rebelling against? What have you got? If the purpose of Martin Tomlinson and Patrick Constable's music is to provoke reaction, they've succeeded. Thrillingly unpredictable performers whose contemptuous debut single, "Fuck The Poor"/"Britain Is Shit", sold 6000 copies, their no-less controversial album is a bilious broadside that shocks and amuses in equal measure. Risible, compelling, flawed and brilliant, it demands to be heard.

Thanks to Keane, billowing Hollyoaks indie is insanely popular. As such, Embrace have timed their unlikely return to perfection. Following 2001's leaden If You've Never Been, much of their spirited fourth album evokes the lighters-aloft romance of debut single "All You Good, Good People". Furnished with choir and strings, "Ashes", "Someday" and the Chris Martin-penned "Gravity" comprise an opening trio worthy, certainly, of Coldplay. But the record sags?the old, pedestrian Embrace return, and Danny McNamara's mawkish lowing grates?leaving the bombastic salvo of "Near Life" and "Out Of Nothing" to restore credibility. Well; it could've been worse.

On her first collection of original material, Stone tries her hand at a few different genres, including reggae and cramped-sounding uptempo pop. She remains, though, most comfortable in the retro/ nu-soul genre, even if the songs don't always match her singing in quality. Stone's technical prowess is unquestionable, but it's when she holds back?as she does brilliantly on "Spoiled" and the closing "Sleep Like A Child"?that her potential greatness can be glimpsed. Listeners beguiled by last year's The Soul Sessions won't be disappointed, but to be a truly soulful singer she's simply got a lot more living to do.

Another lengthy hiatus, another Blue Nile album. Here Paul Buchanan revisits the same spot on the hillside overlooking the evening city lights, is still filled with the same surging, oblique melancholy and longing that has sustained The Blue Nile since 1984, is still crafting singularly mature MOR in a darker shade of turquoise all his own. This time, however, the overall return feels diminished in effect?"I Would Never", for instance, trespasses dangerously close to U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". Still, purchase of this is mandatory for the tolling, appalling beauty of the opener, "Days Of Our Lives", which must go down as one of the five greatest ever Nilesongs.

Christophers was always more than just another singer-songwriter, if only because of the startling electro production of Faultline's David Kosten on his first two releases. Without Kosten, his third album sounds considerably more orthodox. Here, the emphasis is squarely on Christophers' strange, fallen-choirboy voice and eerie, melancholic songs. His Jeff Buckley-like vocal inflections have become less extreme and the songs less dark: "River Song" and the title track betray a new-found contentment and, despite its title, Christophers sounds positively happy-go-lucky on "Good Day For The Hopeless". It's undeniably beautiful. But those who hoped he might develop that earlier weirdness to become Wolverhampton's answer to Tom Waits will be disappointed.