CDs of the week

POP
Kate Nash
Made of Bricks (Fiction)
****
Looking for a cockney-voiced, less-spoiled Lily Allen, with the compassion of Mike Skinner? Fresh out of stage school, Kate Nash has risen, via MySpace, to play just such a role. Comparisons aside, she is her own woman, a shark-eyed observer of suburban life, especially on the outstanding Birds, where a young male fare-dodger declares his love in poetic terms, comparing his companion to the most beautiful and free-spirited of birds, only for his companion to answer "er, thanks, I like you too". Elsewhere, she's corruscating regarding ex and current boyfriends (hence the self-explanatory Dickhead); she's obsessed with her body on Skeleton; she parodies Prince on Pumpkin Soup, and she's lovelorn herself on the heartbreakingly lonesome Nicest Thing. Warm and wonderful.

The Coral
Roots and Echoes (Deltasonic)
***
The idea of a mature album from the Coral is a daunting one - as teenagers they already sounded rather advanced in years, like a dusty Mojo reader's dream band. Now in their mid-twenties, the retro Hoylake sextet are happy to plough deeper into their individual furrow and leave the superstardom to admirers such as recent touring mates Arctic Monkeys. Roots & Echoes is a restrained, mostly quiet album, dull at times, that proves itself a powerful grower thanks to multiple pretty melodies and the mournful cracks in James Skelly's voice. Bill Ryder-Jones's spooky, skeletal guitar dominates, but there are also more acoustic sounds than ever on tracks including sparse ballad Not So Lonely. There's no obvious hit to win back the fairweather fans, but the overall atmosphere is mesmerising.

Eugene McGuinness
The Early Learnings Of... (Double Six)
***
Eugene McGuinness's debut is one of those CDs that stands a good chance of being frisbeed during the first track. High Score is a nightmare of tweeness that might suggest Anthony Newley has risen from the grave. Music hall died because nobody liked it any more. The very next song, however, is a miniature masterpiece. Monsters Under the Bed would not disgrace the CV of any current pop maestro. The rest of this mini-album continues the hate/love pattern. McGuinness has got a voice that is charming, but does not stand up to the closest scrutiny. His evident love of wordplay sometimes gets in the way. But a handful of the songs here should be cherished for their sweet and melodic charm.

Tom Baxter
Skybound (Sylvan Records)
*****
Tom Baxter hasn't had an easy ride from the music industry. His excellent 2004 debut, Feather & Stone, was negligently buried amid takeovers and redundancies. Dropped by his label, he decided to release his second album by himself. Other than a little spit and polish on the production, it's hard to see how a major label would have made it better. Baxter's sound is fuller, more assured, and he's tempered his Jeff Buckley pretensions with little flamenco flourishes and other inventive touches. Yet it's the songs that really count, and with the light-footed Tell Her Today, the buxom sorrow of Miracle and the slow-building euphoria of Icarus Wings, Baxter has three of 2007's best.

Dragonette
Galore (Mercury)
***
This three-quarters Canadian, onequarter English electro-pop outfit has been heralded as a composite of Gwen Stefani and Goldfrapp. Yes, it's certainly true that on the likes of the spicy and chunky Competition and the fluid Take It Like A Man they live up to the billing. And when You Please Me surges and billows in grand electro anthemic fashion, they almost forge their own epic sound. But they veer from brilliant to appalling with alarming rapidity. Get Lucky is sickly cyber ragtime that'll make your teeth hurt, while Black Limousine is a fuzz-free Peaches fronting a Duran Duran covers band and Marvellous manages the impossible by making the Pussycat Dolls sound classy. They have the tunes but they need to learn how to be themselves.

ROCK
Julian Cope
You Gotta Problem With Me (Head Heritage)
**
It's been more than 25 years since he first popped up with The Teardrop Explodes' fantastic first album Kilimanjaro and Julian Cope has fenced off a small but fascinating corner of popular culture in which fundamentalist environmentalism, druid obsession and a wayward dress sense live side by side. Unfortunately on this, approximately his 700th solo album, he's mislaid both his store of tunes and his voice. You Gotta Problem With Me sounds like a drunken busker hectoring passersby and while Can't Get You Out Of My Country is a rollicking indictment of the Iraq war and Hidden Doorways has the album's one significant melody, too much here is barely listenable.

JAZZ
Molly Johnson
If You Know Love (Emarcy)
****
Toronto's sultry mixed-race chanteuse Molly Johnson has the kind of sweetly sardonic voice that doesn't need glossy studio production or floorshaking beats to sound good. A real woman, who raised a couple of sons while working the tough Canadian nightclub circuit, she wowed Soho a few years back and will be very welcome at this November's London Jazz Festival. Tenorist Colleen Allen and Hammond-organist Doug Riley guest effectively on her new album and the bilingual Triste Souvenirs contains a little accordion but most tracks find Molly relaxing with an empathetic piano-guitar quartet who caress her every note. Molly's lazy time-feel and expressive way with standards (Let's Do It) and originals (Rain) keep everything natural. I'd forgotten how good she is.

WORLD
Sound of the World 2007
Warner Classics & Jazz
***
As an introduction to the stars and new voices of world music, Charlie Gillett's Sound of the World compilations are hard to beat - a clear endorsement of an informed editorial line. Among the established artists are electro tango band Gotan Project, South Africa's Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Touareg rockers Tinariwen and the fabulous Pakistani singer Abida Parveen, sadly doing Bollywood rather than her Sufi music. But there are notable new names, including Vieux Farka Touré, following in the footsteps of his late father, Ali Farka Touré, Cape Verdean singer Mayra Andrade, Andy Palacio from Belize and Mali's marvellous desert lute player Bassekou Kouyaté. The many raplike tracks get a little tiring, but that's indicative of the scene and not solely Gillett's fault.