POP

MADONNA
Hard Candy (Warner Bros)
****
There's an unquestioned consensus that, these days, Madonna is a stranger to cutting edge. So what? Madonna's obsession is Madonna herself rather than her music. With Hard Candy, she's stepped back a generation and hired Pharrell Williams, Justin Timberlake and Timbaland to fashion a shiny album more timeless than ahead of its time. Despite (or because of) speculation regarding her marriage, it's overtly sexual ('I love you in the shower,' she trills in the outstanding but paranoid She's Not Me), full of Hung Up-esque dance songs and, in Voices, the most fearless she's been in years.
JOHN AIZLEWOOD

PORTISHEAD
Third (Island)
****
It's been more than 10 years since the last Portishead album, and they clearly haven't spent that time telling jokes. Third is full of foreboding, desolation and flashes of menace, and Beth Gibbons is intent on taking her voice to the limits of melody where only Scott Walker has been. The basic sound is drums and guitar, with electronica ranging from mildly unsettling to distinctly unnerving. We Carry On is built around a prehistoric riff, while Small lulls listeners into a false sense of contentment before exploding into harsh noise. This record will not be to everyone's taste — but perseverance will be rewarded.
PETE CLARK

CRYSTAL CASTLES
Crystal Castles (Different/PIAS)
****
Having remixed Klaxons and appeared in Channel 4's Skins, Toronto pair Crystal Castles are making the right moves to appeal to the kids. They also generate a fearsome, parent-baiting racket, using the chip from an Atari 5200 to create retro bleeps and squeals that sound like something is amiss in Super Mario Land. But if the raygun zaps of songs like Alice Practice and Xxzxcuzx Me are hard going, when Alice Glass tones down the screeching their material has an alien beauty. The robotic voices and melodic synth lines of Air War and Untrust Us create a digital loveliness to raise them above the hipster ghetto.
DAVID SMYTH

JAZZ

COURTNEY PINE
Afropeans (Destin-E)
****
Courtney Pine is back with a new London band drawn from the wider black diaspora. The album title coins his term for this lineup, recorded live at a Barbican concert last October to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery. Alongside Pine's bass-clarinet, tenor and soprano saxes are violinist Omar Puente, guitarist Femi Tomowo, singer-cellist Ayanna Witter Johnson and steel-pan soloist Samuel Dubois. Add rhythm section Robert Fordjour and Darren Taylor, Alex Wilson's piano and orchestral movements with altoists Nathaniel Facey and Jason Yarde and trumpeters Jay Phelps and Byron Wallen and it's a wild ride.
JACK MASSARIK

WORLD

ETRAN FINATAWA
Desert Crossroads (Riverboat)
****
If your ears have been turned by Tinariwen, the Touareg guitar band, then Etran Finatawa will appeal with their bluesy vocals, loping rhythm and electric guitar. Etran Finatawa (Stars of Tradition) are from Niger but their sound is an innovative meeting of the music of two Saharan nomadic groups — the Touareg and the Wodaabe. While Kel Tamasheck, with its gentle guitar riffs, is a typical Touareg track, Naanaye, based on a Wodaabe healing song, comes from a different soundworld of vocals and percussion. The album as a whole is a powerful look at the disappearance of nomadic life in the 21st century.
SIMON BROUGHTON