Unlike some music journalists, I'm not hugely sentimental about where I come from. I've worked with people who've been pathologically loyal to the music that comes out of their hometowns, in a way which seemed to contradict their actual taste. Of course, the fact that the musical riches of North Nottinghamshire are pretty skimpy might have something to do with it. Occasionally, though, I do feel the odd pang of loyalty when I hear music from Sheffield. It's the city closest to where I grew up and, in fact, the place where I was born. I felt it the other day when I was reading something about Richard Hawley, where he talked about Jessop's hospital being knocked down, and how his mother had worked there for 27 years. I was born there, as it happens, and though my memories of the place are hardly substantial, it did strike a small nerve. Hawley is good at that. In fact, listening to "Lady's Bridge", his new album, it occurs to me that he constructs a faded picture of Sheffield that's so compelling, it can provoke a sense of false nostalgia in anyone who hears it. A lot of the names and territories he describes are alien to me, too; the cultural meaning of Coles Corner is probably, I think, more relevant to my parents than to me. But it's his evocation of a past - imbuing industrial South Yorkshire in the '50s and '60s with an Americanised, mythological sheen - that's so seductive. "Lady's Bridge" is no radical departure from Hawley's previous solo albums but, if anything, it's rooted even more firmly in a glittery dream of Sheffield's past. "Tonight The Streets Are Ours" is a fantastic song; like many of Hawley's best, it sounds like the music Morrissey should be making now, instead of the arthritic attempts at rock relevance that have padded out his last two solo albums. Hawley doesn't bother with relevance, as a cursory listen to the backing vocals to "Tonight The Streets Are Ours" (cooing, schmaltzy, reminiscent of The Ladybirds, perhaps) will attest. For much of the time, his music fits his pose. The Beatles are yet to release a single. Rock'n'roll may have burned itself out. Corned beef is a strong possibility for tea. Hawley is so good at this, though, as his guitar twangs discreetly and his big, crusted voice fills out the sound, that he gets away with it every time. Romance seeps out of every one of his lovely melodies, sometimes inadvertently. "Dark Road" finds him in Johnny Cash mode (or perhaps Lee Marvin; there's a big "Wanderin' Star" echo here), the lonesome drifter looking for a place he can call home. It's so wholehearted, so meticulous, it kind of transcends corniness. On "The Sea Calls", his wandering aesthetic becomes even stronger (Uncut's Paul Moody points out, very wisely, how much he sounds like Fred Neil on this one). Here, though, the music stretches out of focus. There's a tingling, cavernous feel to the production that recalls "Strangeways Here We Come" ("I Won't Share You"), which expands into a sort of reverberant ambience. If not exactly modern-sounding, then certainly out of time. As if Hawley, lost '50s lover, is stuck in limbo, trying to find his way back home. Quite lovely.

No more quotes from Yeats landed in the comments box today, sadly, but there is a pretty interesting discussion about Super Furry Animals over by the "Hey Venus" blog. I thought Vince, especially, deserved a response to this question: "No one who has listened to it has mentioned if there is any of the 'strangeness' factor in it; one of my personal reasons for loving the group. Is there none?" I haven't played the record for a couple of days, but from memory there isn't much that could be described as "strange" - a bit of a nebulous quantity, obviously, but I get his gist. In fact, maybe the lack of "strangeness" is the key reason why I find "Hey Venus" vaguely disappointing. The Super Furry Animals' knack for writing nagging, memorable pop tunes is certainly there, but they don't stretch those hooks into the more adventurous shapes that you find in their best records. I'll play it again, and see. One thing I can fairly confidently call strange is the first single from Effi Briest. I was drawn to this one after reading something in the NME this afternoon that featured them alongside disparate Wild Mercury Sound favourites Howlin' Rain (new album due soon, excitingly) and Pissed Jeans. Effi Briest don't sound much like either of those two, but I can just about buy the idea of them as, ahem, "flower punk". Essentially, they're a largely female bunch from Brooklyn who've managed to hybridise the prevailing strains of art/dance/post-punk and something weirder, more tribal and hippyish. Tremendously fashionable, clearly, and you could plausibly place them as a more commercially viable, linear manifestation of that Gang Gang Dance, Black Dice, maybe even Animal Collective (I'll write about their new album soon, too) scene. It's good, anyway. One song consists entirely of palindromes (apparently: I am copying this from the press release and am too busy to check. There's a job for the weekend). Another is a great cover of "The Newlywed Song" by Jim Pepper, whose work I've only previously encountered when I became obsessed with the song "Witchi Tai To" and discovered that his version was the first version. I spent a long stupid night downloading every version of the song, starting with great ones by Harper's Bizarre and Future Pilot AKA, taking in a lusty Quebecois version and finally grinding to a halt with an ambient techno treatment by Pal Waketaar out of A-Ha. But, God, I digress. Here's their Myspace