As 50 per cent of Smith & Mighty, he was?along with Massive Attack and Portishead?responsible for 'the Bristol sound', a brooding blend of hip hop-primed beats and noir-ish, textured soundscapes. Smith is a pioneer of what later became trip hop, but his solo effort is much more than the coffee-table accessory that might suggest. Its roots lie in dub, drum'n'bass and ragga, encompassing both the smoothly urgent, deep house of "Living In Unity" and "Great Escape", where measured orchestral sweetness seeps through a monstrously baffled bass.

It's finally time to forget if not forgive that hideous voicebox on "Show Me The Way". Now a resident of Cincinnati, Peter Frampton has made a self-produced album of roots-based, gimmick-free American-influenced rock. From the lovely minor chord acoustics of "Not Forgotten" to the blues shuffle of "Flying Without Wings" via the lo-fi lullaby of "Mia Rose", the tone is warm and engaging. Even the version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" can be excused?George was an old friend, and Frampton played on All Things Must Pass. Mind you, it's still salutary to remember that punk's annus mirabilis was also the year in which we somehow bought 16 million copies of Frampton Comes Alive.

Possibly reacting against his deification by the new garage rock elite, Billy Childish seems to have slowed down his work rate of late. Roughly a hundred albums into his career, 1914 is only his first of 2003, though the time away seems to have been spent cultivating his moustache rather than plotting any vast aesthetic shift. Twelve tracks of the same old crotchety, valve-driven rock'n'roll, then, often with the same old tunes (the everfaithful "Troubled Mind" crops up this time as "All My Feelings Denied"). The hit rate isn't quite as high as last year's essential Steady The Buffs. But still, Childish's memorials to teenage girlfriends, and his tireless efforts to expose the modern world as an iniquitous sham ("Hedge strimmers are bogus!"), mark him out as one of Britain's most energetic and cherishable nostalgists.

Frustrated after failed business negotiations pushed the release of their American Whip album back into 2004, boy-girl duo Joy Zipper entered a New York studio with indie legend Kramer (Shimmydisc proprietor, producer of Galaxie 500 and many others) and knocked out this 21-minute mini album in a couple of days. Gratifyingly, their bad feelings didn't erupt into a maelstrom of punky catharsis. Rather, they've produced a chugging, grungey three-chord pop of rare intimacy and warmth. Of the six tracks here, two ("Gun Control" and "Check Out My New Jesus") are reworkings of old songs, the other four being split between Vincent Cafiso and Tabitha Tindale. All of them are marked by a brave, embattled innocence.

Guess something's going right in rock's resurrection when we can cite reference points like The Gun Club and Crime & The City Solution without being dragged out to the paddock and shot. As The Duke Spirit are a London five-piece with a female frontperson in Liela Moss, these comparisons highlight their willingness to delve beneath the predictable: co-produced by Simon Raymonde, who we're legally obliged to describe as "former Cocteau Twin", this six-track debut mini album isn't afraid to let a mood build, a groove grind up and down, a darkness descend. Echoing, scrawling white blues, with plenty of messed-up love, crystal-clear hate, whisky rants and horny demons.

As DJ Spooky, Paul D Miller has helped elevate the status of the turntable from humble DJ tool to an instrument in its own right. His scratch skills may be dazzling, but he's equally drawn to John Cage and Sun Ra as Kool Herc, Prince Paul and Grandmaster Flash. An almost academic approach to slipmat arts has seen him work with everyone from Scanner to Thurston Moore, but here his collaboration with producer Ryan Moore (aka Twilight Circus) results in the anchoring of the former's darkly textured atmospherics by the latter's deep, rootsy dub. It's potent, postmodern magic.

A genuine treasure, Sad Songs... is one of those records that seem to drop out of the sky into your lap to become an instant obsession. It begins with "Cardinal"?autumnal chords and a hazy, strung-out ambience (like Lambchop's Nixon espousing a drifting, eternal grief instead of domestic bliss); a nicotine-burnished voice dispensing harsh advice with epic resignation: "Never look her in the eyes/Never tell the truth/If she knows you're paper/You know she'll have to burn you/Never tell the one you want that you do/Save it for the deathbed/When you know you kept her wanting you. "It's going to be a long, dark night of embattled, bittersweet soul. "Slipping Husband" musters the self-lacerating machismo of Afghan Whigs' "Gentlemen" ("You could have been a legend/But you became a father"); the unbearably aching "90-Mile Water Trail" finds a violent lover captivated by the "target of these hands": "How could your hair have the nerve to dance around like that, blowin'?/How could the air have the nerve to blow your hair around like that?" No one has written the uneasy poetry of self-disgust with such brutality since Mark Eitzel at his best. Singer Matt Berninger must either have some imagination or one hell of a bruised heart. The musicianship lifts Sad Songs... even further into the realm of the extraordinary. Brothers Aaron (who also plays bass) and Bryce Dessner are as capable of Sonic Youth discord as subtle, perfectly judged shading and Padma Newsome (whose superior avant-classical/post-rock group Clogs released a criminally overlooked record this year) contributes some wild, real gone violin. Livid as a bruise, this is brave, desperate and desperately beautiful music.

For his 15th album, Ely took a bunch of human-drama newspaper clippings and decided to weave a short story collection where the protagonists' defining thread is escape: from the past, present, themselves. And it works a treat. Ely's twang is the sonic thread binding these lost souls to the earth, while the brawny guitars of longtime cohorts David Grissom and Rob Gjersoe provide unfussy ballast, and fellow Flatlander Butch Hancock gets two writing credits. "A Flood On Our Hands" and "That's Why I Love You Like I Do" tap into the same classic Ely balladry as 1978's Honky Tonk Masquerade.

The idea of three Brooklyn scenesters making overdriven Appalachian folk is so preposterous as to be quite appealing?if nothing else, it ridicules the cult of authenticity that continues to dog 'roots' music. Stitches operates at a fractionally less deranged speed than The Boggs' 2002 debut, but still resembles the early Pogues had the latter studied Harry Smith's Anthology Of American Folk Music rather than their Irish heritage. Jason Friedman sings as if he has a mouthful of loose teeth, but his songwriting is definitely improving. A clutch of the songs here?notably ruminatory single "The Ark"?are memorable for more than the impious way they attack tradition.

Lyrics Born is one of the founding members of the Californian hip hop brotherhood who trade collectively under the Quannum logo and who spent the late 1990s trying to make hip hop a little more wholesome. They weren't entirely successful, even if they did release a couple of decent singles. Later That Day is Lyrics Born's first solo attempt at righting the world of rap, but it simply underlines that in hip hop the devil really has all the best tunes. Where the best hip hop is fresh and inventive, this is a painfully self-conscious and retro set. There are so many stylistic nods to the early days of hip hop that it's like a rap version of Ocean Colour Scene, and it seems Lyrics Born has nothing to say beyond drippy hippie platitudes. As relevant to modern urban living as tweed.

The Creatures project always gave Budgie a chance to shine and this, based on a fearsomely powerful session he shared with Taiko drum master Leonard Eto, is no exception. He dominates the opening part of the album with his savage beats, Siouxsie relegated to the odd "Yeah!" and "Hai!" Thankfully, they're careful not to enter Cozy Powell territory, and soon they're blending traditional Japanese instrumentation with minimalist industrial atmospheres to create the breathy erotica of "Tourniquet", the spectral, fatalistic "Further Nearer" and the twee, purposefully comic "Godzilla". It certainly won't be everyone's cup of green tea, but Budgie is outstanding here, with Siouxsie occasionally matching him.

There's enough about the 22-20s to make you want to hate them before hearing them. Fresh-faced ex-public schoolboys signed on the back of a three-track demo after an intense bidding war, and whose seven-track debut live (!) album ends on a cover of Slim Harpo's "King Bee". Oh goodness, let us count the ways... except, this is quite excellent stuff. Recorded at various venues earlier this year, this mini feast unveils a trio whose love of groovy 1960s Chess blues has been reflected through the metallic, grey lens of their upbringing in lonely Lincoln. Singer/guitarist Martin Trimble writes songs of a singeing romantic vindictiveness (witness the acid bite of "Such A Fool" and "22 Days") and the rhythm section of drummer James Irving and bassist Glen Bartup power things along with the repetitive swing of Hendrix's Experience. We await their studio debut with some anticipation.

Matt Hales, assisted by his TV actress wife, his brother, and co-producer Jacknife Lee, follows up his so-so top-selling Volkswagen-ad-boosted debut with?crikey!?an absolute corker. "Brighter Than Sunshine" is an extraordinarily euphoric, exquisite song which would bring a statue to tears of happiness: there hasn't been a better believe-in-the-healing-power-of-love ballad this year, even from the hand of Ed Harcourt. The remaining songs-crafted, clever, cut-glass-can't match it, but the embrace of "Easier To Lie" and the pathos of "Good Goodnight" come impressively close. Far from the one-hit wonder we thought, Aqualung could?even if marketed as the new Coldplay?be the next Burt Bacharach.

Gentle as petals and confetti, this. Clearly enamoured with all things 1960s?symphonic pop, girl singers, movie soundtracks and Ossie Clark floral print dresses, that end of the market?Isobel Campbell's string-laden first record under her own name makes for breezy easy listening. Not a million miles away from her work with Belle And Sebastian and The Gentle Waves, it's saved from twee tedium by Campbell's sumptuous orchestrations and sly wit. You'll find it impossible not to fall for the swooning strings and haunting, widescreen melancholia of "There Is No Greater Gold", for instance, or the chi-chi charm of "Johnny Come Home". Quite beautiful.

With a penchant for Julia Roberts, Savile Row suits and quarter horse studs, it's easy to see how Lyle Lovett won his reputation as a suave country stylist. You might not picture Lyle at the Battle of the Alamo but he's definitely officer material. My Baby Don't Tolerate is a great set of songs that may prove as resilient as his superb mid-'90s album Joshua Judges Ruth. The jazzy arrangements and sophisticated back-up (including ace musos like guitarist Dean Parks and pianist Matt Rollings) give western swinging "San Antonio Girl" a Steely Dan-like sheen, and Lyle's love for southern gospel means that "I'm Going To The Place" takes the album out on a nat'ral high. Cool, considered lyrics and Lovett's cultured croon are a given. Hank never done it this way.

After a misfiring foray into dance music on the first Twilight Singers album three years ago, Blackberry Belle finds Greg Dulli on surer ground. This time, the musicians he employs are happiest recreating the expansive grunge-soul sound of the Whigs, so that the likes of "Teenage Wristband" (featuring sometime Prince muse Apollonia Kotero) wouldn't sound too out of place on that band's Black Love. Dulli remains a compelling frontman?all male hurt and conspicuous strain?but his songwriting can be a bit thin these days, juggling atmospherics and crescendos in a rather predictable fashion. The arrival of Mark Lanegan as guest vocalist on the highlight, "Number Nine", is providential; maybe Queens Of The Stone Age could revitalise Dulli's career, too?

Of course, the album every true Ryanista wants to hear is Love Is Hell, which Lost Highway famously refused to release. According to Ryan, they thought it was too dark and depressing to put out as the official follow-up to Gold and it will now apparently surface as two EPs?or whatever the CD equivalent is. Meanwhile, here's Rock'n'Roll, perhaps the most inappropriately-titled album since The Best Of Sting. If this quite unnecessary record was full of the kind of rock'n'roll that inspired Ryan in Whiskeytown (the Burritos and Replacements to the fore), it would have had something major going for it. Alas and fucking alack, however, a better title would have been Heavy Metal Power Pop or Eighties Radio Rock Regrettably Revisited. Produced with brutal insensitivity by Jim Barber, Rock'n'Roll is awash with echoes of '80s stadium rock?The Police, U2, Simple Minds. Blustery guitar anthems, that is, alongside chunks of endless boogie riffing that leaves this listener, at least, baffled and disappointed. I don't know if Ryan recorded this with a gun to his head, but he certainly sounds like he's under some duress. How else to explain the fraught atmosphere surrounding barely-written songs like "She's Lost Total Control" and the crude "Do Miss America"? And what's with all the shouting? Adams has one of the most sweetly wracked voices in contemporary music and for anyone who'd plump every time for the likes of "Oh My Sweet Carolina" over a pouty Stones pastiche like "Tina Toledo's Street Walking Blues", sadly large swathes of Rock'n'Roll are largely unlistenable, Ryan sounding like he's swallowed a foghorn on the brash, Oasis-derived "Shallow", Alice Cooper with his tongue in a knot on "1974" and self-pitying ninny on "Anybody Wanna Take Me Home?" The entire album is, in fact, so steeped in a sort of shellsuit musical naffness, you half expect Stuart Maconie to pop up to regale us with some pointless frivolity, as he does on those listy TV pop shows about crap music to which Rock'n'Roll sounds like a perfect soundtrack. The only exception to the album's dull-witted bombast is the title track, a beautiful piano-led ballad. At less than two minutes, it's less a song than a musical haiku, but for all its brevity has more to recommend it than the other 13 tracks combined. In the end, Rock'n'Roll does neither, merely stands there sounding gormless. Way to fucking go, Wonder Boy.