CDs of the week

POP
THE HOLD STEADY
Stay Positive (Rough Trade)
****
When he hit 30, Craig Finn had an office job and was looking back on a rock career that had already fizzled out. As he reaches 37, his band The Hold Steady are globally recognised as the finest documenters of young lives going nowhere. Success later in the day has allowed them to avoid the complacency of young upstarts - such is the consistent high quality of this fourth album you would never know it was written in between some 200 live shows last year. Stay Positive boosts their bar-room rowdiness with Yeah Sapphire and the glorious title track, while branching out into religion-themed psychedelia on Both Crosses and harpsichord-led balladry on One for the Cutters. It will keep obscurity a distant memory.
DAVID SMYTH

CARLA BRUNI
Comme si de rien n'etait (Dramatico)
***
As extracurricular activities by first ladies go, it's more original than a tell-all biography. However, Carla Bruni has seen her musical efforts subjected to more scrutiny now she's married to French president Nicolas Sarkozy. The main sport here involves raising eyebrows at Bruni's lyrics, which include her "30 lovers" on Je suis une enfant and the likening of love to Colombian cocaine on Tu es ma came, which infuriated the Colombians. If you don't speak French, you're left with her whispery vocals and an acoustic backdrop augmented with flute, harmonica and vibraphone. It's pleasant, unremarkable and schmaltzy. If you're going to buy one album by a head of state's wife, make it Bruni's far superior Quelqu'un m'a dit.
DAVID SMYTH

ANDY YORKE
Simple (Aktiv)
***
When Oxford's Yorke family gather round the dinner table, they must surely acknowledge that while Thom has made his millions with music that sounds as if it's from another planet, kid brother Andy couldn't get arrested robbing a bank. No wonder he dismantled his Nineties band, Unbelievable Truth, and escaped to university. Now he's back, still sad of voice and big of tune (not least in the Snow Patrol-esque One in a Million), but older and wiser, sighing his way through a dozen tales of relationship strife, abject solitude and romantic misunderstanding. And yet they're so exquisitely crafted, especially the title track and the sturdy Lay Down, that the effect is rather comforting. Wisely, Thom Yorke stays well away.
JOHN AIZLEWOOD

JAZZ
PHIL ROBSON
Six Strings & The Beat (Babel)
****
Jazz and strings make uneasy bedfellows but guitarist Phil Robson avoids the usual pitfalls with this sparkling suite for viola, three violins, cellist Kate Shortt and Austrian double-bass maestro Peter Herbert. Boosted by Gene Calderazzo's propulsive drumming, his 10 original pieces stay strong, forsaking syrupy sweetness in favour of nimble bluegrass, grungy punk, supple straight-ahead swing and two unsentimental ballads, gracefully sung by Christine Tobin. This is innovative music, performed with crisp precision and rhythmic elan, and it's a substantial achievement by a fine player who has not hitherto been particularly noted for his writing.
JACK MASSARIK

WORLD
IVO PAPASOV
Dance of the Falcon (World Vilage)
****
Bulgarian, Turk or Gypsy? When clarinettist Ivo Papasov first came to the world's attention in the Eighties such things mattered. Bulgarian Turks were being forced to change their names, so Ibrahim became Ivo. The powerful opening title track on this CD, being Turkish in style, landed Papasov in prison. But now he's able to celebrate that music and reclaim attention as one of the world's great clarinettists. He dives and soars in and out of rattling percussion and works out sustained and brooding Balkan jazz improvisations. Most of the repertoire here is Turkish in character, even the improvisations around the Pink Panther theme. Tinner's Dance is played at quicksilver speed. The real Ivo Papasov is back.
SIMON BROUGHTON