There's a new Beatles album out that will make purists fume, Tom Waits releases 30 new songs on three exquisitely packaged CDs and former Busted boy Matt Willis goes solo with mixed results.

The Beatles
Love (Apple/EMI)
***
You can't improve on perfection, but you can enable people to hear it in a new way. That's the intention of producer George Martin and his technology wizard son Giles on Love, the first Beatles album to allow an outsider to muck around with source recordings. The Martins perform studio acrobatics that may make purists fume, but this is not the Fab Four being savaged by Jive Bunny. If anything, they've been too reverent, leaving many songs virtually untouched. But there are numerous magical moments - Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite is dauntingly dramatic, and Ringo's Octopus's Garden sounds unusually touching. It's a fascinating experiment, but the Beatles of the Sixties would have been more experimental than this.
DAVID SMYTH

Tom Waits
Orphans (ANTI-)
***
With its 30 new songs, plus 24 odds and sods over three exquisitely packaged CDs, Orphans is a remarkable testament to the restless, inspired gifts of one man and his wife (and collaborator), Kathleen Brennan. Each disc has its own theme: Brawlers is Waits at his most wheezy and tub-thumping and features Road to Peace, the most direct, politically charged song of his career; Bawlers showcases his lachrymose side, especially the wanderer's saga Take Care of All My Children, and Bastards is Waits on the edge, although Altar Boy almost sees him fall off. Different they may be, but they are all shot through with Waits's wit, insight and almost unique ability to move hearts, even when he's growling. A treat to luxuriate in.
JOHN AIZLEWOOD

Matt Willis
Don't Let It Go to Waste (Mercury)
**
Teen heartthrobs Busted always yearned to be taken seriously as musicians. The group possessed real talent, none more so than Matt Willis. This solo debut, an attempt to set out his stall as a proper grown-up rocker, offers some promising moments. Adopting the edgy, synth-tinged sound that works so well for the Killers, opening track Up All Night is a winner, as is the powerhouse title track. But there are too many influences, and not enough real substance here. Willis's lyrics have a lumbering, gauche, sixth-form quality about them. His sporadic use of the F-word throughout and the exclamation "Goddamn" on Hey Kid helps sum up an album that aspires to maturity but is ultimately neither big nor clever.
CHRIS ELWELL-SUTTON

Patricia Barber
Mythologies (Blue Note Records, 59564)
***
One of the rarer flowers in the Blue Note garden, Patricia Barber is a white American intellectual and Guggenheim Fellowship winner. She sings to her own piano, but it is definitely not cocktail music. Her new album, an 11-piece song-cycle including Orpheus and Narcissus, is based on selected Roman verses about Greek mythology, The Metamorphoses of Ovid, no less. "I couldn't believe how funny and smart and brilliant they are," Barber says, whose fragile yet firm voice carries quiet conviction. Her Mensa brain-power produces deep lyrics delivered with an ultra-precise diction that sucks listeners in. Monday sees her debut at Ronnie Scott's, where many eager new faces might be seen.
JACK MASSARIK

Rhythms del Mundo
Rhythms del Mundo: Cuba (Universal)
**
Who is this for, you wonder? Contemporary hits by Coldplay, The Arctic Monkeys and The Kaiser Chiefs rearranged for the surviving Cuban musicians of the Buena Vista Social Club. As Cuban music, it's pretty insipid stuff and songs such as Clocks, Dancing Shoes and Modern Way don't sound better with trumpets and timbales. Worse are the soupy arrangements for Omara Portuondo in Killing Me Softly and veteran bolero singer Ibrahim Ferrer in As Time Goes By - his last recording before he died. So what's it for? Charity, of course. It's in aid of Artists' Project Earth and, as Cuba will be one of the first places to suffer from global warming and rising sea levels, that's the only reason to buy it.
SIMON BROUGHTON