POP
KISS
Sonic Boom
(Roadrunner)
****

Fans of fire-breathing, tongue-waggling, blood-spitting hard rock with tons of added slap can breathe easy: Kiss have grown old disgracefully. Sonic Boom is their first album of new material in more than 10 years but, as Gene Simmons has noted, it could easily have been made in 1977, which was when the band were at the peak of their — how can one say? — creative powers. After years of greedy merchandising, the group have returned to cranking out the music that made them a brand in the first place.

As I said, the recipe is unchanged. Kiss have gone mining for gnarled riffs, hewn from solid rock, simple and effective building blocks reinforced by thundering drums and booming bass, the perfect platform for the vocals of Simmons and Paul Stanley. Refreshingly, their lyrical concerns are unchanged, revolving around the search for chicks horny enough to sate their gargantuan appetites. You may scoff, but when these Love Gods are on the march, the earth moves for the fairer sex. The old lags are not dispensing make-up tips, to be sure.

From Modern Day Delilah, through Russian Roulette, to I'm an Animal and When Lightning Strikes, Kiss gleefully recycle the past to great effect. When words fail them, Tommy Thayer fills in the gaps with guitar solos that are nasty, brutish and short, just as they should be. Far from being a Spinal Tap farrago of the tongue-in-cheek, Sonic Boom is single-mindedly old-fashioned, unapologetically retro, and more fun than sharing a hot tub with a pair of hermaphrodites.

PETE CLARK

LETHAL BIZZLE
Go Hard
(Search & Destroy/Lethal Bizzle)
****
These are truly the best of times for British hip hop. Obviously the Americans don't need to take notice, but right now there's nothing over there quite as exciting as grime. At 27, Walthamstow's Lethal Bizzle (Maxwell Ansah) is a rap Methuselah — but his rollercoaster third album finds him at his most sizzling. His scattergun, throaty vocals echo Jamaican dancehall, but he's sufficiently canny to work with Mark Ronson on Lost My Mind (think the Whistle Test theme overlaid with cockney geezer shouting and girly backing vocals), punks Gallows on the sneering Rockstar and Donaeo on the exhilarating title track. There's even room for pops at baby gangsters on Skullz on My Hoodie and daft rappers on Money, Power, Respect, Fame.
JOHN AIZLEWOOD

AIR
Love 2
(EMI)
****
For their fifth album, French electronic pop duo Air (Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin) adjourned to their new state-of-the-art studio in Paris. If the location is novel, then the sound is familiar: meditative soundscapes with smatterings of vocals and overtones of artiness. It's perhaps no longer a formula for platinum sales but it does make for a compelling listen. So Light Is Her Footfall echoes the minimalist musical backdrops of Massive Attack, while Be a Bee is a 21st-century take on The Shadows, complete with James Bond guitar and driving beats. Elsewhere, the instantly infectious Sing Sang Sung suggests that the boys could write an album of catchy pop songs. As it is, though, they've created another beautiful, beguiling record.
RICK PEARSON

ROSEANNE CASH
The List
(Manhattan)
***
Johnny Cash's oldest daughter might once have been tagged a beneficiary of nepotism but not after a singing career that has now lasted over 30 years. Even so, her father is looming ever larger in her work. Her Grammy-winning 2006 album, Black Cadillac, ruminated on his death, and this one, her first covers album, is culled from a list of country songs he compiled to convert her from a teenage Beatles freak. They range from a simple, acoustic, Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow by The Carter Family, to the jazzy swing of Jimmie Rodgers's Miss the Mississippi and You. A stellar cast of backing singers includes Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello, but it's Cash's pure tones that dominate on a pleasant, if subdued, work.
DAVID SMYTH

JAZZ
BARBRA STREISAND
Love Is the Answer
(Columbia)
***
Streisand sings jazz? Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. Funky phrasing is not her forte and her creamy voice, trembling with barely suppressed emotion, is the antithesis of cool.
Thus her new ballad double-album, shared between Johnny Mandel's orchestra and producer Diana Krall's quartet, never quite catches fire but there are occasional wisps of smoke. Her timing and note selection in Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, for instance, do have a jazz sensibility and pianists Krall and Alan Broadbent back her flawlessly throughout. Judge for yourself during tonight's potentially titanic clash of egos when la Streisand takes over the Jonathan Ross show.
JACK MASSARIK

WORLD
BASSEKOU
KOUYATÉ & NGONI BA
I Speak Fula
(Out Here Records)
*****
If there's one new figure who's really taken his place on the world music scene in the past couple of years, it's Bassekou Kouyaté from Mali. He plays the ngoni, desert lute and, with the singer Amy Sacko and his fellow musicians Ngoni Ba, he's played dozens of concerts, won awards and been a regular part of the Africa Express gigs.
This is his second album and, unlike the first, it really has the zest and fire of his live performances — warm vocals, rattling talking-drum percussion and fizzing strings. With some fine guest musicians, there's unlikely to be a better African album this year. He comes to the Jazz Café on 21 October.
SIMON BROUGHTON