ALBUM: BEAT EXPRESS
Unlike many local bands’ well trodden routes to awareness, Beat Express aren’t art school dropouts or stage school graduates. Formed five years ago through the charity Carousel, who work to help people with learning disabilities in the creative arts, Beat Express make a celebratory sound of rising above the challenges of life, delivered with an accomplished and infectious enthusiasm that puts aside the need for any kind of sympathy vote for its origins. For more info visit www.carousel.org.uk. (NC)

ALBUM: CASSETTEBOY Carry On Breathing (Barry’s Bootlegs)
After every album the Cassetteboy pair promise that they won’t go through the madness of taping hundreds of hours of TV and radio and editing into a combination of silly jokes and biting satire. Thank god they change their mind, and here’s their third (and, we’re sure they’ll say final) LP. Things are more positive, and less slice and dice, than Dead Horse – the high points make football commentary sound like porn, see Martin Luther King appear on Deal Or No Deal, and describe the oddest celeb nightclub in the world. See page 54 hear a bit of how they do it. (JK)

ALBUM: DAVID KARSTEN DANIELS Fear Of Flying (FatCat)
He’s a pretty deep and intense kind of guy is our David, with his brooding and introspective set that deals with the thorny issues of love and loss, mortality and decay. It’s maybe not an album you’re going to gravitate to while you get ready to go out, unless you’re on the second floor and planning to go out the window, but spend some time with Fear Of Flying and it’s an emotive and touching collection, arranged with a simple complexity that includes crickets, mellotron flutes and nasally oboes, and it certainly deserves some perseverence. (NC)

ALBUM: DIGITALIS Collections Of Conditions (The Truth Vs Tabloids)
This collection of rejigged and updated tracks is as good an introduction to Digitalis’ 20 year history as you’ll ever need. Proficient and polished, it’s nonetheless a little bit difficult to see this is as much more than a vanity project for club and studio stalwarts Graham denman and Mike L’Angellier. The grim warnings of techno fear and brain control and their relentless Euro-stomp backing are a little too redolent of the club scenes in old 80s Schwarzenegger movies to ring overly

SINGLE: LONELY GHOSTS Don’t Get Lost Or Hurt EP (One Inch Badge)
This is what I’d expected Dev’s Lightspeed Champion to be turning out after Test Icicles imploded. But don’t let that give you the wrong impression. Lonely Ghosts is definitely not Emo like he has a black fringe and dodgy record collection. Certainly, these songs are wrenched out of Tom like his life depended on it, filling a space very much in the realm of the emotional, but closer to the space and pressure of My Bloody Valentine than the specious pressures of My Chemical Romance. A direct and fully fuelled individual allowing himself to be overcome by a lot of shit. Fortunately for us, his shit is our milk. (MB)

SINGLE: MISERABLE RICH Pisshead/Boat Song (Humble Soul)
The album is getting rave reviews in Germany, and while we wait for it to arrive here there’s a two-track single that showcases both sides of this ‘bar room pop’ outfit. Pisshead is a perky live fave about…well, the title says it all really. But it’s the flipside that’s really special. Boat Song is shiver-delivering ballad sung from the view of James De Malplaquet’s mum. It’s a tender and moving mix of gentle strings and poignant, perceptive words that will have you calling your own mother to tell her you love her. And that’s no bad thing. (JK)

SINGLE: RICHIE PHOE Eye On The Prize (Phoe Love Recordings)
OK, so we’re suckers for some dub in the sunshine, the two just go together like I and I. Vocals on the lead track courtesy of legendary toaster Tippa Irie, which suggests and duly delivers a superior pedigree of tune. Its requisite dub version tips a heavy-lidded wink to King Tubby’s finest, while Bermudan MC Mango Seed brings a different flavour to Step At A Time and Way Back When showcases Phoe’s instrumental flair at the controls. It’s with no melodrama that Rob da bank describes Richie Phoe as ‘Brighton’s Lee Scratch Perry’, this has a rare authenticity about it and sounds great even when it clouds over. (NC)

ALBUM: POPE JOAN Hot Water, Lines And Rickety Machines (One Inch Badge)
Pope Joan’s first OIB release in an 8-track mini album that deals in an 80s throbbing factory trade of jerky rhythms and propulsive syncopated beats, jittery guitar lines scrawling across it with heavily effected patterns played out over the top. Some of Tom’s guitar work is similar to Nick Zinner’s, especially in the slanted shimmer of ‘An Alternate Route to the End’, which has a very YYY’s ballad aura about it. A record with dynamic. (MB)

SINGLE: THE SPLENDOUR Audio (Tinyclan)
With authentic Brighton roots that include video rental and fruit selling, The Splendour’s international potential is all the more pleasing. Radiohead might have reckoned anyone can play guitar, but making it sound as good as this is no mean feat. Combined with vocal hooks that remind you of when the Kaiser Chiefs were leaner and keener, it all adds up to the sort of single you can well imagine Jo Whiley pretending she’s really into. And what’s more, it appears to be an homage to a thriving local business – we look forward to the follow-up ‘The Taj Grocery’. (NC)

DEMO: THIS MONO GALAXY
The Glamour and the Pain80s nostalgia synth-core with the added details of interesting song subjects, such as cannibalism northern scumqueens, fat goths, sofa messiahs… like Kraftwerk with the content of Superqueens and Morrissey singing. Yeah, odd combo, stunning results. (MB)

ALBUM: TOBY TOBIAS Space Shuffle (Rekids)
The title of this album for Matt ‘Radio Slave’ Edwards’ Rekids imprint couldn’t be more apt on many levels. Yeah, it’s pretty cosmic and the tracks have a nice groove about them (which is probably what inspired the name) but also, more literally, there’s loads of space around the elements and even at its most techno-inspired it’s not going to raise more than a shuffle. Expect low impact aerobics rather than dancing, but it works as a headphone album and it’s easy to get lost in the layers of synths and rhythms. (JK)

ALBUM: TWO CHOICES Longest Journey (www.twochoices.co.uk)
Your two choices with this CD are big fat riffy portions of infectious pop rock, or a stylish coaster for your coffee cup. Unluckily for the desk here, the first choice wins out every time. Overtly commercial with an obvious eye on the mass market, it’s tempting to describe this as a more credible take on McFly with maybe some EMF thrown in for mischievous measure, but it would still be doing Two Choices a disservice, frankly. As they helpfully point out, they don’t have tattoos, skateboards or skinny jeans, but they’re brimming with pop sensibility and look set for commercial radio ubiquity. (NC)

ALBUM: VETIVER Thing Of The Past (FatCat)
Two years since their last album, Vetiver return with a collection of cover songs which have shaped the songwriting of band leader Andy Cabic, many of which won’t be prejudged by their original incarnations as, quite simply, you’ll never have heard of them. Without the burden of expectation on their interpretation, you’re simply left with a gloriously harmonious collection of songs which, for the encyclopaedic among you, includes Hawkwind’s ‘Hurry On Sundown’ and Loudon Wainwright III’s ‘The Swimming Song’. (NC)

in 2008. (NC)