Smile is the debut solo release from the Wet Wet Wet frontman. Wet Wet Wet fashioned their escape from Glasgow's dole queues in the early 80s with a slick brand of pop-soul fronted by the cheeky, personable Marti Pellow, a man actually possessed of one of the best white soul voices of his generation. Smile is his solo resurgence, written with former Squeeze lyricist Chris Difford and ...

Manufacturer: Commercial Marketing

By coincidence, the opening bars of Basement Jaxx's third album, Kish Kash, sample the intro to Jimi Hendrix's third album Electric Ladyland. Although the record doesn't have the ingenuity of the latter, there are similarities in the composition: layers of tweaks, beeps and found sounds create a soundscape backdrop for the music. Anyone searching for the Latin-styled "cut & paste" ...

Manufacturer: Xl

Manufacturer: Gut

Manufacturer: Virgin TV

Macy Gray's debut is the kind of album that lends itself to comparisons: Bill Withers (he of "Lovely Day" fame), for the rapturous, laid-back funk vibe; Lauryn Hill, as a fellow nouveau-soul-diva who's not willing to let something as silly as genre-lines let her stop from appropriating a great sound; Liz Phair, from her Exile in Guyville days, for the stark, honest, everyday take on ...

Manufacturer: Epic

Blandly, if wholly accurately, entitled Tom Jones & Jools Holland, this buoyant rhythm 'n' blues / rock 'n' roll hook-up between England's entertaining piano-plonking proponent and the bellowing Boyo from the Valleys may have been better served by sticking with the abandoned album titles of "Rough & Ready" and "Tom Sings, Jools Swings". Not that the contents, fine as they are, will come as ...

Manufacturer: Warner Strategic Marketing

David Gray's A New Day at Midnight is darker than its mega-hit predecessor, and deeper, and all the better for that. Emotionally fuelled by the death of Gray's father and the birth of his son, it possesses much the same tone as White Ladder, being simultaneously celebratory and troubled. The album, though, is slow starting. "Caroline", with its rattling percussion and quasi-Celtic ...

Manufacturer: East West

With songs that fall exactly in between early Michael Jackson and Taste of Honey, Jamiroquai's Synkronized is a funk-disco inferno that is distinguished from its 1970s counterparts only by its 1990s production. It contains all the same ingredients: wah-wah guitar, electric piano, soft-sided strings oozing out melody, pot-bellied bass and a blasted-out horn section that evokes images of ...

Manufacturer: S2

Here Be Monsters is the follow-up to Ed Harcourt's debut mini-album Maplewood and sees the singer/songwriter developing further on the gentle melancholy of his previous efforts with the help of Death In Vegas' in co-production and Gil Norton (Pixies) and Dave Fridmann sharing mixing duties. "God Protect Your Soul" combines an anguished lament ("I need to build a wall around me") with ...

Manufacturer: Heavenly

Stoke's favourite son's sixth studio album marks a new stage in the career of Mr Robert Peter Williams, Britain's favourite popular entertainer. Severed from his former right hand man, songwriter Guy Chambers, Intensive Care sees him forging a new partnership with former Lilac Time stalwart Stephen Duffy.

Manufacturer: Chrysalis