One suspects, frankly, that fans of the diffident lower-case furrow ploughed by introspective boy-girl combos ever since Fraser and Guthrie first sculpted with powdered sugar and Hope Sandoval whipped her minions to attention will happily buy this noise by the filmy yard. Londoners Clive Painter (honeyed guitars) and Martine Roberts (breathily sotto voce) have always met audience expectations, but their fifth outing as Broken Dog sees them surpass their dreamy brief with shy aplomb, undercutting lassitude with uneasiniess (“I’ll Think Of It Today”), icy starlight with scratchy dissonance (“Alone With A Pounding Heart”) and, in the full-blooded swell of “Waiting For Something Big”, a glorious glimpse of May sunshine through those wistful, wintry skies.

Now Zach Shipps calls himself The Colonel in Electric Six, his exes, Chris Plum and Brendan Benson, are revitalised. Exuding the cordite whiff of their Detroit base, they appreciate a retro lick or four, and could be the missing link between The Flaming Lips and The Kinks. Plum and Benson make a great double act, whether lyrically, vocally or instrumentally. If you like hardcore with hooks, they’ll liven up your personal space.

Don’t be fooled by the mimsy name. The Speaking Canaries are a muscular Pittsburgh rock band built around vocalist/guitarist Damon Che, best known for his work with Don Caballero. Che’s reputation is built on complex math-rock?ostensibly hardcore mutilated by constant time changes. Here, though, his tendency to elaborate is sublimated by a greater desire to rock, resulting in some mighty FM anthems. The Fucking Champs and Trans Am have been attempting a similarly amped-up evolution of math-rock for years. But unlike those two bands, The Speaking Canaries never sound gimmicky or overly pleased with their subversiveness. A surprisingly straightforward, big-hearted record that only betrays one snarky indie in-joke?a track called “Song On A Record You Can’t Get”.

Heavy rock: Music made by the intellectually challenged for 13-year-olds. To be sung as if your nads are in the process of dropping. It’s funny: finally people have realised this, chuckling ‘ironically’ as they buy Darkness records and now enjoy the broad comic strokes of School Of Rock, which is directed by the highly unlikely figure of Richard Linklater. It’s set alight, however, by the highly broad figure of Jack Black, a man who can’t help but be funny in everything he does. Someone’s evidently decided that his sidebar in the High Fidelity movie as a gurning air guitarist should be extended into a feature and, drawing on experiences and expertise gathered from his own rock/comedy offshoot Tenacious D, he launches a headbanging assault on good taste.

Try describing this album without saying: “It rocks.” Even Led Zeppelin, not known for flinging their classics at movie producers more than once a decade, have allowed?after a special filmed appeal from Black?the use of “Immigrant Song”. There are hoary old chestnuts aplenty: The Who’s “Substitute”, Cream’s “Sunshine Of Your Love”, The Doors’ “Touch Me”. Stevie Nicks’ “Edge Of Seventeen” reminds you where the intro to Destiny’s Child’s “Bootylicious” came from, and The Darkness inevitably chime in with “Growing On Me”. Garage blues revivalists The Black Keys represent ‘modern’ times; The Ramones reckon “My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down”. Less exuberant are the karaoke versions of “TV Eye” by Wylde Rattz (originally from Velvet Goldmine) and of AC/DC’s “It’s A Long Way To The Top” by Black and the cast. These merely serve to advertise the fact that the originals weren’t for whoring. As for ‘dialogue excerpts’: who needs ’em?

Still, any record featuring T. Rex’s “Ballrooms Of Mars” undoubtedly has its lizard-leather boots on and its diamond hands stacked with roses when the moon sings. Now that’s an education.

From the intriguing Fran McDormand movie which?as one of its few flaws?suggested Britpop could flourish in LA, an eclectic, rather excellent collection. Whether we needed actor Alessandro Nivola to team up with Lou Barlow on two tracks is debatable, but around them you’ll find Mercury Rev’s exquisite “In A Funny Way” (one of the best things they’ve done), Butthole Surfers’ wry “Shame Of Life”, Steely Dan, Clinic and Sparklehorse. Not eclectic enough yet? Throw in Eartha Kitt growling “C’est Si Bon” and?again, woo-hah?T. Rex with the supremely groovesome “Planet Queen”. You’ll kick back by the pool with a long cool one. Or you’ll wish you were.

Produced by T. Bone Burnett, and an essential purchase for White Stripes devotees as Jack White gives five brand new performances. By “brand new”, we mean four of them are traditional, like “Sittin’ On Top Of The World” and “Christmas Time Will Soon Be Over”, interpreted by he of the tight trousers and eye for Ren

Previously only on import, this now gets a British release, because 80 per cent of the UK proletariat like singing along to: “And the dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had.” Especially during festive periods. And fair play to them, eh readers? Apparently reprints of Camus and Kafka are now outselling beer, and Lou Reed’s “Berlin” is widely tipped for next year’s Christmas No 1. A mad world, and no mistake. Michael Andrews’ soundtrack is chiefly instrumental, dark and wilfully weird. I’d advise you to get the genuinely good Gary Jules album instead (the guy sings with gorgeous melancholy) if I didn’t think it would be a betrayal of this page.

Welcome back to the car crash that never ends: Courtney Love, Dowager Duchess Of Grunge, has stopped overdosing for long enough to record a new album. The title is so heavy with irony, it’s beyond irony.

Nearly six years after Celebrity Skin, La Love returns with a collection that’s just as brash, slick, jaded and hollow as that final Hole offering. America’s Sweetheart is petulant and self-pitying. Worse, it’s self-righteous. Worse still, it’s musically crass. One leaden guitar chord succeeds another as uncourtly Courtney sneers and rages through her songs of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll?the three most boring subjects in the world.

“They say that rock’n’roll is dead/And they’re probably right,” Love dribbles on the opening “Mono”?the single or lead track or whatever they call it these days. All one can say is that formula punk-metal-pop like “Mono” hardly helps in the resuscitation efforts. In her head, Courtney probably thinks she’s Darby Crash meets Peaches?make that Siouxsie Sioux meets GG Allin?but the dame can’t hold a candle to lady-punks like Sleater-Kinney, who consistently conjure up clich

Guitarist and singer/songwriter Corey Harris hosted the first episode of the PBS TV series Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues, exploring the links between deep southern sounds and their links to Africa. His new album does much the same thing at leisure, fusing West African rhythms to the acoustic blues of black American country terrain.

Assisted by traditionalists like Sam Carr, Ali Farka Toure and the drumming master Souleyman Kane, Harris is working in a field that could appeal to lovers of Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal. Indeed, “Catfish Blues” and “Mr Turner” are forged in honour of their cultural clashes. An admirable companion piece to Corey’s 2002 disc Downhome Sophisticate, this album should soon resonate through European concert halls. Good stuff.

Although he’s been in and out of the band due to his drug problems, and was a latecomer anyway, John Frusciante has frequently been at the heart of most that is interesting about the Red Hot Chili Peppers. His latest solo outing is full of surprising songs with some cracking tunes that step far outside the punk-funk-grunge-metal formula of the Chili Peppers. “Song To Sing When I’m Lonely” sounds more like R.E.M., “Regret” could be a Coldplay B-side, and “Wednesday’s Song” has a touch of Stephen Malkmus. He can’t decide if he’s a sonic terrorist or a wistful troubadour, and he’s not much of a singer, which he vainly attempts to disguise with a range of studio effects. But despite such limitations, people win out over the shadows on a surprisingly likeable collection.

Prolific to the point of exhaustion, John Darnielle is sometime care worker, gonzo rock critic and fanzine publisher while also leading an outfit who’ve now released 12 albums in little over eight years. Mountain Goats records?despite featuring such unlikely collaborators as the Bright Mountain Choir?have essentially served as DIY solo vehicles. Despite 2002’s boozesoaked Tallahassee shunting production values up a notch, the sentiment (or lack of) remained the same. Darnielle’s bedrock is the written word: barbed, spiteful and bristling with thorns or alarmingly blunt, snapping life into focus.

We Shall All Be Healed?inspired by Darnielle’s one-time social circle?swaps alcoholism for junkiedom. If Tallahassee was The Days Of Wine And Roses, this is Last Exit To Brooklyn. In fact, though humour-streaked it may be, Hubert Selby Jr looks like Enid Blyton by comparison. The tunes, too?full band in tow, including longtime cohort Peter Hughes?are fittingly scabrous. Roky Erickson’s influence is obvious on the spitting “Palmcorder Yajna” and “Home Again Garden Grove”‘s chickenwire rasp. Unsurprising given Darnielle’s penning of sleevenotes for Roky’s remarkably similar Never Say Goodbye.

But it’s not all so cut and dry. Often, the music?as on “Your Belgian Things” or “Mole” (the latter a spine-shivering visit to a friend handcuffed to an intensive care bed)?is sweet, black and subtle: downcast piano, small skips of guitar, plops of violin. Darnielle’s ugly-urgent voice is expressive too?a nasally folk bleat (forgive the pun) somewhere ‘twixt Erickson and Phil Ochs. “Linda Blair Was Born Innocent” opens like an old Open University theme before, with strings and softly chugging guitar, it blooms like a dark orchid, while “All Up The Seething Coast” is just gorgeous: lightly powdered acoustic, spoken words and bassy rumble. It’s the best thing he’s written.

Despite?or perhaps because of?its viscous air of paranoia, this record is unputdownable.

Their first new material since 1995’s The Real Woodstock Festival, New York’s original radicals (the current line-up’s been together nearly 20 years) re-emerge with bile overflowing. Not surprising. Their original manifesto?personal freedom, no more war or poverty and lots of fun?has taken a pasting under Dubya. “Go Down, Congress” is startling in its uncovering of connections between Capitol Hill and Bin Laden, while the epic “Perpitude” (FBI tapping of Lennon) and “Government Surveillance Yodel” capture the indignant paranoia of life under Bush Jr. A highly original, enlightening, profane and inspired affair.

Raiders Of The Lost ARP is the charismatic solo project from Rome’s Mario Pierro. Best known as the tall one in car-boot electro duo Jolly Music, he excels himself here with a seductive album of rich, driving analogue funk and streamlined melodies. The beauty of 4 lies in Pierro’s uncommon ability to extract a wealth of emotion from just a few notes on his synth. At times, as on “City Lights” and “Workflow”, the glossy production evokes the airbrushed perfection of an Athena poster; it’s almost too sentimental. Otherwise, this is immaculate.

Kept alive by loyal Internet-rallied fans, guitarist Marty Willson-Piper’s work ethic and perhaps even a dab of Donnie Darko magic?its soundtrack featured the band’s lone US hit, 1988’s shimmering “Under The Milky Way”?The Church are, against the odds, still a dreamily appealing proposition. Led, as ever, by the lusciously intimate vocals of Steve Kilbey, they’re still essentially serving up an Antipodean franchise of Echo & The Bunnymen’s sweeping neo-psychedelia. And while this album’s best moments?confidently dramatic opener “Sealine”, the shiveringly anthemic “Telepath”, the sweetly elegiac “Maya”?don’t equal their past glories, Sydney appears to be edging out Liverpool in the ageing-gracefully stakes.

Tim Rose’s surly baritone was a suitably scourging late-’60s presence on apocalyptic protest songs such as “Come Away Melinda” and the classic “Morning Dew”, but there were fewer opportunities for prophets of doom in the hedonistic ’70s, and he soon slipped from view.

Cover versions by Nick Cave and Robert Plant revived interest decades later, and Rose made a return to performance in the mid-’90s, recording three more albums before finally succumbing to cancer in 2002, leaving behind the material that comprises Snowed In, a collection of murder ballads (“Hanging Tree”, “Down In The Valley” and a re-recorded “Long Time Man”), loser’s laments (“I Need Saving”, “So Much To Lose”) and reflections on life’s vicissitudes (“Come What May”), some co-written with producer Colin Winston-Fletcher.

Best of all is Winston-Fletcher’s title track, an atmospheric monologue about enforced solitude set to evocative sheets of synthesiser, which makes good use of the grizzled, weatherbeaten tones that had secured Rose voiceover work on ’80s commercials. An intriguing new departure, it was sadly a style discovered too late to affect his career.