Dizzee Rascal
Maths + English
(XL) £11.99
Even though his debut, Boy in Da Corner, won the Mercury Prize, proper success has eluded Dizzee Rascal, Bow's gangsta savant. His third album ought to change that. With hard-hitting productions, well-chosen collaborations and a more streamlined flow, Maths + English covers the gap between the streets, the charts and Dizzee's hipster constituency. Most fluent of all is 'Hard Back (Industry)', an instructional diatribe in which Dizzee displays an unexpected regard for the tax man. There are duds ('Excuse Me Please') but they are few and far between. Unapologetically British, this is a homegrown hip-hop album that deserves to do well.
Kitty Empire
The Twang
Love It When I Feel Like This
(B-Unique) £12.99
The conveyor belt of musical revivals rumbles on with the Twang's debut, the inevitable new baggy successor to new rave. The Birmingham five-piece's guitars wobble with reverb, vocals skulk authentically into air-punching choruses but, other than a cheeky steal from Salt-N-Pepa's Push It, the loony imagination of baggy's best moments is lacking. This is effective but pretty standard ladrock fare; lairy party anthems and Streets-style confessionals - all of baggy's streetwise swagger but not enough of its tickle.
Ally Carnwth
Bonde Do Role
...With Lasers
(Domino) £11.99
Bonde Do Role's debut album is a bit like planting a jet engine in a go-kart, ripping out the steering wheel and releasing the brakes. The energy - channelled through preposterous guitar solos, propulsive baile beats and Gameboy bleeps - is monstrous, but it's terrific fun while it lasts. The Brazil trio are clearly more interested in partying than honing their vocal skills, so the (reportedly filthy) Portuguese lyrics tend to emerge as big, blockish, in-your-face chants. The production is superb, however, thanks to baile funk champion Diplo and London's Radio Clit, whose 'Divine Gosa' is the squelchy standout.
Killian Fox
Keren Ann
Keren Ann
(EMI) £10.99
This first full English language offering from Dutch-Israeli chanteuse Keren Ann deserves to make her as feted as American label-mate Norah Jones. Like Jones, she can do dreamy jazz-pop - see first single 'Lay Your Head Down ' - but not everything here is so Radio 2-friendly. Noxious Lou Reed-esque highlight 'It Ain't no Crime ' has her purring menacingly over fuzzy electric guitars , while elsewhere she throws electronic bleeps, organ licks and Icelandic choirs into the mix. The wildly eclectic arrangements are held together by her wonderful vocals, which barely rise above a whisper but are at once ethereal, seductive, and gut-wrenching.
Hugh Montgomery
Joe Lovano & Hank Jones
Kids - Live at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola
(Blue Note) £12.99
Would you believe more than an hour of saxophone and piano duets and not a dull or languid minute in all that time? Well, these two manage it. It's not the virtuosity, although they are both virtuosos. It's not the complexity, although they can get into some pretty dense matter at times. It's their perfect empathy, inventiveness and wit that does it. Joe Lovano, with his juicy, fibrous tone and endless variety of approach, and Hank Jones, in whose playing virtually the entire history of jazz stands ready to be deployed at a moment's notice, have made a masterpiece.
Dave Gelly
Hazmat Modine
Bahamut
(Jaro ) £13.99
They're named after an industrial heater, but this New York collective are a highly organic brand of Americana. They have a tuba to provide bass lines, a pair of 'duelling harmonicas' at the sharp end and a slew of exotic instruments in the middle ground. Their mixture of blues and early jazz is more than an archaeological exercise however; most of the repertoire is written by leader Wade Schuman, and a troupe of Tuvan throat singers shows up, incongruously but winningly, for three numbers. There's a Waitsian quality to Schuman's rasping vocals and a sense of talented musicians enjoying themselves. Bring on a live show.
Neil Spencer