This week's biggest music releases...

POP
Arcade Fire
The Suburbs (Merge)
****
Suitably for an album titled The Suburbs, there's a feeling of newfound space on Arcade Fire's latest effort. Written after the Montreal band, fronted by husband-and-wife duo Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, returned home from touring in 2009, their third album cuts back on the
apocalyptic crescendos in favour of
sparser arrangements.

From the opening title track, it's clear that another change has taken place: Butler has cheered up. Over strings and snares, he croons: “Sometimes I can't believe it, I'm moving past the feeling”, suggesting that if the end really is nigh, he's going down smiling.

Following this, Ready to Start is this album's Keep the Car Running, with its chuntering guitars and galloping beats, while Modern Man sounds like Springsteen with a sprinkling of self-doubt.

Elsewhere, Rococo puts the seven-piece band through their paces with its rousing chorus of horns and strings; Month of May's hell-for-leather drumming will make it a favourite of the band's legendary live shows; and Empty Room showcases the siren-like vocals of Chassagne.

It's Butler, however, who presides over the album's finest moments. City With No Children (“I feel like I've been living in a city with no children in it / A garden left to ruin by a million men stuck inside a private prison”) is as impassioned as it is poetic, while the haunting overtones of Sprawl (Flatland) linger long after its final piano chord.

Those in search of arms-aloft anthems will leave feeling short-changed; the rest of us will agree that, in the case of The Suburbs, less is more.
Rick Pearson

Herbie Hancock
The Image Project (Sony)
****
I can't say my heart leapt when this CD dropped through the letterbox. Herbie's a groovy dude and all that but an album that kicks off with a turgid John Lennon is not a guaranteed crowd-pleaser round my place. When other treats include versions of The Times They Are A'Changin' and the Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows, then this LP has got a lot of work on its hands. Turns out I was (mostly) wrong in these assumptions. Imagine takes off on a glorious African musical safari and is followed by Space Captain, where Herbie sets up a serious groove with Kofi Burbridge on Hammond organ, and Derek Trucks on guitar.
Pete Clark

Best Coast
Crazy for You (Polydor)
****
Not all child actresses go bad. Bethany Cosentino, now 22, has graduated from Pepsi adverts to this gorgeous debut album as Best Coast. Everything from the band name to the sunny sounds within proclaims adoration for her California home. “There's something about the summer,” she swoons on Summer Mood, her echoing vocals resembling not so much Phil Spector's wall as a cave of sound. Both lyrics and musical backdrop are as simple as they come leaving plenty of space for the bright melodies. She's far from the first to marry sweet tunes and rough instrumentation but she's doing it better than most right now.
David Smyth

The Burns Unit
Side Show (Proper)
****
Less a band, more an eight-strong Scottish-Canadian collective, featuring Kenny “King Creosote” Anderson and highly rated folk maiden Karine Polwart. With eight songwriters, six lead vocalists and influences as varied as bhangra on Majesty Of Decay, Eastern-tinged protest on Send Them Kids To War and skewed folk almost everywhere else, it often sounds like a compilation album but it's underpinned by a worldly lyricism and constantly bewitching songsmithery. That all suggests everyone is giving their best, notably on Sorrys, which details living with an alcoholic.
John Aizlewood

JAZZ
Phronesis
Alive (Edition)
****
Any Jasper Hoiby album is an event, especially the piano trios so skilfully led by this charismatic Danish double-bassist and composer. His rich tone, sparkling technique and sure beat reminds me of the young Miroslav Vitous, and his empathy with English pianist Ivo Neame is something special. Their synchronised cerebral gymnastics never sacrifice the powerful inner pulse that jazz demands. New Yorker Mark Giuliana, deputising for regular drummer Anton Eger, only spurs them to new levels of freshness and drive. Admirers of their last studio album, Green Delay, should enjoy this live set even more.
Jack Massarik

WORLD
Ballaké Sissoko & Vincent Segal
Chamber Music (No Format)
****
The West African kora is one of the most beguiling instruments on earth. Made from a calabash gourd, a pole and some fishing line, it produces an evocative filigree sound, particularly in the hands of Ballaké Sissoko from Mali. Here he is joined by French cellist Vincent Segal for a gorgeous album. Around Sissoko's kora tunes, Segal sometimes composes long, legato melodies or adds little bowed figures and rhythmic plucks. The contrasting tones of sonorous bowed cello and delicately plucked kora are at the heart of the music with a little balafon occasionally spicing the texture.
Simon Broughton