Digitalism conjure up a fine dance-punk album, Bon Jovi head down the country road and The Twang strike a chord with their Happy Mondays-esque danceable indie tunes.

Digitalism
Idealism (Virgin)
****
Digitalism - two German fellas named Jens Moelle and Ismail Tuefekci - have constructed one of the finest dance-punk albums in recent years. Digitalism In Cairo is an irrepressibly chunky refiddled Cure track, while Pogo bounces joyously past as if Hot Chip were duetting with LCD Soundsystem on Space's Ibizan terrace. Swirling synths, crunchy electronica and cymbal thwacks are laced with Moelle's robotic vocal tweaks and smooth, euphorically trancelike chill-out grooves, then Jupiter Room wrestles you awake with pure, techno-tinged minimal electro. It's rock'n'rave party music as it ought to be and it won't be long before James Murphy is begging Digitalism to play at his house. MARTHA DE LACEY

Bon Jovi
Lost Highway (Mercury)
***
Bon Jovi may be a mighty force in soft rock but they only won their first Grammy this year for best country collaboration, on Who Says You Can't Go Home. With one eye on ageing gracefully, the band have stuck with country on Lost Highway. Mandolin, accordion and fiddle feature on tracks such as Till We Ain't Strangers Anymore, a duet with LeAnn Rimes that will have fans of the band's big hair days reaching for the sick bag. Other forays into country pop - the R.E.M.-ish One Step Closer, for instance, fare better. Yet it is several stabs at old Bon Jovi that work best. Any Other Day comes close to being a classic and We Got It Going On lays ridiculous lyrics about rattling bones over a stomp stolen from Aerosmith. Enough to make up for the bland bits? Almost. LISA VERRICO

Marilyn Manson
Eat Me, Drink Me (Interscope)
**
Manson once said he was glad to be the demon America needed. Yet he seems to be in decline, and this fifth studio opus is a damp squib: Alice Cooper without the wink and the tunes. His lyrics, usually deliberately funny, are now unwittingly so, glueing together clichés about blood, suicide and Satan.
The title song was inspired by Alice In Wonderland and that German who killed and ate someone a few years back. It's no picnic. If I Was Your Vampire drones on for six minutes, while Heart Shaped Glasses shows how his god-awful voice has degenerated from sandpaper to pebbledash. Pushing 40, Mazza may not be as dead as he pretends, but his muse certainly appears to be six feet under. CHRIS ROBERTS

The Twang
Love It When I Feel Like This (B-Unique)
***
Provincial urchins have composed tall tales of scallywag excess since punk first snarled. The Twang are the latest in that tradition, receiving attention for their distinctly Happy Mondays-esque danceable indie tunes and a few stories about fights with samurai swords. You can see why it's struck a chord with their lager-swilling audience. Singles Wide Awake and Either Way have an anthemic singalong quality, but then they overdo it on Don't Wait Up, about the urge to "have it" despite domestic obligations. The track boasts the kind of single entendres only Spinal Tap would be proud of. If they could lighten up a bit, stop trying to prove their blokey credentials and add a touch more humour to the mix, The Twang might resonate beyond their alehouse demographic. JOHNNY SHARP