The guns of Brixton vs the moaning rock stars of Staines...

Hard-Fi

Once Upon a Time in the West

Necessary

As you've doubtless learned already, the allegedly unique thing about Hard-Fi's second album is that it doesn't have any cover art. Instead, it has the words "NO COVER ART" where the artwork ought to be. In this, the Staines massive are not original (Scritti, PiL and XTC all pulled similar tricks). Nor in any other way. For much of 'Once Upon a Time in the West', Hard-Fi are trying so hard to imitate The Clash (mid-period, when they'd belatedly and patronisingly co-opted reggae and funk) that it's beginning to resemble an episode of Channel 4's 'Star Stories'. Guitars are given heavy-handed chops, or big echoey overdubs, while Richard Archer's vocals are spat out with an anger that his words don't merit. All that stuff about fleeing "this lonely town" and escaping along the "Great West Road" rings less and less true: you want to shake him and say "Mate, you're rich. Just leave!" Elsewhere they venture into psychedelic scuzz rock, Depeche Mode-style navel-gazing and even folk, but to little avail. "Can't Get Along" attempts to recapture the shopping-centre romance of "Hard to Beat", unsuccessfully. And that's the trouble with 'Once Upon a Time in the West': it doesn't have a "Hard to Beat". At all. Simon Price

Menomena

Friend or Foe

City SlangIt's taken this long for "the first great indie rock record of the year" (Pitchfork, January 2007) to get a British release but the Portland trio with the instantly lovable name are well worth the wait. Menomena build songs using a customised guitar- loop program called Deeler and then play along using whatever instruments are to hand. Somehow, in spite of this arch and slightly shambolic approach, Menomena create glorious, catchy and challenging music that calls to mind Pavement, Talking Heads, Supertramp and Tortoise and no one at all. Still a great record and still getting better. Simmy Richman

Golijov

Oceana/Tenebrae/ Three Songs - Atlanta Symphony/Spano

Deutsche GrammophonOsvaldo Golijov's music is like a Hampstead sitting-room: elegantly proportioned and full of references to its owner's learning and travel. Nothing wrong with that, of course. But gosh, one yearns for a little individuality. Under Robert Spano, the Atlanta Symphony and Chorus provide energetic backing for Luciana Souza in 'Oceana'. Dawn Upshaw is radiant in three poems by Sally Potter, Rosalia de Castro and Emily Dickinson, while the Kronos Quartet's performance of 'Tenebrae' is almost exquisite enough for one to overlook the fact that Goljov has simply done for Couperin what Vaughan Williams did for Tallis. Anna Picard

Linda Thompson

Versatile Heart

RounderThompson's fourth solo album in the 25 years since she parted with Richard T is by some distance her best. Her children, Teddy and Kamila, are all over it like a rash - most notably in the form of Kamila's highly amusing 21st-century "jelly roll" song, "Nice Cars". And the shade of Rufus Wainwright haunts the eaves with his lovely "Beauty", which features the suitably camp ululations of Antony Hegarty, of Antony and the Johnsons fame. And Linda's writing has come on too: "Go Home" and "Whisky, Bob Copper and Me"" are copper-bottomed songs sung as sadly and wisely as you'd hope. Nick Coleman

Von Freeman & Friends

Young and Foolish

ChallengeApart from David Murray, maybe Chico Freeman and, in his day, Courtney Pine, the art of the tenor sax pirate is almost gone. But in this thrilling Dutch live recording from 1981, the great Von Freeman (Chico's dad, then aged 59) yo-ho-hos his way around four tunes and a classic quartet line-up in the free-booting manner of Long John Coltrane. The 26-minute opener of "I'll Close My Eyes" is the standout: all vocalised slurs and smears, squally split-reed blasts, and a real Chicagoan's feeling for the blues. Someone needs to bring Freeman - who used to play with Sun Ra - back to Europe while he can still walk the plank. Phil Johnson

Kate Rusby

Awkward Annie

Pure RecordsSix albums, countless live performances and eight years on from being 1999's token, sorry, wildcard Mercury nominee, not an awful lot has changed in the world of folk songstress Kate Rusby. She is still, as the BBC put it, "the acceptable face of folk"; less traditional than Eliza Carthy and easier on the ear than Seth Lakeman. The only thing that has noticeably shifted over time is that with each album she releases, her own compositions have improved to the point that the word "Rusby" is now a surer mark of a song's quality than the word "trad". And old-school folkies can stick that opinion in their pipe and slippers and smoke it. SR

ColombiaAfrica

The Mystic Orchestra: Voodoo Love Inna Champeta Land

RiverboatImagine sitting in a plaza sipping arguardiente while the resident merengue band mixes Latin rhythms with high-life or soukous guitars, creole vocals and a sense of Negritude so black it's nearly purple. In this special cross-cultural project, the already African-ised Champeta music of Colombia's Caribbean coast is made more African still by the addition of star guitarists from Cameroon, Congo and Nigeria, including Diblo Dibala and Dally Kimoko. The individual tracks are a bit uneven, but overall the sound itself is great festive music to drink and dance to. PJ