Awesome Color
Awesome Color (Ecstatic Peace) £10.99
In their clashing pink, orange and yellow outfits, Awesome Color look like new rave aerobics instructors. Don't be deceived. This lysergic power trio not only hails from Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the Stooges, they may well have been given early ur-rock lessons by drum Stooge Scott Asheton. Now signed to Thurston Moore's label, the AC reflect both the low-end druganaut droning of the late Sixties, and the free-form no-wave of Sonic Youth. 'Animal' pits primitive grooves against twittery oscillations and guitar parts that recall a rat gnawing through wires. This salutary racket is let down only by Derek Stanton's weedy vocals on every other track.
Kitty Empire
Macy Gray
Big (Polydor) £12.99
After her last album flopped, one of pop's most distinctive voices is back on track, with the help of producer and collaborator will.i.am (Black Eyed Peas) and notable guests Fergie, Natalie Cole and Justin Timberlake. Macy Gray's first album in four years chronicles the break-up of her marriage and her life as a single mum, mixing big, Seventies-style soul ballads with hip hop numbers such as 'Ghetto Love' and 'Treat Me Like Your Money', which manages to combine Dead or Alive with Run-DMC. The voice is still a source of fascination and these songs don't let the rasping diva down.
Katie Toms
Good Shoes
Think Before You Speak (Columbia) £10.99
Bury this album in the Blue Peter garden and it would give future generations a pretty fair reflection of British indie circa 2007. Nights out in suburban towns, post-punk guitar stutter and Strokes-style rolling riffs: Good Shoes draw their inspiration from familiar sources. But chinks of an original songwriting talent show between the constituent parts here. Rhys Jones's yearning vocals teeter nicely over the edge of the guitar structures. And unlike their more acerbic contemporaries, the band let a sweet, tousled sadness seep through on 'Sophia' and 'Small Town Girl'. Good Shoes are at their best when slightly out of step.
Ally Carnwath
Deerhunter
Cryptograms (Kranky) £12.99
Bradford Cox, one of indie rock's more guileless frontmen, described his band's debut album as 'a total failure'. The adjectives he's pinned to album two include 'subdued', 'introverted' and 'detached', but better words can be summoned up to describe Cryptograms. Recorded over two days in Atlanta, Georgia, it's an off-kilter, lovelorn record washed over by waves of ambience and marked by outcroppings of sunstruck rock. They've attracted comparisons with My Bloody Valentine and Animal Collective, but these 12 tracks, along with the quintet's notoriously unhinged live shows, place Deerhunter in a clearing all their own.
Killian Fox
Devon Sproule
Keep Your Silver Shined (Tin Angel)
There's a refreshing sweetness about the work of this 24-year-old American songwriter - there in her mellifluous vocals and in poetic, freewheeling lyrics that, in the way of Bjork and Joanna Newsom, are more blank verse than rhyming schemes. Sproule's songs ooze the atmosphere of balmy Virginia days - she grew up in a commune in the state - and her sunny outlook is infectious. She even has a song called 'Dress Sharp, Play Well, Be Modest'. This second album extends her musical reach into swing and country flavours, clarinet and pedal-steel accompaniments; even some erratic production doesn't dent Sproule's youthful charm.
Neil Spencer
Quentin Collins
If Not Now, Then When? (Sunlightsquare) £11.99
Quentin Collins's debut album as a leader should enhance his growing reputation. This young trumpeter's bold phraseology and sparkling delivery have already made their mark, notably as a member of Dylan Howe's quintet. His quartet, with Jim Hart's vibraphone in place of the more conventional piano, has an airy lightness that sets off the trumpet sound to perfection. Their version of Faure's 'Pavane', with Michael Janisch's bass roaring like a lion, is particularly striking. Alto saxophonist Tony Kofi guests on two tracks, adding his characteristic bite and some impassioned solo playing.