Beastie Boys
The Mix-Up (Parlophone), £12.99
If you disapprove of nostalgia in hip hop and feel short-changed when rappers release albums without any rapping on them, the new Beastie Boys release is probably not for you. Its groove-heavy production could easily be a decade old; The Mix-Up could, in fact, be a lost companion piece to their 1996 instrumental album The In Sound From Way Out!. While the latter had a jazzier, more diverse approach, this one fuels its breaks with straight-up funk plus a dash of bossa on 'Suco de Tangerina'. The rather homogenous sound washes over you but in a good way: each carefully constructed track has a robust groove at its core.
KF
Editors
An End Has a Start (Kitchenware Records), £12.99
Birmingham-based Editors' second outing builds on their platinum-selling debut The Back Room with 10 lively numbers clocking in at a pleasing 44 minutes. There's the same wide-open arrangements of busy bass and drums with simple piano chords and high guitar. On Kylie's first hits they used to record her vocals with the tape slowed down to give them extra sparkle at normal speed; they seem to have done the opposite with singer Tom Smith, his voice like a cross between Ian Curtis and Wayne Hussey to match the lyrical themes of death and sundry desperation.
Molloy Woodcraft
Sinead O'Connor
Theology (Rubyworks), £13.99
As the title suggests, the first O'Connor album to feature new material in seven years is a no-holdsbarred religious spectacular. For that she could be forgiven, but for some lacklustre songs and fervent over-emoting, she cannot. Worse are the mystifying covers of 'I Don't Know How To Love Him' and 'Rivers Of Babylon'. Of the two discs of identical material, one is a pared-down instrumental version recorded in Dublin, the other an overproduced London session with nasty drum machines and percussive heavy handedness. This album is rather like pouring a bottle of wine down the sink: a waste of a lovely voice.
Katie Toms
Art Brut
It's a Bit Complicated (Mute), £11.99
Art Brut may be stars in Germany, but here they've so far failed to dent the charts. Strange, considering the accessibility of debut Bang Bang Rock & Roll, which established frontman Eddie Argos, with his spoken-word musings on relationships and pop music, as a quintessentially English raconteur a la Jarvis Cocker. This follow-up sticks to the winning formula, pairing punk-rock melodies with lyrics such as 'People in Love's' classic break-up refrain: 'People in love/Lie around and get fat/I didn't want us/To end up like that.' with no song over four minutes, its pleasures are uncomplicated.
Hugh Montgomery
Taraf de Haidouks
Maskarada (Crammed), £13.99
Classicists who condescend to popular music might consider the debt owed by assorted composers to folk traditions. Bartok, Albeniz and Khachaturian were among those borrowing from East European and Gypsy sources. Here Romania's gypsy kings return the compliment, putting fire and swing back into favourites like Ketelbey's 'Persian Market'. The results are fascinating - Bartok's 'Ostinato' is jaunty, but Taraf's woozy cabaret style lacks the verve and definition for, say, Khachaturian's title track, and at times their string section sounds dissonant. Maskarada is never less than an entertaining excursion.
Neil Spencer
Bill Charlap Trio
Live at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note), £11.99
The word for Charlap's piano playing is 'immaculate'. Even in a live recording from a jazz club, where the odd loose end or untidy phrase might be expected, each note is trim and sharp. Yet nothing sounds studied or prearranged. When he's really flying in an impossibly fast piece like 'My Shining Hour', some quite bizarre ideas arrive out of the blue. But it is his slow ballads that really impress - sparse, almost severe, with a masterly use of space. The trio is completed, on bass and drums, by Peter and Kenny Washington, who must be tired of telling people that they aren't actually brothers - they just sound that way.
Dave Gelly