Debuts by The View and Jamie T are shot through with slices of life on the street, while The Earlies and Robert Gomez also turn in great albums.

POP
The View
Hats Off To The Buskers (1965)
****

Jamie T
Panic Prevention (Virgin)
****

It's already obvious that 2007 is going to be a terrific year for British music. The startling progress of London Lite favourite Mika is heartening enough, but there's also a raft of great CDs due out over the next few weeks, including Damon Albarn's new project The Good, The Bad And The Queen, Mika and Lady Sovereign's long-awaited debuts, plus Bloc Party's second album.

However, two of the most eagerly anticipated releases of the first quarter of the year come from brand-new acts. Both The View and Jamie T enjoyed a modicum of chart success with singles late last year and it's this early promise that has excited the music business. And the excitement is warranted - these are two very good debuts.

On the face of it, The View, a fourpiece indie band from Dundee in thrall to The Clash, Oasis and The Libertines, and Jamie T, a solo artist from south London who blends hip hop, folk, indie and R&B, have very little in common. But both records offer a set of scruffy vignettes of what it is like to be young today in the UK.

The View's Hats Off To The Buskers is hugely informed by growing up in Dryburgh, a drab suburb of a nothing Scottish city, Dundee. Their tales of indie discos, the grind of unemployment and being in a band in such an environment are best told with a wry voice and a diffident shrug of the shoulders. The View, all barely out of their teens, are at their most engaging on breakneck Clash-gone-pop romps such as Superstar Tradesman, a poke in the eye for those who suggested that the would be better off staying in Dryburgh and learning a trade that would allow them to buy "A new guitar that's never been played before/And it never will". The yearning for escape is so acute you can almost smell the desperation. Same Jeans, riff nicked from Brimful Of Asha and all, and Wasted Little DJs deal in a similar sparky smalltown brio and are fantastic pop songs into the bargain.

It's when the ghost of The Libertines rears its heads that the album stutters, lapsing into the kind of scrappy, tuneless pseudo poetic rock that Pete Doherty has made his own. Still, Hats Off To The Buskers will certainly do for now.

Jamie T's world is instantly recognisable as London, right down to the 20-year-old's Jafaican slur on Panic Prevention. His scruffy mix of genres feels really fresh too. Indeed the first seven tracks are so good that it comes as a real disappointment when the quality tails off. But when those seven songs include the rambling but gorgeous Calm Down Dearest and the craftily sharp Sheila then Mr T's tail-end deficiencies can be forgiven. The fact he perks up the end-of-album lull with If You Got The Money only aids the healing process.
Two flawed but still excellent debuts, then. Roll on the rest of 2007.

ROCK
The Hold Steady
Boys And Girls In America (Vagrant)
****
They're not particularly young and they're no lookers (their keyboard player looks like a cross between Frank Lampard senior and Super Mario) but The Hold Steady are the hottest band out of America right now. They don't have a cheekbone to rub between them and they're not hugely indebted to Television or Talking Heads but still they're being feted. Why? Because they've revivified old-style literate rock 'n' roll (think The Replacements covering Bruce Spingsteen's Born To Run) and welded it to blazing guitars, ripsnorting drums and melodies that are both diaphanous and durable. The good news is that this is their third album. Enjoy.
Paul Connolly

POP
The Earlies
Enemy Chorus (679 Recordings)
****
Anglo-American quartet The Earlies set the bar high with their acclaimed 2004 debut Those Were...The Earlies and fans of its carefully constructed tapestry of sounds won't be disappointed by the follow-up. Part genteel ambient soundscape, part alt-rock, a little bit dance and pleasantly trippy, Enemy Chorus is relaxing, disorientating, but a fascinating listen. The stand-out title track morphs gracefully from mournful and hypnotic to marching optimism. If you hadn't guessed, The Earlies are more interested in texture and mood than giving fans a good time. Yet there is no questioning this is beautiful music - a quasi-classically-minded melange that can be as grandly intense as hard rock or as relaxing as a soak in the bath. Lisa Verrico

ELECTRONICA
Mira Calix
Eyes Set Against The Sun (Warp)
***
Electronica albums have long passed the point of being strictly electronic. As Mira Calix, Chantal Passamonte has used everything in her music, from the sound of snow melting to a full-blown insect symphony. On her third fulllength album, the tense, minimal The Way You Are When is made using the sounds of wooden objects, be they traditional instruments or just pieces of bark, while the gorgeous Protean reveals the sounds of birdsong and leaves rustling. A children's choir also pops up here and there. There are moments of great beauty as well as the nigh-on unlistenable tracks, but no one can accuse her of lacking imagination. David Smyth

ROCK
Robert Gomez
Brand New T (Bella Unoin)
****
It seems likely that Denton, Texas, will soon join Athens, Georgia, and Portland, Oregon, in the pantheon of US towns that are so obscure the name of the state needs to be appended as a qualifier. Over the last couple of years Denton's population of 100,000 has yielded Midlake, Lift To Experience, Jetscreamer, and now Robert Gomez with his delightful debut album Brand New Towns. A menacing bundle of warm electronics, soporific strums and exotic strings, Gomez weaves surreal, heartbroken lullabies that defy clichÈs. His vocals remain a constant, around which the whirl of The Leaving sounds like something out of The Omen, while the title track drips with the unease of an approaching storm. Andrez Lukowski