Album

Neal Casal – Return In Kind

LA's 35-year-old singer/songwriter nearly jacked in the solo stuff last year, so Return In Kind, though a covers record, is something of a reaffirmation. Where Casal has sometimes been victim of a too-perfect voice, here (as in recent work with side project Hazy Malaze) he adds grit to the mix.

The Long Firm – Universal

The Beeb are hoping for a kind of Our Friends In The North success with this 1963-79-spanning Soho crime drama. Its author, Jake Arnott, has written sleevenotes for this 44-song double album, which moves from buoyant '60s hits from James Brown and Dusty to '70s landmarks by T. Rex and The Jam. R Dean Taylor's "There's A Ghost In My House" is exhilarating, Rod Stewart's "Reason To Believe" is moving, and Bowie's "London Boys" is seedily weird.

The Kingsbury Manx – Aztec Discipline

Ethereal North Carolina quintet's difficult third full-length album

James Chance – Sax Education

The punk-jazz leviathan's 'hits' compiled and annotated by the man himself, with bonus live CD

James Brown – Star Time

When papa found the brand new bag called The One—the funk beat wherein the first accent hits at the start of the bar—he revolutionised African-American dance music. The next 10 years ('65-'75) were spent honing the most propulsive grooves ever laid down on tape: "Cold Sweat", "Mother Popcorn", "Sex Machine" and their kind. Prior to his golden decade, Brown and the crack unit that was the Famous Flames were an impassioned rhythm'n'gospel line-up.

Angels And Insects

Key works of the first New Pop star of the '80s remastered. Must be learnt by heart

The Polyphonic Spree – Together We’re Heavy

Choral pop evangelists return. Lightning doesn't strike twice

Fully Developed

Celebratory indie-folk spirituals from the Canadian Belle & Sebastian

Fast Lady – The Money Shot

Bizarre post-Darkness machine rock from Yorkshire

The Runaways – Flaming Schoolgirls

Latest reissue from original riot grrrls
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