London,

CDs of the week

Britney Spears: But how did Britney find time to make another album?

Eagles: Immaculate production

Unklejam: Outlandish and ecletic

The Libertines: The sum of today's tabloid parts

Herbie Hancock: For Joni fans

Yasmin Levy: The Israel singer's most accomplished album to date

Look here too

• Cullum at the cutting edge

Britney Spears makes a comeback, Unklejam serve up some Seventies-style electrofunk and jazz man Herbie Hancock all feature in the CDs of the week.

POP
Britney Spears
Blackout (RCA)
***
The obvious question is how did Britney Spears find time to make her fifth album? The obvious answer is that she didn't. Seven producers and 24 songwriters (including Spears's tiny contribution) have combined to ensure there's as little Spears as possible on a record mostly recorded in Sweden. She's an occasional, electronically manipulated presence on a competent, ballad-free, Kylie Minogue-esque collection. There's the Seventies thud of Ooh Ooh Baby; the supertight electropop of Radar; the strutting Hot As Ice (not to be confused with bouncy Break the Ice) and the almost sexy Get Naked (I Got a Plan). Finally there is poor, simple Britney asking "do you wanna see my body naked?" on Perfect Love. To which the only response is "not again, dear". JOHN AIZLEWOOD

Eagles
Long Road Out Of Eden (Universal)
***
Somehow, in the midst of their long and expensive farewell tour, the Eagles have made enough new music to fill two CDs. All the elements one would expect are here: immaculate production, sweet vocals, lyrics ranging from the corny to the portentous. In the old days, this sort of music was called AOR, mixing up elements of rock, country and commercial pop. The single How Long is typical of the group - even though written by JD Souther - chugging along at a friendly midtempo, spinning a yarn of love lost, "Like a bluebird with his heart removed". Those in thrall to Hotel California might care to check out the title track, an existential epic that builds into a storm of electric guitars. PETE CLARK

Unklejam
Unklejam (Virgin)
***
Based in London but hailing from virtually everywhere, outlandish trio Unklejam would claim that their globetrotting backgrounds make for an eclectic sound - though it's pretty clear where they're really coming from on this lively debut album. Taking their name from a Funkadelic album, there's plenty of Seventies-style electrofunk and falsetto yowling here, and songs such as Go, with its sitars and stop-start beats, and the bass-heavy Love Ya, indicate a desire to become a British version of hip hop experimentalists Outkast. With one top 20 single to their name so far, Unklejam are a long way from being in the same league, but tracks including Stereo and Hello display an infectious energy that suggests they surely won't stop here. DAVID SMYTH

The Libertines
Time For Heroes (Rough Trade)
***
Since they only made two albums, a Libertines Greatest Hits seems a bit silly. But for non-NME readers, Pete Doherty and Carl Barat aren't this decade's superlative indie-rockers, they are the sum of today's tabloid parts; supermodels, trilbies, molten spoons, Dirty Pretty (boring) Things and court dates. This Libs-approved set documents the boys' journey from excited beginnings (Boys In The Band) to their pre-split peak (Can't Stand Me Now). Tremendous tidbits, singles and b-sides (Don't Look Back Into The Sun) filter in but the record commits the unpardonable sin of omitting the dazzlingly nostalgic Music When The Lights Go Out, the result of the only studio session to end in Doherty v. Barat fisticuffs. MARTHA DE LACEY

Dave Gahan
Hourglass (Mute)
***
Paper Monster, Dave Gahan's first album away from the cocoon of Depeche Mode, was a little disappointing. It seemed as if the Basildon boy was hiding behind the walls of grungy guitars. No danger of that on Hourglass, where synths are the order of the day. On the darkly compelling Kingdom he may sound a little like Simon Le Bon but the tune and riffs are present and correct, while Saw Something is warmly romantic and really quite touching. Miracles, meanwhile, all doomy bass and soaring keyboards, sounds like a song from the Twin Peaks soundtrack in mid-therapy. Hourglass may be slightly light on the melody front but given the man was so close to death no more than 12 years ago, to hear him in such fine fettle is heartening indeed. PAUL CONNOLLY

Orson
Culture Vultures (Mercury)
***
Orson were limping towards obscurity in their native LA until influential UK music business website Record Of The Day started to plug their album, Bright Idea. ROTD's patronage led the band to sign to a UK label, Mercury, Bright Idea went to number one and the band won a Brit for best international breakthrough act. Bright Idea contained decent enough songs but no distinctive character, and it's the same with Culture Vultures. Radio is top-notch guitar-pop, influenced by The Strokes and Duran Duran, but Orson leave barely any imprint themselves, while Broken Watch doffs its cap to Hall and Oates without doing much else. That said, Orson write better tunes than any of their influences have managed in an age. PAUL CONNOLLY

JAZZ
Herbie Hancock
River: The Joni Letters (Verve)
**
Only those who don't groan when young singers say: "I'm steeped in jazz - Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Norah Jones - all the greats," will endorse this marketing ploy ("Fancy a Joni Mitchell jazz album, Herbie?" "Hmm, might work. Call Norah.") Eight Mitchell songs thus receive a stylish, spacy makeover. Wayne Shorter's tenor-sax fills have a limpid charm but less so the bland vocals of Jones, Corinne Bailey Rae or Luciana Souza. Leonard Cohen recites Jungle Line and Joni herself stirs Tea Leaf Prophecy but only Tina Turner, on Edith and the Kingpin, raises a few therms of jazz heat. Otherwise, an instrumental version of Nefertiti apart, it's all for Joni fans. JACK MASSARIK

WORLD
Yasmin Levy
Mano Suave (World Village)
****
Yasmin Levy is a striking singer of Sephardic music from Israel and this is her most accomplished album to date, with expressive light and shade colouring her voice. She sings in Ladino, the Judeo-Spanish language of medieval Spain and the songs have an appealing lyrical melancholy about them. While most of the songs are slow and elegiac, a variety of instrumentalists bring distinctive sonorities to particular songs. On the title track, a love song with breathy ney flute and deserty feel, Yasmin is joined by Natacha Atlas and they alternate verses in Spanish and Arabic which slowly become more entwined. Her musicians come from Spain, the Middle East and Paraguay - a reminder that this is music of migrations. SIMON BROUGHTON

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