Pop

Enter Shikari
Common Dreads (Ambush Reality)
***

Enter four St Albans schoolfriends who rose through 2007 making an unholy and wholly ridiculous racket, shoving together frantic trance and violent metal like someone forcing a dog and a cat into the same sack. The results made most conventional rock or dance acts sound like models of subtle restraint.

To their credit, they were like no one else around. Thousands of teenagers discovered that playing Enter Shikari would not only keep your parents out of your bedroom, it would probably make them go out for the rest of the month. Their debut album went to number four and they became only the second unsigned band to sell out the Astoria venue after The Darkness.

We all know what happened to them, of course, but that hasn't stopped this bunch from becoming even more ridiculous on their latest. A portentous spoken intro gives way to Solidarity, a sonic migrane that features hysterical synths, monstrous screaming and even a choir. That the equally extreme Juggernauts is currently nuzzling up to Take That on Radio 1's A-list is simply remarkable.

A newly discovered political conscience isn't a particularly impressive development — they can't be the first to rhyme “democracy” with “hypocrisy”. More interesting are the rare moments when they calm down, as on the tense ballad Gap in the Fence and the funky flutes and Streets-style rapping of The Jester.

They remain an acquired taste less like Marmite, more in the drinking-your-own-urine sense — but for producing a second album this unique, you admire their guts.
David Smyth

Jonas Brothers
Lines, Vines And Trying Times (Hollywood)
** 

Best known for wearing purity rings and being Disney's virginal hope for the future, Kevin, Joe and Nick Jonas have now managed four albums without toppling into the pits of hell. Or having a quiet drink. Lines, Vines and Trying Times has one track (What Did I Do to Your Heart?) which has a jaunty fiddle and another (the genuinely dramatic Don't Charge Me for the Crime) which features thoughtful rapper Common. That, however, is as good as it gets and the remainder sinks in a swamp of sub-McFly blanditude. Perhaps the devil really does have the best tunes.
John Aizlewood  

Johnny Cash
Remixed (Edel)
***

His estate claims he'd approve but in truth it's hard to know what such a contrary old buzzard as Johnny Cash would have made of some of his early material being radically remixed by a galleon of young bucks. It's an endearingly bonkers affair but it is as effervescent as Junkie XL's rebuilding of Elvis Presley's A Little Less Conversation, especially when Cash's distinctive, testosterone-charged voice floats over the often frenetic backdrops. The only household name, Snoop Dogg, guests on I Walk the Line. Purists may baulk — but it's their loss.
John Aizlewood

The Lemonheads
Varshons (Cooking Vinyl)
****

In the old days, we all used to make tapes for our mates, and that is the inspiration for this album of cover versions. Butthole Surfer Gibby Haynes acts as producer and muse, and the range of material beggars eclecticism. Fragile, from Wire's first album, is turned into a thing of unexpected beauty, while G.G. Allin's Layin' Up With Linda is a work of breathtaking misogyny that all the girls will love. Evan Dando sings sweet or low as the occasion demands and when he needs help, Kate Moss (Dirty Robot) and Liv Tyler (Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye) are happy to oblige.
Pete Clark

Cortney Tidwell
Boys (City Slang)
***

Cortney Tidwell's 2006 debut, Don't Let the Stars Keep Us Tangled Up, announced her as the strangest of musical propositions: a Nashville-born singer-songwriter who sounds more like Björk than Brenda Lee. Irregular service is resumed for her follow-up, Boys. Its 11 tracks cover grand ballads (Solid State, Palace), minimal electro (Watusii, Son & Moon) and fireside folk (Being Crosby, Oslo). If there are moments when your finger wavers over the skip button, Tidwell rewards your patience with the aching closer Oh, Suicide. Bleak and beautiful.
Rick Pearson

Jazz

Melissa Morgan
Until I Met You (TelArc)
*****

This talented newcomer from the Frisco Bay area reminds us what jazz singing is about. You'll hear elements of Nancy Wilson, Dinah Washington and Dakota Staton in her sound but Melissa Morgan isn't copying anybody. She won't scat and doesn't do flashy dexterity either but her warmth, timing and instinctive feel for the best note defines the eternal qualities that make a listener say “Yeah”. With the help of her top-grade studio group, Ms Morgan's voice is a shaft of sunlight in our drab summer.
Jack Massarik

World

Oi Va Voi
Travelling the Face of the Globe (Oi Va Voi)
****

The distinctive Oi Va Voi sound remains on their third album: acoustic, with an ear for sweeping melodies, a touch of introspection and a promiscuous interest in global sounds and, on the opening track, Waiting, the vocals of Bridgette Amofah. A strong hint of Jewish klezmer is there and there's a Yiddish track from Hungarian singer Agi Szaloki. After a great debut and a few years of meandering, Oi Va Voi are back on form — more than anything there's a sense of fun in travelling the face of the globe.
Simon Broughton