London,

CDs of the week

Fresh blood: Vampire Weekend are Indie rock... but different

Adele Adkins: A soulful voice

K.D.Lang: Recovering from writer's block

Rascal Flatts: It might drive you round the bend

Mare Nostrum: Soothe those midwinter blues

Vinicius Cantuaria: Transparent and understated

These New Puritans: Drums to the fore

Gilles Peterson: Becoming predictable

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• Off the record

Great tunes from indie rockers Vampire Weekend, and a much-hyped debut album from Adele Adkins are among the CDs of the week.

INDIE
Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend (XL Recordings)
*****
Indie rock is in a weird place. Since the massive success of Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys a few years ago, it seems that what was once outsiders' music has become part of the establishment.

Even obviously mainstream pop acts such as The Kooks, The Fratellis, The Hoosiers and Scouting For Girls have borrowed the trappings of indie in order to snaffle some credibility before broadening their horizons. There's nothing wrong with that, of course; everything's up for grabs and nothing should be sacred.

If you look at the Top 20 albums chart, nearly half the artists have their roots in indie. It could be argued that this signifies that indie is growing stale, that it has lost its sense of adventure, which for many of us is what made it such an absorbing genre.

Certainly, the likes of Editors (Joy Divison for Mondeo drivers), The Enemy (The Jam minus subtlety or wit) and Pigeon Detectives (a Kaiser Chiefs tribute band, for heaven's sake) are hardly doing anything to challenge this notion.

Just as indie rock has reached its commercial peak, it seems it has lost the restlessness and oddness that made it so vital in the first place.

So, it seems a perfect time for a band like Vampire Weekend, a New York five-piece that makes absolutely no sense at all, to step up to the plate.

Check the ingredients - a lead singer whose keening vocals rather worryingly resemble Sting's? Check. A string section that often sounds like it's playing the theme tune to Ski Sunday? You got it. Guitar sounds that borrow heavily from African high-life pop? Yep. And lyrics, written by a chap called Ezra, that encompass grammar and architecture? Naturally.

Of course, the whole construct with its impossible angles and teetering façades, wouldn't work if it wasn't for one essential factor - great tunes. And this is one commodity the four 23-year-olds have in bucketloads.

Right from the start, Mansard Roof, with its lyrics about naval wars, its galloping drums and exuberant guitar lines is underpinned by a robust melody.

Oxford Comma, however, trumps Mansard Roof, with its pleasingly profane approach to arcane punctuation ("Who gives a f**k about an Oxford comma?"), and a sumptuous tune wrapped around toytown keyboard stabs.

Unusually, the album gets better as it progresses: two of its best songs are One (Blake's Got A New Face) and Walcott, both tucked away towards the end of its refreshingly brief 34-minute span.

They may not have reinvented indie rock but Vampire Weekend have just given it a mighty transfusion. PAUL CONNOLLY

These New Puritans
Beat Pyramid (Angular)
****
Like the magnificent Vampire Weekend, Southend-on-Sea's These New Puritans are at least trying to expand the vocabulary of indie rock. On first listen their debut album sounds like a fairly typical, spiky collection of art-pop, albeit with superior hooks and melodies. Yet on further exposure it becomes clear there's a lot more going on here. The drums are to the fore, battering the songs around the chops, and there are elements of hip hop - the intro to Numerology (Aka Numbers) sounds like Missy Elliott through a digital mincer. Unlike most bands ploughing the Gang Of Four/PiL furrow, TNP acknowledge that there have been musical developments since 1981 - and are much the better for it. PAUL CONNOLLY

POP
Adele
19 (XL)
****
So much hype surrounds Brixton teenager Adele Adkins, the first musician to be given a Brit award before she has even released an album, that her debut is more vulnerable than most to a backlash. Surprisingly, the music resists the urge to make a sound as big as the fuss. Adkins's smoky tones are accompanied by gently plucked guitar on Daydreamer, jazzy bass on Best For Last and piano on Make You Feel My Love and the overpowering highlight, Hometown Glory. On more elaborate tracks such as Melt My Heart to Stone she can sound overwrought but it's hard to go far wrong with a voice as soulful as this. The buzz builders were right. DAVID SMYTH

K.D.Lang
Watershed (Nonesuch)
***
Now dabbling in Buddhism and recovering from the severe writer's block which has prevented her from releasing an album of newly written material since 2000's Invincible Summer, Kathryn Dawn Lang seems at peace with herself on Watershed. The opener, I Dream of Spring, might be her finest moment, while Close Your Eyes is all lush vocals and Twin Peaks spookiness. Elsewhere, despite the innovative arrangements to the country-tinged Once in a While, she lacks melodic flair, and the dreadful Sunday suggests she still labours under the misunderstanding that she's some kind of supper club torch singer. Can't someone have a word? JOHN AIZLEWOOD

Rascal Flatts
Still Feels Good (Lyric Street)
**
There are times when it feels like nothing has happened in music since 1973, and this is one of them. Rascal Flatts purvey the sort of country rock that was popular back then, and still has a big following now. If I were to tell you that the fourth track is called Life Is a Highway and is sung with such conviction that the trio evidently believe this to be an original perception, you will know all you need to about what is on offer. They are by no means a bad group, just one that is infuriatingly content to recycle the past. If what will make your life complete is a masterclass in yearning popular music, this is for you. If not, it might drive you right round the bend. PETE CLARK

Sons And Daughters
This Gift (Domino)
****
It's always nice when people admit they're wrong. Sons And Daughters have long been one of those bands that labour under the delusion it's better to be cool than to sell records. However, unlike most of their peers, Sons And Daughters have not only had the balls to admit their mistake but the songwriting talent to follow through on their conversion to pop. So, instead of making occasionally diverting dark indie (Johnny Cash, admittedly, was a fantastic song) This Gift finds them producing glorious, vibrant guitar pop which not only references the likes of The Pretenders and The Shangri-Las but, with the help of Adele Bethel's gorgeous Caledonian burr, occasionally matches them. A surprising triumph from a band previously thought lost to the dark side. PAUL CONNOLLY

DANCE
Various Artists
Gilles Peterson In The House (Defected)
***
I'm begging for a stoning from the worldbeat master's fan club when I say his new 3CD compilation leaves me a tad nonplussed. Fair play, it is something of a retrospective: disc one is Gilles's modern house picks (Blaze, Tone 7, Roland Appel); disc two is stuffed with influential bits and bobs of yore (Weldon Irvine, Chaka Khan, A Taste Of Honey); and disc three was commissioned from DJ mates including Switch, Sneak and Peter Kruder. Any track Radio One's funkadelic soulster lays down is going to swim through the room like joyful incense, leaving pelvis-wiggling in its wake, but he's losing his edge. Gilles used to be innovative, but the music he plays is becoming predictable. MARTHA DE LACEY

JAZZ
Paulo Fresu, Richard Galliano & Jan Lundgren
Mare Nostrum (ACT)
****
A warm-toned hour with three of Europe's finest talents should soothe those midwinter blues. Produced by ACT, a label as fastidious as German rival ECM about recording quality, it's an ego-free example of international relations. Lyrical Sardinian trumpeter Fresu never splits notes, Frenchman Galliano makes the accordion sound hip, and Swedish pianist Lundgren supplies gentle rhythmic foundation to music showing jazz sensibility at conversational volume. You'll hear a Swedish folksong, a Jobim ballad, a Charles Trenet classic (I Wish You Love), a dozen graceful originals by the trio and not one crass moment. JACK MASSARIK

WORLD
Vinicius Cantuaria
Cymbals (Naive)
***
Born in Brazil but based in New York, where with Arto Lindsay he spearheaded a bossa nova revival, Cantuaria is one of bossa's more interesting exponents. Galope is a gorgeous, sad love song with warm vocals, fizzing guitar and plangent violin. As a songwriter Cantuaria has a dark, lyrical gift and there are numbers written in collaboration with Nana Vasconcelos and Angelique Kidjo. In tribute to Tom Jobim, bossa's founding father, he does a version of Vivo Sonhando but the album covers a range of speeds and moods. Featuring pianist Brad Mehldau and guitarist Marc Ribot, the arrangements are transparent and understated. SIMON BROUGHTON

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