With Tricky, David Holmes, Bond man David Arnold and Queens Of The Stone Age's Mark Lanegan lining up to hail Topley Bird's coming-out party, the lady's credentials aren't in doubt. The mystery gal of trip hop acquits herself admirably, summoning the damaged frazzle of Macy Gray on "Lying" and rejoicing in the flighty funk and sizzling strings of the Holmes-directed "Too Tough To Die". Impressive, but she may have been better served with an album that concentrated her talents. An overload of genre hopping and exotic finery swamps whatever attracted all the heavyweight talent to her in the first place.

James Rutledge?aka Pedro?will soon be ubiquitous. Alongside stints with Twisted Nerve's D.O.T., he's collaborated with The Pastels and Kevin Shields on the soundtrack for The Last Great Wilderness. Pedro?a name inspired by the lead character in Alex Cox's 1992 movie Highway Patrolman?asserts his programming talents with authority. A backbone of hip hop beats and stuttering electro map out rustic guitar pickings, flailing jazz and even sweeping classical flourishes. Rutledge's dextrous electronic patchwork can be masterful, though his melodic direction needs a sturdier anchoring. A name, however, to be conjured with.

LSK

Garage aficionados may find it hard to dislike a band with a keyboardist called Age Of Danger, and this third album by The Deadly Snakes amply repays the hunch. A rattling sextet from Toronto, the Snakes go for a fuller and more soulful sound than the bony minimalism of their Detroit brethren. It's a neat move: Ode To Joy swings from keg-party japes to tongue-in-cheek testifying and variously recalls The Animals, Panther Burns and Rocket From The Crypt without ever sounding too crippled by its antecedents.

Jason Pierce may have been the architect but Spiritualized guitarist Mark Refoy was the labourer who gave 1992's Laser Guided Melodies its luminous sparkle. A decade on, Transcendental finds him still floating amid Velvet Underground crescendos and twinkling, richly romantic space rock ("Everything And Anything"). Graphic novel guru Alan Moore also makes a surprising cameo, reciting Edmund Blunden's poem "Clare's Ghost". A far-flung branch on the Spacemen 3/Spiritualized family tree definitely worth investigating.

He's renowned as one of the kings of the punk rock riff but, even before he joined the Buzzcocks back in 1976, Diggle was a fully-paid-up scooter boy. The evidence is here?12 tracks of Rickenbacker power chords, folky acoustics and choruses that duck-walk down Carnaby Street like a wind-up Paul Weller doll. "Something In Your Mind" alone proves Diggle is a gifted songwriter with passions that can't be sated within the Buzzcocks' punk-pop remit, making this an entirely creditable solo diversion.

With a band called The Warlocks and track titles including "Shake The Dope Out", and "The Dope Feels Good", it would appear that Phoenix is an album that's been made under the influence of some pretty effective narcotics. The follow-up to 2001's debut Rise And Fall, the seven-strong collective occupy the same sonic territory as The Dandy Warhols' underrated Come Down. Hazy guitars sprawl lazily over 10 tracks and 64 minutes, accompanied by two heavy drum kits and Bobby Hecksher's cryptic vocals. While "Hurricane Heart Attack" has the Spacemen 3 angle licked, "Baby Blue" is the surprise highlight, a gorgeous, twinkling pop song reminiscent of Air's "Sexy Boy".

Luke steele may be a troubled young man?alcoholism, rescue by newfound religious belief, sibling separation and the recent death of a close friend all figure on his existential CV?but you'd never guess it from his songs. As the lynchpin of Perth four-piece The Sleepy Jackson, the 23-year-old Australian sails as close to psychedelic, sun-struck pop perfection as is possible without actually being Brian Wilson. The band's self-titled mini album from earlier this year sets out their stall with its winning blend of battered nu-country and dreamy pop melodicism, but Lovers offers something more enticing still. Here, George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin and Dylan's Blonde On Blonde are each tapped for their essence, which Steele then filters through a heritage far closer to his heart?specifically, the music of The Triffids and The Go-Betweens. The idea of geography as a creative spur is a dodgy one, but something?the relative isolation of Australia's west coast, possibly?has enabled Steele to absorb influences without being beholden to them. Consequently, although he cherry picks from unexpected, oddly mixed sources?both Springsteen and Lou Reed on the hammering "Vampire Racecourse", Lennon/Ono and Bacharach on the soaring "Don't You Know"?Lovers is much more than pastiche. It's a sun-dappled, idiosyncratic delight, flooded with warmth and vitality, yet weighted by an undefinable sadness. Even the honky-tonk "Miniskirt" (one of two tracks here pulled from their earlier record), which reads like a simple ode to the joys of minimal dress, sounds a faintly disturbing note?"the pretty ones seem to get fucked up all the time". The use of massed choirs (for the most part, heavy on the ba-ba-bahs), a plaintive child's voice (on "Morning Bird") and ripples of lachrymose pedal-steel guitar complete the feeling of dark clouds that threaten to cross the sun. It's easy to romanticise about music from far-off continents, but The Sleepy Jackson's muse is dreamy and distinctive, their Lovers a star-crossed triumph.

They say youth is wasted on the young. Nobody better tell the Kings Of Leon that because the only thing that's wasted on their debut album is the sound. The brilliantly titled Youth And Young Manhood is the kind of life-affirming, slack-strung Gibson SG, four-to-the-floor sonic blitz that makes you want to chain-smoke full-strength Chesterfields chased with lids of Hawaiian while swigging a quart of Jim by the neck and taking all the most agreeable housewives in the vicinity to stud. This Tennessee-based band are the three brothers Caleb, Jared and Nathan Followill plus cousin Matthew (also Followill), two of'em too young to take a drink in their home burgh of Mt Juliet, TN. With Ethan Johns (Ryan Adams fella) at the controls, the Kings hit the ground at full tilt on "Red Morning Light", throwing out shards of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Creedence, Dylan, Lou Reed and Beau Brummel Sal Valentino via Caleb's gloriously rich and earthy vocal. They don't let up until "Holy Roller Novocaine", wherein some approximation of Stephen King's Walking Dude takes you to the mountain top. Evangelical, darkly proselytising but never redneck, the Kings Of Leon (named after their Pentecostal paw) whip and strut their twin rhythm and lead guitars with Stones-like flair on "Happy Alone"?all high-heeled sleaze and Montana number plate, go country casual over "Joe's Head" and get Econoline road fever on "California Waiting" and the cranked-up "Spiral Staircase", which shoves all those tattooed jock rock assholes into a dumper truck. Get your wallet out.

Alongside her tenure with Catherine Irwin in Freakwater, Janet Beveridge Bean is also known as singer/drummer of the equally celebrated Eleventh Dream Day with partner Rick Rizzo. Dragging Wonder Lake pools a collective of like-minds both old and new (pedal-steeler Jon Spiegel; ex-EDD'er and Tortoise/For Carnation's Doug McCombs; backing vocalist Kelly Hogan) and was recorded by the ubiquitous John McEntire in seven days. Whether peeping out from behind clouds of piano-led jazz smoke (Neil Young's "Soldier"), skittering like a pooch on linoleum ("Cutters, Dealers, Cheaters") or leading from the front (ballsy rocker "My Little Brigadoon"), Bean's voice is never less than emotively suspenseful.

One of the delights of Susheela Raman's Mercury Prize-shortlisted Salt Rain was its playfulness, as she proclaimed that world music can be fun by joyously sandwiching a Jungle Book tune between ancient Indian devotional songs. She's done it again on the follow-up. The title track sounds like the Pink Panther theme tune remade in Bollywood, and her pop credentials are further paraded on a gorgeous version of Joan Armatrading's "Save Me". Yet there's still a plentiful supply of serious musicality and spiritual Indian vibes to satisfy the purists as well. A record to put a smile on your face?of the cosmic variety, of course.

Swamp rock? Forget Credence Clearwater Revival. Nice middle-class boys from California, down to their snakeskin boots. Tony Joe White has been the real deal for more than 30 years, part Cherokee and straight out of the Louisiana bayou. His first album since 1998 finds him smouldering pretty much as he has since "Polk Salad Annie", and the chooglin' guitars, steamy Southern beats and lyrics about rattlesnakes are as primordial as the swamp itself.

There are few strains of dance music currently less fashionable than 'downtempo', dance aficionados choosing harsher, '80s-influenced sounds over the warm allure of bedtime beats and breaks. A Special Album is a good indication of where things have gone wrong. The anonymous nature of Erlend "Ralph Myerz" Sellevold's music is made worse by the fact that the musicians he utilises are obviously talented but sorely let down by the 'car ad' nature of their surroundings. Whispered female vocals, jazz organ and moody shuffles abound, but it's all too tasteful to provoke much more than a shrug.

Crescent

THE SLAUGHTER RULE SOUNDTRACK

Certain rarely-heard names, such as Jo Jo Gunne or Atomic Rooster, are guaranteed to induce a nostalgia rush in men of a certain age. The fact that such '70s semi-stars aren't acknowledged 'greats' makes their very mention all the more bittersweet. In a good way. Cherry Red, who I think I must avoid meeting at all costs if I'm not to turn into a sad spotter babbling on about the hidden joys of Redbone and The Partridge Family, have taken this frisson further and asked Mark Stratford, Bob Stanley and Phil King to compile a themed album, not just of obscure hits from the era but?more insane than that?to evoke the colour, shape and sound of pop life at the time. Magpie is bookended by the voice of silver-tongued smoothie and walking cravat Peter Wyngarde (aka Jason King) and pays homage to a period of space hoppers, hot pants and possibly space hoppers in hot pants. It was a weird phase: the trippy was mainstream, and everyone bought cheap, hastily-bashed-out cover versions?"Hot Hits", "Pick Of The Pops"?by the truckload. In this bargain-bin nirvana you'll find "TV themes, film music, adverts, junkshop pop 70-74" and Don Fardon singing "Belfast Boy" about Georgie Best. The memorable Magpie theme itself was written/recorded by The Murgatroyd Band, who were basically The Spencer Davis Group moonlighting. Alexis Korner's CCS adapted Led Zepp's "Whole Lotta Love" into the still-definitive TOTP theme. "Whatever Happened To You", from The Likely Lads, remains inexplicably poignant, and excerpts from the movies Take A Girl Like You and Loot are brittle and affecting. A pre-fame Elton John hacks out "Spirit In The Sky" for one of those tuppenny covers sets: probably a Pan's People clone adorned the sleeve. This is a purgatory of forgotten fool's gold which slipped through the cracks, and it's cracking. One for sorrow, two for joy.

With the death of bassist Leon Wilkeson during the making of this 30th anniversary album, the Skynryd line-up now includes just three original members. Vocalist Johnny Van Zant keeps his brother's legacy alive on raw-throated redneck anthems like "Red, White And Blue". But it's just one of many examples of a slightly sad, shamelessly stuck-in-the-mud approach. The ham heroics of the music and the credentials-obsessed lyrics are well beyond parody. The stench of too many nights on the sour mash, dreaming of Confederate glory, looms large.

Never underestimate hip hop's powers of transformation. Daniel Dumile began his rapping career as Zev Love X in militant New Yorkers KMD before donning a metal mask and becoming MF Doom, a comic book villain on the mic. This time out, his sci-fi fixation is stretched further still: King Geedorah is a giant alien lizard with three heads, sharing thoughtful observations of humanity. Inevitably, a few samples from Japanese monster movies fill out Take Me To Your Leader. But it's more profound and personal than the schtick suggests, as Geedorah meditates on race, violence and sundry mortal iniquities over melancholy, RZA-style soul-jazz samples. Oddly moving.

We don't hear much about the Asian underground these days. Those associated with it seem either to have been dropped, like Talvin Singh, or have moved increasingly overground, like Nitin Sawhney. Human is his most commercial album to date and owes as much to contemporary urban R&B as his Asian background. More song-based than previous albums, the range of voices (Sawhney doesn't sing) is broad, from the pop stylings of Jacob Golden and Aqualung's Matt Hayles to the Asian delivery of Natacha Atlas and Jayanta Bose. It's all highly impressive. Yet somehow it still sounds like the kind of album that wins awards rather than hearts.