Sunday April 1

Kelly Jones

You’d think that when the singer of the Stereophonics made a solo album and went on tour with it, his record label might make an effort to tell the world. However, despite calling it  ‘a masterclass in personal songwriting ... with a stunning sonic diversion from his trademark sound’,  V2 have declined to make copies of Only The Names Have Been Changed available for review.

Fortunately, the songs  can be found on MySpace (though not under his name, since myspace.com/kelly jones belongs to a rather good New York singer-songwriter who sounds a bit like Shawn Colvin), revealing themselves as a moody, guitar strummed, stripped back and bluesy collection in thrall to Nick Cave with Jones’s throaty gravelled tones all very intense and earnest with the occasional touch of strings adding faint colour.

Initially only a download,  but now released as a physical CD too, the album was recorded live, each of the 10 tracks a girl’s name and story, Jayne previously heard in rather more rocking form on the Live At Dakota album.

 In keeping with the musical tone, the material’s fairly downbeat, the characters variously including a failed relationship (Suzy), a children’s nurse (Rosie), a cab driver (Katie), a cheating and murder (Emily), and a murdered prostitute (Violet). However, save for a couple of brief moments, it’s all taken at pretty much the same slow tempo, so that while the songs may be individually interesting, combined in an album and evening’s worth of gloom they require a lot of dedicated patience to sit through. Perhaps V2 were right, after all. 7pm. £17.50. Alexandra Theatre

Sunday April 1

Little Sister

A quartet of  Birmingham University graduates with a common interest in folk music, they line up as Yorkshire born Hannah Marsden on accordion, viola, vocals and percussion, Welsh Samantha Ann Fox on harp and vocals, Midlander Laura Mattison on violin, flute and vocals and Oxford girl Katy Bennett on guitar, cello and vocals. Musically, they spread the horizons to embrace Sephardic (Jewish) song, traditional Welsh and English melodies, klezmer, celtic and American mountain music, citing influences that range from Alison Krauss and Kathryn Roberts to Bartok and Bjork.

They’ve recently released their debut CD, La Rosa, a four track EP that encompasses the haunting six minute instrumental Black Jack that provides a perfect showcase for their virtuosity, a fine cover of Gillian Welch’s Appalachian gospel knees up By The Mark, and the harp and fiddle  driven Sephardic air title track. Things are somewhat let down with old chestnut Wild Mountain Thyme where the vocals sound far too uncertain and occasionally shrill, but otherwise it’s an impressive first outing and if they’ve got a set list of similar quality, they could well be making a name for themselves as a homegrown answer to the Be Good Tanyas in the months to come. 7.30pm. £4.50. midlands arts centre

Monday April 2

Six Nation State

A five piece from down Southampton way, they’ve been described as looking like dishevelled Mariachis and sounding like a stew of everything from Hendrix to Tex Mex, delivered at a Motorhead pace. Well, the Texicali mood’s certainly in evidence on new single Where are You Now (Jeepster), a rousing heel kicker of a track where The Pogues, Levellers, Mavericks and Mink DeVille get together for a tequila slammer party. If the live set’s anything like as infectious, they’ll need a barrel load of limes and salt. 7.30pm. £5. Barfly.

Tuesday April 3

Camera Obscura

Fronted by Tracyanne Campbell with instrumentation that includes mandolin, organ, accordion, trumpet and strings, though regularly likened to fellow Scots Belle & Sebastian, a more accurate comparison for this Glaswegian outfit’s breezy folk pop might be Fairground Attraction or The Concretes while it’s clear from a song titled Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken that Mr Cole and his Commotions play a fair role in their influences.

Indeed, with current album Let’s Get out Of This Country (Elefant) featuring such titles as the samba jazzy Tears For Affairs and the country flavoured Dory Previn, they’re clearly pop culture literate while such tracks as Come Back Margaret, the fairground whirlygig country waltzing The False Contender, a Spectorish girl-group If looks Could Kill  and the fingerclicking pop soul I Need All The Friends I Can Get suggest a strong affinity for the sounds and stylings of the 60s as a bedrock for their songs of heartbreak and loss. Yes, they are perhaps a little twee, but so beguiling they could make a death metal hardcore freak melt. 8pm. £8.50. Glee Club

Tuesday April 3

 Jackie Leven

Always a guarantee of a night of muscular melodies and emotion driven, confessionally hewn songs, Leven’s a welcome regular visitor hereabouts, often teamed on a  bill with Michael Weston-King. He’s travelling solo tonight, carrying a set list likely to dig deep into his new album Oh What A Blow That Phantom Dealt Me (Cooking Vinyl), a title lifted from Don Quixote.

Largely concerned with growing old, it’s a potent contribution to an impressive discography, steeped in shades of jazz and soul as well as his Celtic folk-blues and featuring contributions from Johnny Dowd  who provides counterpoint vocals to the Spirit In The Sky blues boogie stomp rhythm One Man One Guitar and the narration for The Skaters, an eerie atmospheric poetic monologue that could have been plucked from Paris, Texas.

 Opening with the swampy blues of Vox Humana, Leven ranges across an array of musical moods, taking a  laid back finger-picking New Orleans stroll through Childish Blues, lazily drifting through the early Dylanish Another Man’s Rain, breathing in the wide open spaces of Kings of Infinite Space, a peat-flavoured love song that evokes both Van Morrison and Leven’s own old outfit Doll By Doll.

 He tips the homage hat to Judee Sill and Kevin Coyne respectively on The Silver in Her Crucifix and Here Comes The Urban Ravens, two of the album’s most striking ballads, while, just to show he’s not entirely hewn from melancholy, he even throws in a cover of I’ve Been Everywhere, a lists song that was once a regular on children’s radio programmes. He may never sell vast numbers of records, but he’s an authentic national treasure. 7.30pm. £8. Little Civic

Wednesday April 4

John Power

Formerly bassist with Liverpool cult heroes The LA’s, Power’s largely lived in the shadow of their songwriter Lee Mavers, his own material rarely surfacing in the band’s output.  Quitting the band he went on to form Cast, enjoying sizeable success before that all fell apart four years ago in the car wreck that was the Beat Route album.

 Last year he rejoined Mavers for a LA’s tour, a reunion that prompted Power to pick up the guitar again and record another solo album, Willow She Weeps (Tanuki Tanuki), an acoustic  gentle folk blues collection that points up both his Nick Drake and Captain Beefheart affections and includes the lovely shanty swaying All My Days was the first song he ever wrote, way back in the mid 80s.

There’s a country gospel touch to the slide guitar folk galumphing Old Red Sea, Give It To Me is clattering swampy blues, the title track more of a mossy back porch folk tune, Jumpin’ Bean a rustbucket stomp and Goodbye a wry taste of the folksy pop that hued some of the early Beatles albums. None of it’s going to put gold discs on the wall or resurrect the days of hit singles and sell out tours, but it all sounds like a man happy with the music he’s making, and ready to spread those smiles around among those who share the same uncluttered, honest tastes.

 Support comes from East Belfast singer-songwriter Brian Houston, currently promoting his Sugar Queen album, its songs of  loss and personal strength informed by the death of his mother and his wife's diagnosis with cancer.

 End of the Beginning is a surprisingly upbeat number given the circumstances while the Steve Earle styled Red Badge Of Courage pays tribute to his wife's defiance of her illness. Elsewhere Childish Things conjures thoughts of Morrison in its tale of a 60s Belfast childhood and growing up while Van even gets a direct nod in These Days as he talks  about buying a rare vinyl copy of St Dominic's Preview. Most recently he released  the New, Live & Rare EP, a collection of tracks recorded for projects by Irish songwriter and music journalist Colin Harper. While very much a curio for the fans, it’s worth seeking out to hear the hard to find recordings of Psalm  86 and Just Trying To Be alongside the all new quietly anthemic Don’t Give Up. He certainly warrants as much an audience as the influences that inspired him. 7.30pm. £8. Bar Academy

Wednesday April 4

Ocean Colour Scene

A charity gig this, part of the venue’s fund raising work for Nordoff Robbins, the UK’s leading independent provider of music therapy services, so you’ll be contributing to a good cause and, with no hometown gig on the upcoming tour schedule, getting the only chance to hear showcase tasters from the upcoming On The Leyline album, released at the end of the month. 

Much has been made of the fact that it features a track, the stomping For Dancers Only,  written by Paul Weller but the band’s own material is actually much stronger, not least kick off summery  folksy pop single I Told You So (which, if anything, sounds like what Traffic’s Paper Sun might have been had Ronnie Lane made it), the Beatles flavoured title track and jazzy These Days, and the plangent swayer Man In The Middle. The band have been written off and critically dismissed time and time again, but as long they keep coming back with albums as strong as this, the Ocean’s not going to run dry for a good while yet. 8pm. £25. Hard Rock Cafe, Five Ways, Bham

Wednesday April 4

Fortune Drive

With My Girlfriend’s An Arsonist and Recent Advances Vol II, under their singles belt, the Bristol quintet are taking their time getting round to unleashing the much anticipated debut album. You’ll have to wait a while longer, but in the interim they’re here plugging single number three, Sparkle (Shy), another of the jerky old school rock n roll swaggerers that’s earned them comparisons to The Faces and a reputation for feedback drenched riffery. 7.30pm. £5. Little Civic

Friday April 6

Barenaked Ladies

It’s been eight years since the Canadians broke into the UK chart with the gimmicky catchy single One Week and attendant Stunt album. Despite critically praised tracks like Brian Wilson, Be My Yoko Ono, Alternative Girlfriend  and Lovers In a Dangerous Time they’ve not had a hit since. And yet they can still command sufficient of an audience to warrant the occasional tour such as this, their first in three years, backing up the recent release of Barenaked Ladies Are Men (Desperation), the one letter more follow up to last year’s Barenaked Ladies Are Me.

It’s unlikely to change their sales fortunes here, but doesn’t stint on their usual supply of shiny, summery pop with their witty wordplays and lush harmony backdrops. They get political with the Bush-bashing Iraq war themed Fun & Games (“it was a gag, it was all for a laugh, and they were shocked and they were awed and they were blown in half”) and there’s a dash of social comment to Angry People but otherwise these are yearning, regretful or self-deprecating sting in the tail songs like Beautiful, Running Out Of Ink, Serendipity, Something You’ll Never Find and the shimmeringly wistful Half A Heart.

Pop classicists in the same way as Crowded House, they’ll likely never get the attention they deserve, but nobody who’s discovered them on record or live is going to regret making the acquaintance. 6pm. £22.50. Carling Academy

Friday April 6

Razorlight

Having announced themselves an interesting band with debut album Up All Night a rampantly confident cocky swagger through tales of London life that paid musical respects to The Jam, The Clash, Patti Smith and Springsteen alike, Johnny Borell and the boys return to stake their claim to a place in the current pantheon of rock n roll.

Unfortunately, they fall a few rungs short. Springsteen’s still in there, as is patently obvious from listening to Who Needs Love? and Los Angeles Waltz, but the big music of In The Morning, the swelling power chords of  Can't Stop This Feeling I've Got and the lighters waving stadium friendly America suggest they’ve set their sights more on U2 territory.

When it works, as with the casually confident live staple Kirby’s House and they’re as magnificent as they should be but when it doesn’t, like the leaden white reggae Back To The Start and the dreary, self-conscious Talking Heads pastiche Pop Song 2006, they just sound clumsily derivative and devoid of any of the fire and individuality of their debut. So, it all hangs on that difficult third album, then. 7.30pm. £23.50. NEC

Friday April 6

Laura Veirs

First discovered over here with the Troubled By Fire album and its even more critically acclaimed follow up Carbon Glacier, Veirs may, like Jane Sibbery, be classed as librarian folk rock and have a reputation for a somewhat frosty iciness to her  work, but she’s also one of the finest, most emotionally perceptive - if also poetically impressionistic - female lyricists this side of Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush.

Like her previous release, Year Of Meteors, new album Saltbreakers (Nonesuch) was again recorded with her band (formerly The Tortured Souls now rechristened as per the album), this time making their backing vocal debuts on the title track, an r&b flavoured song of romantic intensity inspired by AS Byatt novel Possession.

The title a poetic euphemism for waves, the album’s replete with images and themes of the sea or salt, of hidden depths, cleansing or the ebb and flow of life’s tides; whales, the ‘herds of the sea’, swim through the floating cosmic viola wash of  Ocean Night Song, a merman seduces the narrator on the backporch jangling Cast A Hook, the saline residue of a sweaty night clings to Pink Light.

Her nature imagery crops up on Nightingale and Black Butterfly, while elsewhere, the Latin coloured Don’t Lose Yourself draws on a novel by Portuguese Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramango, all of which might suggest she’s a somewhat cerebral listening experience. Certainly, even though Phantom Mountain finds her positively rocking out in full on twin fuzzed guitar  manner, she’s not likely to have you straining to get out of the seat and dance but while still crisply pristine in her musical structures there’s a new warmness to her work, most evident on To The Country with its Baptist choir, the alt-folk soul of Wandering Kind, a rippling backporch Wrecking and the intensely romantic Drink Deep.

With a set likely to be peppered with favourites from her past albums as well as substantial offerings from this, it’s an intoxicating prospect. 8pm. £10. Glee Club

Sunday April 8

Aqualung

It’s four years since Matt Hales released Still Life, his follow up to his eponymous hit album, three since he last toured the UK. Since when, he’s had barely no profile at all while a while barrage of other sensitive young man singer-songwriters with hushed voices have emerged. Time then to remind punters he’s still around. Unfortunately, while he’s now signed to Sony in the States, there’s no current deal over here which means his latest album, Memory Man, won’t be out to coincide with the live dates. However, it does afford a chance to get an early taste of what’s in store with advance word being that the album’s informed by a response to the state of the world and images of fear and isolation set alongside the hope brought by the birth of his son.

So, alongside reminders from the previous two albums expect to find some unexpected sonic jolts to numbers such as Cinderella and the themes of unease that thread through tracks like Black Hole and Vapour Trail balanced by the soothing beauty of a Pressure Suit or Broken Bones. 6pm. £10. Carling Academy 2

Sunday April 8/Monday April 9

James Taylor

With son Ben busy making a name for himself, the old man’s decided to put himself about a bit for this solo tour working his way through his catalogue of hits and album favourites. Doubtless this will be an incentive to lure old fans away from their early beds and cocoa for an evening out in the company of songs like You’ve Got A Friend, Fire & Rain, and Carolina In My Mind. However, never the most energetic of performers, these days Taylor’s stage presence is even more static and bland, tasteful but tedious. Sure he’s a minor 60s legend, but if he has the temerity to repeat his lifeless, leaden version of Knock On Wood then you have my permission to mug him after the show and steal his bus pass.  7.30pm. £40. Symphony Hall

Monday April 9

Amusement Parks On Fire

Initially a one man show by Nottingham multi-instrumentalist Michael Feerick, now a fully fledged eight piece band, AMPoF are a cosmos surfing cocktail of Sigur Ros, Pink Floyd, Flaming Lips, Mogwai, Ride and My Bloody Valentine, a glorious rush of fuzzy echoing guitar noise and tracks that stretch out for, if not eternity, then at least six or seven minutes.

They’re opening up the fairground to plug current album Lost In The Angeles (V2), an art rock head trip designed to fill stadiums with slow build spacey epics  such as In Flight, the hammering surges of Blackout and No Lite No Sound, and the ethereal sonic storms that are new single A Star Is Born and Cut To Future Shock. Expect awe. 7.30pm. £5. Barfly

Tuesday April 10
The Pony Collaboration

More homegrown Americana, this octet come furbished with melodica, glockenspiel and viola rippling through their self-titled DIY debut (Series 8), wearied melancholic vocals shared between James Scallan and Claire Williams on songs that rake through the regrets of crumbled love. The lo fi production’s a little thin in places, leaving songs such as Let Go and Slumming Expedition to curl into wisps of smoke rather than fireballs but it’s a mood that perfectly suits numbers like the harmonica hazed shuffle Giving Up The Ghost, the sadness under open skies softness that wafts across Dust and the languid Your Disease. The Lay of the Land shows off their Beautiful South tinted pop colours nicely while the quiet-loud phrasings of Don’t Stay bring to mind both the Triffids and Go-Betweens, arguably the comparison that most informs the album. Worth saddling up for. 8pm. £3. The Go! Club @ The Old Wharf, Oxford Street, Digbeth

Tuesday April 10

Dennis Locorriere

Having been touring as a solo performer for the past four years,  the erstwhile lead singer with Dr Hook has bowed to fan pressure and agreed to put together a show of the band’s greatest hits. With musicians that include Clive Gregson on guitar, he’ll be leaving his solo material at home and only playing Dr Hook numbers, conveniently all gathered together on the current Hits And History (Capitol) album from which the tour takes its name.

 So, you can pretty much guarantee hearing such heart wringing classics as Sylvia’s Mother, A Little Bit More, If Not You, Carrie Me Carrie and the Ballad of Lucy Jordan alongside their more middle of the road mellowed out hits like When You’re In Love With A Beautiful Woman and Sexy Eyes. Fingers crossed he can find space for album track nuggets like If I’d Only Come And Gone and the brilliant Queen of the Silver Dollar, and equally that he gives the less than wonderful You Make My Pants Want To Get Up And Dance a miss.

For those who really want to get nostalgic, the CD comes with a bonus DVD of 14 live tracks, many featuring footage of the hits as performed by the original line-up.

 Opening proceedings is former Smokie mainman Chris Norman, the throaty voice (a sort of male Bonnie Tyler) that featured on their 70s greats Living Next Door To Alice, If You Thing You Know How To Love Me, Don't Play Your Rock 'N Roll To Me and I'll Meet You At Midnight, some of which will doubtless be in the set tonight.

 He’s been solo for a while now, turning out equally fine material, albeit with chart success mainly in Germany. Case in point is his current album, Coming Home (Charm), a solid collection of the same sort of strings coloured, guitar strumming ballads and more uptempo Euro flavoured pop that made the band’s name.

Chest thumping pop rocking tracks Break Away and One Night Stand wouldn’t sound out of place on a Meatloaf album while Without Your Love, Heart And Soul, and All Alone are all big swelling stadium power ballads designed to be played at full emotion drenched volume while Turn Right, Turn Round is the sort of drama rock that Chris De Burgh needs to rediscover. He may not be particularly fashionable, but the man has musical quality by the bucket. 7.30pm. £23.50/£19.50. Symphony Hall

Wednesday April 11

Lady Sovereign

White girl north London hip hop, self-proclaimed chav shortarse Louise Harman could be a female Streets where it not for the fact she’s got twice as much cred having been signed to the legendary Def Jam label. You can understand why they were keen to welcome her aboard, official debut album Public Warning a bright, brashy and infectious set of beats and wit infused attitude rapping and social suss that includes past top singles Random, Hoodie and a solo version of her Ordinary Boys collaborative hit 9 to 5. Current single Love Me Or Hate Me (which also comes with a remix featuring Missy Elliott) dips, bleeps and swoops with self-deprecating humour, the grime-pop groove extending to the urgent A Little Bit of Shhh ands a jerkaround Gatheration while My England is probably what Billy Bragg might have done if he were Eminem. The album also includes her live punk n hip hop collision version of Pretty Vacant, a bundle of stroppy energy  that suggests seeing her bouncing around the stage and giving it some is an experience not to be missed. 7.30pm. £10. Carling Academy 2

Thursday April 12

The Enemy

With the debut album We’ll Live And Die In These Towns due later in the year, the Coventry trio follow up It’s Not OK with  major label debut single Away From Here (Warner),  a jubilant flurry of rattling drums and buzzing guitars that hints much more to the Jam than former Oasis comparisons, and namechecks Richard and Judy in the process. Custom built for slamming yourself around the dancefloor, with tasters of numbers such as Dancing All Night and Don't Shed A Tear already having whetted the appetite, the album can’t come quick enough. 7.30pm. £8. Carling Academy 2

Thursday April 12

Hayseed Dixie

After a clutch of albums and regular live shows around the West Midlands, you should know the score by now; hard rock and metal reinterpreted as bluegrass hillbilly tunes by a band of musicologists who include the sons of Duelling Banjos writer Don Reno.  Having started out with an album of reworked AC/DC tracks, they’ve expanded their repertoire over the course of subsequent releases to take in the likes of Kiss, J Geils Band, Zep, Queen, Motorhead, and Sabbath as well as, more recently, throwing in some original rockgrass material of their own. Aware that the gimmick might be wearing a bit thin, new album Weapons of Grass Destruction was both recorded live to capture their careening energy and casts the musical net even wider to include interpretations of  hits from Cliff (Devil Woman), the Beatles (Strawberry Fields Forever), Scissor Sisters (I Don’t Feel Like Dancing), the Stones (Paint it Black), Status Quo (Down Down) and, with a dreamy backporch Holidays In The Sun, the Sex Pistols.  Guess their retirement can be put on hold for a while longer. 7.30pm. £15. Wulfrun Hall

Friday April 13

Herman Dune

Sounding uncannily like Jonathan Richman on I Wish I Could See You Soon, the opening track of new album Giant (Source), the Dunes consist of vegan animal rights activist Swedish brothers David, Andre and Neman with backing vocals from sister Lisa and her chums, otherwise known as the Woo-Woos. Purveyors of skewed Americana and songs of alienation and their ambivalent relationship with the US, the new album has fleshed out their rustic acoustic sound with woodwind, strings and even bongos, travelling musically farther afield so that the title track filters in Eastern European folk influences while Bristol embraces Latin American pan pipes, Your Name My Name has definite Spanish flamenco colours and No Master potent African rhythms.

The Richman reference points recur several times, both in the phrasings and the band’s sense of dry wit and sweet melancholia. But the guys are far more than copyists, forging their own distinctive identity and sound on beguiling numbers like When The Water Gets Cold And Freezes On The Lake, doomed relationship song Take Him Back To New York City, the wistful Nickel Chrome and the excellent title track.

Well observed and emotionally affecting, it may be  understated but it’s also a very real contender for the year end best of lists and, with gems like the waltzing  The Static Comes From My Broken Down Heart and In The Summer Camp’s sad farewell to childhood from the last album likely to surface in the live set, quite possibly a gig of the month. 8pm. £8. Glee Club

Saturday April 14

yourcodenameis:milo

Fresh from last year’s  collaborations album Print Is Dead Vol 1 that saw them working on new tracks with the likes of The Automatic, Maximo Park, Tom Vek, Futurheads and Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, the boys return with the official follow up to Ignoto in the shape of They Came From The Sun (V2).

While not stinting on the thumping drums, shouty vocals and raging riffing guitars on tracks such as Pacific Theatre, Translate and Take To The Floor, the Newcastle noiseniks once again underline their musical diversity and depths with less experimental exuberance and a more focused, cohesive sound.  Here you’ll find the persuasive groove of  All That Was Missing, the dreamy surfspace floater Sixfive, space rock instrumental Dicta Boelcke, the staccato dance swagger I’m Impressed and the flurried swirly pop of first single Understand. Possibly a little too clever for a major breakout, but the indie circuit should hail them as new gods. 7.30pm. £7. Barfly

Sunday April 15

Bloc Party

Two years on since their dynamite debut Silent Alarm marked them out as the field leaders for dance-driven post punk guitar rock, the boys return with their first tour in over a year and h the much anticipated follow-up A Weekend In The City (Wichita), inspired by frontman Kele Okerere’s interest in ‘the living noise of the metropolis’.

Which, roughly translated, means an album’s worth of songs exploring the life of a city, from commuting to casual sex, from larging it on Friday night to taking the long ride home the following morning.

Song For The Clay (Disappear Here) kicks things off in quasi theatrical rock manner with a driving urgent rhythm and strobe effect guitars, but then along comes Hunting for Witches with its electronic static and cut ups intro to a pulsing techno beat hung with an air of neurosis embedded in the politically carved lyrics.

A tumbling lullaby, the morning off to work Waiting For The 7:18 offers the first mid-tempo scuffer with an eruption into sonic fuzz chorus before current dark hued dance stomp single The Prayer gives way to the nervy Uniform’s swipe at studied cool and lack of individualism with hints of Blur, Cockney Rebel and Robbie Williams.

With the debut album evoking the influences of The Police and XTC, the swirly shapes of On and the pastoral drift of SRXT suggest they may well be Peter Gabriel and early Genesis admirers too while the liltingly relaxed Kreuzberg and the drum clattering lazy afternoon in the park shades of Sunday should both go down well with Snow Patrol fans.

With the riff circling, bass throbbing anthemic I Still Remember likely to prove a live highlight and Okerere venomous rant on British racism (with its provocative line about stamping on the faces of policeman) in Where Is Home? guaranteed to ignite a few right-wing tabloid bonfires, it seems fair to say that the band’s come of age with a vengeance.  

Support is  Glasgow’s  Biffy Clyro building a swell of support in advance of  forthcoming new album Puzzle on the back of rather good recent hit single Saturday Superhouse  (14th Floor) which suggests they’ve been busy soaking up the Foo Fighters collection.7.30pm. £16.50. W’hampton Civic Hall

Monday April 16

The Earlies

The part Texan, part Mancunian quartet made a sizeable impression with their These Were The Earlies debut some three years back, returning now with The Enemy Chorus (Secretly Canadian) an even stronger sophomore outing for their marriage of synth driven electronic psychedelic dance and lush harmonies pop.

Duly compared to Flaming Lips, the Beatles, Brian Wilson and Sigur Ros, they craft spacey melodies and tripped out tunes (Bad Is As Bad Does, Little Trooper, Gone For The Most Part) that  take off into the ether trailing samples, burred guitars and blissed out euphoric vocals, while on other occasions, they delve into silvery tinkling folktronica (Broken Chain), sinister carney merry-go-round (Foundation and Earth, Burn The Liars), whimsical progressive pop (When The Wind Blows) and sitar trance mantra freak outs (Breaking Point). Eclectic and experimental, they provide both the high and the chilled comedown.  7.30pm. £11. Carling Academy 2

Monday April 16

Switches

Judging by debut album Heart Tuned To D.E.A.D. (Atlantic, the Guildford four piece must have an interesting record collection. Reissued single Law Down The Law  kicks out like some glam stomping disco funky Franz Ferdinand, Drama Queen is all Dandy Warhols wha hoo, Give Up The Ghost weds Bowie and Queen, Snakes And Ladders pulls together The Strokes and Blondie, Killer Karma goes football terrace Blur while Every Second Counts mixes up the Beach Boys and Supergrass, Message From Yuz is T Rex meets Slade and Step Kids In Love is pure 10cc. They’ve also been known to come over a bit Simon & Garfunkel too.

You certainly can’t accuse them of not bringing a little variety to the party, and fortunately they have the songs to rise above accusations of karaokeism, delivered with confident panache with plenty of bounce, chugging guitars and tunes that crawl all over the skin like a psychotic flea. Don’t anticipate catching them in such intimate surroundings for much longer. 7.30pm. £6. Barfly

Tuesday April 17

Bob Dylan

Once you couldn’t get him near a UK stage, now you can’t keep him away. Less than two years after his last visit to the arena, he’s back again, this time in the wake of most recent album Modern Times.

Supposedly the final part of a musical trilogy that embraces Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft, it’s been hailed as a Dylan masterpiece. Well, let's not go overboard. It's very good but it's not going to be one future audiences return to in polls to come and vote superior to Blood On The Tracks, Blonde on Blonde, Highway 61 Revisited or Desire.

But that was Dylan then and this is Dylan now, and in terms of his more contemporary output does warrant much of the praise, not least for the way he's managed to combine relevant social and political observations with a music that was old before he first started blowing a harmonica.

Listen to Beyond the Horizon, the dreamily nostalgic romance of When The Deal Goes Down or the lovely Spirit On The Water and you're back in the soft shoe jazzy crooner days of the 30s; complete with what often sounds a lot like Hawaiian guitars lapping away in a manner more associated with Hoagy Carmichael.

Elsewhere the band lopes into rockabilly or rocking blues strides, doing a laid back Chuck Berry boogie on Thunder On The Mountains (which bizarrely references Alicia Keys who makes Bob cry because she had a tough childhood), harking back to his Woody influences with Rollin' And Tumblin', and scuffing along with the roadhouse blues for Someday Baby.

But if there's no snarls to the melodies, Dylan can still bite, as evidenced by Workingman's Blues 2, an elegiac back porch lament for the blue collar poverty trap that now passes for the American economy, or the rolling riffing The Levee Gonna Break’s attack on a divisive nation.

  Of course, being the unpredictable curmudgeon that he is, he may decide not to sing anything from the album at all and focus attention on the sometimes creative reinterpretations of his old chestnuts. Whatever, the fact remains that the man’s a still living legend, and any opportunity to stockpile the memories of him in action shouldn’t be missed.7.30pm. £37.50/£32.50. NEC

Tuesday April 17

The View

The Dundee punky power pop scallywags return for another go round with debut album Hats Off To The Buskers (1965) and its clutch of singles Wasted Little DJs, Superstar Tradesman and  Brimful of Asha soundalike Same Jeans.

With Don’t Tell Me all lope-along scally pop, Skag Friendly a whoop n skank early Blur-like drunken stagger, The Don dosing on Squeezey carnival pop, Grans For Tea and acoustic strummer Face For The Radio musical nods to an obvious love for The Kinks and both a chirpily enthusiastic Dance Into The Night and 60s midtempo swayer Claudia fine examples of their skill in crafting classic old school pop, quite frankly and quite rightly they’re the most unpretentiously enjoyable live act around at the moment. 7.30pm. £12.50. Carling Academy

Tuesday April 17

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Their engine having temporarily stalled when they lost their deal with Virgin, the San Franciscan trio went been in for a retune, ditching the old Mary Chain meets the Velvets pistons for a whole new set of valves, and re-emerging signed to Echo with Howl, an album that embraced old school Americana, blues, gospel, soul and r&b with such influences as Neil Young and the Stones. Things have moved on down the road in the past two years, the band now garaging with Island for new album Baby 81 and ditching Howl’s more acoustic unleaded for high octane guitar-driven rock and roll on songs that mine themes of  rebellion, conflict and hope. Taking its title from the name given a child survivor of the tsunami disaster that was claimed by nine different mothers, it’s due out at the end of the month, preceded by the swampy psychedelic boogie Weapon Of Choice that sees their Mary Chain meets Led Zep noise in fine fettle. The Zep influence is also prominent on  the slow steamrollering 666 Conducer, while other tracks likely to be on the set list’s taster menu include the riff blistering Took Out A Loan, a vibrantly  infectious Not What You Wanted, shoegazing symphonic wall of sound All You Do Is Talk and (a track that dates back to their formative years), the almost achingly tender mid-tempo Am I Only. Of course, what you really should demand to hear in its full live glory is the album centrepiece, American X, a nine minute fist of swirling  BRMC rock n roll guaranteed to get your motor running. 7.30pm. 15. Wulfrun Hall

Wednesday April 18

Hanson

 They’ve come a fair way since MmmBop cast them as some kind of boy band, earning critical respect and fans like Bono with the pop-Motown flavoured album Middle Of Nowhere, the rock blues gospel of This Time Around and the sterling pop rock of Underneath with its Top 10 hit Penny and Me.

They’re back now with The Walk, now signed to Cooking Vinyl and recording live to produce a set of songs that hark to their foundation influences in Elvis, The Beach Boys and Stax/Volt soul. Otis Redding and Johnny Cash get a name check on the gospel country flavoured Been There Before, Running Man leaps out of the gate with handclap straight ahead rockpop while Go sees them showing off their ballad chops, Go and the U2-like One More are purpose built for arena sway moments and Fire On The Mountain is every bit as anthemic as it sounds.

One of the strongest cuts is the opening Great Divide, a funky chugger about finding hope and featuring an African children’s choir they recorded during a fact finding trip to Mozambique. Odd though that the title track’s piano figure sounds a bit like Moody Blues hit Go Now. 7.30pm. £19.50. Carling Academy

Wednesday April 18

Tina Dico

Formerly the voice of  Zero 7, the Danish songbird made a striking solo impression over here with In The Red, a heat-infused torchy album of songs about love, loneliness and embracing what life throws at you that called to mind thoughts of Joni Mitchell,  Kiki’s Dee, Judie Tzuke and Julia Fordham on slowly insinuating numbers like Head Shop, Warm Sand, In The Red and Give In. So, admirers will be pleased to learn that its two predecessors, debut album Fuel and 2003’s Notes (Finest Gramophone) are finally getting a UK release, the latter having earned her two of Denmark’s answer to the Grammys.

Although the production’s not as lush, there’s no huge deviations from her current sound or reference points, however Break Of Day (where Kiki meets Alanis), the breathy acoustic Boys And Girls, a soulful My Mirror, Fuel’s sensual pop, a Janis Ian-like Back Where You Started and the country hued Watch Your Tongue all amply confirm her talent as both writer and singer and make you wonder why on earth no one had the sense to release these earlier. 8pm. £9. Glee Club

Wednesday April 18

Little Dipper

Otherwise known to friends and relatives as Rob Allen, a Lichfield singer-songwriter who almost replaced Tim Booth in James  and who plays a sort of skewed folksy rustic pop that might draw comparisons to a more mentally stable Syd Barrett, Sebadoh and early Badly Drawn Boy. Signed to local label Crunch, he’s released the Friendly People EP, a three tracker of gently strummed low fi that shines and shimmers almost as brightly as the constellation from which he takes his nom de band. Warm and suffused with the air of crisp early morning mists gathering over the fields, the title track’s a catchy rhythmic mantra while Yes, I Do Know These Things is an indie anti-folk strummer, but it’s alien field trip Binary Code Brains that most captures Allen’s beguiling quirky appeal. His MySpace site adds further tasters, most pleasingly the fuzzy 60s psychedelia folk of Warning and the dusk brushed Blood Ties.   Worth checking out, if only to see how he manages to flit between keyboards, guitar and samples and sing at the same time. 8.30pm. £4. Jug of Ale

Wednesday April 18

Miss Conduct

Risen from the ashes of Then Came Bronson (no, I’ve never heard of them either) and sharing their name with a Boston agony aunt, a Californian fetish bondage model and a  1968 porno movie, they’re Welsh but in a good way. Fronted by punk-pop fury Kim Waterson, the Bridgend quintet make the debut with Sinner vs Sinned (Visible Noise), a six tracker that places them somewhere between first album Lastprophets and Avril Lavigne. At present more competent than distinguished with the melodies tending to be a little samey,  nevertheless Waterson’s take no prisoners delivery and the band’s ability to steamroller through energetic guitar riffs ensure they pack a punch when it comes to tracks like the swaggery Devotion where they summon thoughts of All American Rejects fronted by Chrissie Hynde, stage racing stadium rocker First Loves Denial, and the surging ringing hard tipped power pop Six Feet Under. Worth a taste of Conductive education. 7.30pm. £5. Little Civic

Thursday April 19

David Cassidy

The fortysomething housewives will be out in force tonight for this musical trip down 70s memory lane and its pop parade pin ups. Having exhausted any would be dancing in the aisles with a quick turn by pensionable rock n rollers Showaddywaddy, the package will then roll out the toothsome charms of The Osmonds (sans Donny, he’s here later in the year) to run through such pepsodent friendly  hits as Love Me For A Reason, Let Me In and, ooh that frisson of danger, Crazy Horses. Then there’s homegrown gypsy rogue David Essex  with a rather more sizeable chart record to draw on, doubtless plucking favourites like Hold Me Close, Gonna Make You A Star, O What A Circus, the excellent A Winter’s Tale and, if the joints aren’t too creaky, Rock On out of the set list.

Cue the teen screams then for Cassidy, who’ll be working his way through choice cuts from his Could It Be Forever greatest hits collection, ensuring plenty of starry eyed nostalgia as he croons his way through the mellow easy pop of Daydreamer, How Can I Be Sure, I Am A Clown, Cherish, I Write The Songs and, if he can remember back that far,  those old Partridge Family evergreens I Think I Love You, It’s One Of Those Nights and Looking Through The Eyes of Love. All it needed was a guest slot from Davey Jones and the evening would be mumsy heaven.  7.30pm. £37.50. NEC

Thursday April 19

Kings of Leon

Just as a quick reminder, this lot hail from the Deep South, comprise brothers Caleb, Nathan and Jared and cousin Matthew, no longer sport their facial hair and have released two rather fine albums of Southern soaked garage, swampy stoner rock and lazy bluesy funk Americana in the form of  Youth And Young Manhood and Aha Shake Heartbreak, both informed by their religion heavy childhood with songs about sin and salvation, and as willing to shake up a New Order riff as a Confederate hoedown.

Now comes album number three, Because Of The Times (RCA), the  title apparently referring to some annual preachers’ conference they had to attend as kids. While essentially working with the same blueprint, they’re also more confident about playing with the components, stripping things done to edgy bare bones here and there, employing  studio trickery on the angular Charmer and the bluesy riff roiling On Call and stretching out the running time to an epic seven minute gathering guitar barrage with Knocked Up.

You’ll also find shadows of reggae hovering over Ragoo, jagged staccato riffery with My Party, thumping bass lines working out in My Party and aspirations to stadium rock anthemics with McFearless and Black  Thumbnail while True Love Way and Arizona should have guitar groupies dropping their underwear en mass.

As hinted at on Fans, they’ve yet to really find the same following back home as they have in the UK, but this should prove a breakthrough of Killers proportions,  finally graduate from playing preacher at low dive bars to take their place in the arena pulpits. 7.30pm. £22.50. Carling Academy

Thursday April 19

Chris Isaak

It’s been over a decade since the Orbison-voiced Isaak last had either an album or single register in the UK Top 40, and he’s not released anything new since 2002’s Always Got Tonite. Even his film career, launched memorably with Twin Peaks, seems to have stalled, his last sighting being John Waters’ dismal A Dirty Shame, a film that went straight to DV here. However, he’s still a voice and performer to be reckoned with, and, as the recent Best Of underlines, he’s got an impressive back catalogue of  classic material. He’ll undoubtedly be digging into the vaults tonight and coming up with some choice greats, almost guaranteed to include Blue Hotel, Wicked Game, Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing and his cover of Only The Lonely among then. And the man wears some great suits too. 7.30pm. £22.50. W’hampton Civic Hall

Friday April 20

Lostprophets

Barely twelve months ago, they seemed to have slipped off the radar, founder member drummer Tom Chiplin having departed and fans still not quite sure how they felt about the switch from the nu metal of the debut to the more pop inclined emo of Start Something. However, along came Liberation Transmission (Visible Noise) and, lo and behold, they’re back on all conquering form with an air punching collection of driving radio friendly emo rock surges out of the starting gate with Everyday Combat and doesn’t let up on the mix of punchy adrenaline rush and soaring balladry until its drained of every drop of sweat and emotion.

With Rooftops demonstrating how well they know their way around a stadium anthem, Always All Ways proving themselves masters of the swelling big ballad,  and A Town Called Hypocrisy, Can’t Catch Tomorrow, the Green Day-ish Everybody’s Screaming all brakes off surgers, they clearly have the future sewn up. And if, at some point, they ever feel like mutating into a new Def Leppard, then the massive, sky shaking double punch of  teen romance sobber Broken Hearts, Torn-up Letters And the Story Of A Lonely Girl and For All These Times, For All These Times are the sort of calling cards that are impossible to ignore.  77.30pm. £18.50. NIA

Friday April 20

Arctic Monkeys

Tickets only available through registering on their web site, this was never really open to general access, ensuring that it’s only the stalwart fans who’ll be on hand to witness the unveiling of the much anticipated follow up to last year’s award winning if somewhat overrated Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not with its Strokes, White Stripes and Franz Ferdinand influenced shapes.

Naturally Favourite Worst Nightmare has been kept under close wraps, so there’s only the lead off single Brianstorm (Domino) to offer hints of what to expect. The answer being, well, more of the same really, a stomping urgent flurry of guitar buzzing punk new rave dance with a hint of Morricone and  Alex Turner's wordplay wit. It’ll be topping the charts by the time you read this, with the album set to follow suit. Critical assessment seems redundant. Bet the Kaiser Chiefs are seething.

 As with their last tour, they’ve again brought along the Eva Petersen fronted Liverpool five piece Little Flames  as support. They should, by now, have long completed their debut album but there’s still no sing of it on the horizon, so fans will have to content themselves with new single Isobella (Deltasonic), swerving away from their leafier folk shades for what’s probably best described as flamenco garage. 7.30pm. Sold Out. Carling Academy

Friday April 20

Alasdair Roberts

The Scottish trad folkie’s last album, No Earthly Man, was comprised entirely of death ballads, a cheery cocktail of infanticide, poisoning, fratricide, shipwreck and funeral dirges. Thankfully, he’s in sunnier mood for the follow up, The Amber Gatherers (Drag City), a collection of playful self-penned but traditional minded ditties that sees him both giving death the finger (on 12 bar blues I Have A Charm) and working with a band.

Firmly in the troubadour tradition (the songs even take him roving far and wide while his lyrics are redolent of archaisms), it’s a light but sturdy album that can only serve to enhance Roberts’s reputation as writer, singer and guitarist, songs like the tinklingly wonderful Where Twines The Path, nature’s defiance of man on Riddle Me This and even the mortality themed Waxwing veined with a reassuring optimism in the continuance of life and the seasons.

After all the doom of his last album, it’s also a joy to hear him celebrating love so fulsomely on the rippling River Rhine, his native brogue as rich and warm as smouldering loam. There’s sly wit here too, The Cruel War may appear a song about a cuckolded soldier preparing the face the foe, but is in reality full of metaphors for sexual impotence.

Elsewhere the handclappy Firewater’s the sort of thing you’d imagine aged farmers and poachers gathering to sing around the warming coals in some  small country pub while, on a similar note, I Had A Kiss Of The King’s Hand could easily be some 17th century sailor’s drinking song.

Despite a circle of fans and friends that include Will Oldham, he’s probably not trendy enough to enjoy the same sort of reception accorded fellow young folkies like Seth Lakeman, but those prepared to lend ears will find rewards of equal measure. 8pm. £9. Glee Club

Saturday April 21

GoodBooks

Apparently part Orange Juice, part The Cure and part Talking Heads, according to the label blurb, in reality their last single Leni  was a dull mix of Bowie and Supertramp. Next month’s follow up, Illness (Columbia) is a bit better with its urgent syncopated rhythms, fuzzy guitar storms and summery soaring vocals, but there’s still little here to build a library on. 7.30pm. £6. Little Civic

Sunday April 22

Fields

More indie folk music, this time with occasional shards of noisy abrasive guitar and swirly keyboards, variously hailing from Birmingham, London and Rekjavik the five piece arrive clutching hot off the press copies of debut album Everything Last Winter (Black Lab), an album that lives up to the title with shimmery melting  icicles of sound off which glisten their sun and snow soaked melodies. There’s a certain shoe-gazing feel about them, but a lot more muscular, sometimes veined with an air of 70s progressive folk as on The Death and You Bought This On Yourself, at others (Skulls And Flesh And More) flying on wings of almost West Coast late 60s pop, with School Books even conjuring a cross between Sigur Ros and Buffalo Springfield.

Recent single Charming The Flames, with its spooked whippooring wind through the trees intro, should prove something of as live highlight alongside the simple watery come down acoustics of Parasite and a driving Cure meets Porcupine Tree-ish Song For The Fields, but there’s plenty of interesting crops here to  harvest.

Support is Hush the Many, a ‘space-age cello’ featuring boy-girl folk rock quartet with hints of Bowie, Al Stewart, Arab Strap and Syd Barrett to their hushed but sometimes spiky acoustic sksycrapering guitars sound. Debut  single Song Of A Page (Label Fandango) harks to the latter sensibilities with its edgy sonic scowls but it’s on the quieter live track, In Bloom, that they really show their mettle. 8pm. £8. Glee Club

Monday April 23

30 Seconds To Mars

It seems you can’t turn on the radio these days without finding some actor or actress trying to make a second string career as a rock star. Case in point this lot, fronted by Jared Leto, best known for his work in Fight Club, Requiem For A Dream and Alexander with the lead role in Chapter 27,  the upcoming biopic of Lennon’s killer Mark Chapman, and featuring brother Shannon on drums. They’ve been around some six years, releasing their debut back in 2002 and following with Beautiful Life two years ago.

That’s finally getting a UK release, hence this set of dates, though given the passage of time it’s anguished emo meets the Cure and themes of pain and purification all sound rather dated in the post Evanescence era. That said, kick off single Attack is loaded with driving guitars and angst while they serve ably massive sonics on Battle Of One and Savior, parade poppier flavours for Was It A Dream and give it some persuasive moodiness on the title track. They could probably have done without their electro rippling bonus cover of Bjork’s Hunter where they sound like another band entirely, but then it does contain the big swelling stadium emo anthemics of The Kill which, having inexplicably become the longest-running hit in the history of the Modern Rock chart, should comfortably see them packing the crowds in tonight. 7.30pm. £9.50. Carling Academy 2

Monday April 23

Trivium

Back headlining, Orlando’s young metal whippersnappers bring their  the body-pummelling guitars, machine gun drumming, flesh tearing beats and throat lacerating screams to bear in the service of current album  The Crusade (Roadrunner). Not overly conversant with sonic subtlety and certainly holding no truck with anything as wimpy as a ballad, it rampages through riff spillage brain crushers such as Contempt Breeds Contamination, Becoming The Dragon and Entrance Of The Conflagration with everything such titles might lead you to expect while Anthem provides a platform for some of the hottest guitar soloing you’ll hear without having to have your ears sewn back on afterwards.

 Support comes from veteran Canadian thrash metal crew Annihilator whose current album, Metal (SPV), pretty much sums itself up by the title. Ear bleedingly heavy and pround to parade its old metal influences (Army Of One namechecks Motorhead, Sabbath, Maiden and Metallica among others), it embraces guest appearances from members of Danko Jones, Lamb Of God, Nevermore, Anvil, and indeed Trivium as it welters its way through spine bending tracks like Clown Parade, Downright Dominate, Chasing The High and Operation Annihilation. However, since both they and the headliners have a track called Detonation, maybe they’ll have to flip a coin to see whose song makes it into the night’s set lists. 7.30pm. £15. W’hampton Civic Hall

Tuesday April 24

James

One of the more unexpected reunions, it’s six years since they unofficially called it a day following two commercially underperforming albums and the departure of singer Tim Booth to follow a solo career. Then, in January this year, rumours surfaced that they were getting back together and now, with the classic Laid line up of Booth, Jim Glennie, Larry Gott, Saul Davies, Mark Hunter and David Baynton-Power here they are for what will undoubtedly be a night of crowd pleasing favourites from their back pages.

Although there’s already been a best of compilation, things have repackaged for Fresh As A Daisy, a singles collection that comes in both one and two disc versions, so you can rely on hearing such golden nuggets as Come Home, Laid, Born Of Frustration, Say Something,  Just Like Fred Astaire, She's A Star, Getting Away With It and, naturally, singalong band anthem Sit Down. With a new album in the offing, there’ll also be a taster of fresh material, pretty much guaranteed to include new single Who Are You. Always a brilliant live band, it’s good to have them back. 7.30pm. £28.50. Carling Academy

Tuesday April 24

Loudon Wainwright III

An ever welcome performer with his caustic, witty, insightful and often self-deprecating songs, he’s been somewhat eclipsed in recent years by the success of his offspring, Rufus and Martha so this is a useful chance to remind where the talent sprang from. With 21 albums under his belt, there’s plenty of material to choose from though there should  be a fair sprinkling from his most recent collection, Here Come the Choppers (Evangeline), hopefully to include post 9/11 reflection No Sure Way, the pre Iraq invasion paranoia of the title track, a poignant Hang and Fred and, surely heavily personal, When You Leave’s song about a father who walks out on his family and is then rejected by his kids.

With the double disc reissue of classic  albums T Shirt and Final Exam (Evangeline) coinciding with the tour, he might well be persuaded to revisit Bicentennial, Wine With Dinner, Mr Guilty and Watch Me Rock I’m Over Thirty if the audience is vocal enough.

 Just to underline the fact that the family lineage seems to go on forever, the show’s being opened by daughter Lucy Wainright Roche and, if the demos of Long Before and Saddest Sound are representative of what’s in store, then her own debut album can’t come soon enough. 7.30pm. £22.50/£18.50. Symphony Hall (+ Warwick Arts Centre May 2, £18.50)

Tuesday April 24

David Kitt

A headline date for the Dublin singer-songwriter, still busy plugging fifth album Not Fade Away (Rough Trade). Retaining an abiding emotional concern with that thing called love as well as a photographer’s eye of his native city, there’s some rocky pop with I Know The Reason and Say No More, laidback wistfulness for One Clear Way, Sleep, and the lazy Nothing Else and even some 60s bluesy organ work on the slow and moody Wish And I Won’t Stop. It’s a bit unfortunate that the most direct number sports a title that instantly precludes its funky techno pop from radio play, but there’s more than enough here to guarantee that, while he may not reach lofty chart bothering heights outside of Ireland, Kitt’s not about to fade away either. 8pm. £9. Glee Club

Tuesday April 24

Sharon Shannon

Originally a member of The Waterboys way back in 1988, the Clare born accordionist/fiddle player's career has seen collaborations with such diverse musicians as Bono, Nigel Kennedy, Denis Bovell and the Kodo Drummers of Japan as well as a steady stream of well received solo albums.

Although she released the collaborative Tunes with Frankie Gavin and Mike McGoldrick in 1995.  a live album appeared last year and she most recently recorded the concert DVD Live At Dolans with guests that include Damien Dempsey, Declan O’Rourke and Winnie Horan there’s been no new solo studio material since Libertango. Featuring the Kirsty MacColl title track, that combined the traditional flavours of her native Ireland and the kindred musical spirits of Scotland with the warm exotic tones of Latin America, so it’ll be interesting to see if the latter rhythmic influences and indeed the foray into rap on What You Make It are still part and parcel of her sound. And, hopefully, she’s still treating everyone to her version Fleetwood Mac's Albatross played with accordion, mandolin and fiddle.  8.30. £16. Robin 2, Bilston

Wednesday April 25

The Stills

It’s four years since the Montreal quartet released Logic Will Break Your Heart  with its lovelorn indie guitar pop filtered through such influences as The Smiths, Interpol, Ride, New Order and Psychedelic Furs. Now they’re back with follow up Without Feathers (Drowned in Sound), Dave Hamelin giving up the drums to share lead vocals and write much of the material, expanding musical frames of reference to take in comparisons to the Beatles (especially on Oh Shoplifter) and U2.

Even with songs about love turned sour, it’s still a rather sunnier of outlook than the decidedly gloomy debut, kicking out of the tracks with the driving guitar and marching beats of In The Beginning, and delivering a series of swelling big music anthems in the shape of The Mountain, ringing guitar ballad She’s Walking Out, the Springsteenesque It Takes Time and the military beat 60s guitar pop and horns of Destroyer. If there’s justice in the world, they’ll be back in a  few months time playing far larger venues to far bigger crowds. 7.30pm. £8. Bar Academy

Thursday April 26

Keith Urban

He doesn’t like being called Mr Nicole Kidman so we won’t mention that, nor is he too fond about bringing up his extensive stints in rehab, so that’s a no no too. Instead, let’s talk about the music. Born in New Zealand. he’s progressed from backing music to the likes of Brooks and Dunn to become one of America’s biggest mainstream country stars, notching up Grammys and mega selling albums that stretch from his 1999 self titled debut to the current Love, Pain & The Whole Crazy Thing.

This being his first major UK tour, he’ll doubtless be trawling across the years for a set likely to take in such massive country hits as Days Go By, Better Life, Tonight I Want To Cry, and But For The Grace Of God alongside current numbers like Stupid Boy, Once In A Lifetime and the  Hurricane Katrina themed Raise The Barn. He may have only had one brief taste of the UK charts when Days Go By scraped into the Top 40 two years back, but you can guarantee that you’ll have to squeeze your stetson tight to find room to breathe at this show. 7pm. £29. Carling Academy

Thursday April 26

Ben Okafor

UB40 and Steel Pulse aren't the only reggae sons of Birmingham. Born in Nigeria, where he was a soldier at 15 in the heat of civil war, he moved to the Midlands in the 80s recording two albums with  Bob Lamb. With musical influences that feature Church music alongside such names as James Brown, Jimmy Cliff, Beatles, Stones, Fela Kuti and The Wailers, he's currently still plugging third album, Coffee With Lazarus. Recorded in New Yor, it’ll inevitably bring Marley to mind but also Sting (Palace) and even (with the throaty vocals on See Me Now) Chris Rea.

He's got a warm, deep yet light, honey and sandpaper voice that oozes soulfulness on songs that generally fall into either love songs, revolution against oppression pleas and the Third World social-politics embodied in Africa Will Be, You'll Be Fine and the self-explanatory world hunger themed Give Food.

The familiar reggae rhythm lollop is in frequent evidence but it also embraces ska, African folk and jazz while So I Believe and Give Food summon r&b and soul shades of Gaye and Mayfield, You'll Be Fine is a tropical calypso lilt and the magnificent Victoria (a richly ambiguous song about Empire and the exploitation of colonialism) is a brushed acoustic guitar and piano singer-songwriter ballad that sounds like a meeting between Ray Davies and Labi Siffre.

With the relaxed effortless that only comes with consummate musicianship and inate style, the man is a superstar, all it needs is for people to hear him and realise it. 7.30pm. £8. midland arts centre

Friday April 27

Give It A Name

The first of a three day fest package on two stages, stuffed with all manner of acts designed to appeal across the rock spectrum of tastes, this should tax the endurance of even the most committed air guitarist and mosh pit veteran.

Day one’s  line features underachievers Jimmy Eat World, A.F.I. and the not entirely household names of Hit The Lights, The Receiving End of Sirens,  Thursday, Hellogoodbye, The Audition, Mewithoutyou, and  MXPX. However, the ones to catch have to be Sparta. Formed six years ago by former At The Drive-In members Jim Ward and Tony Hajjar, they’ve released two albums and arrive here now with their third, the aptly titled Threes (Anti).

Coiled and intense for Crawl and Untreatable Disease, they’re also not afraid to get in touch with their inner pop beast on the infectiously catchy Erase It Again. Fuelled by a loss of faith in life, love and a nation after living under the domestic and global yoke of George W, it’s a cathartic album about rebirth and refusing to give in, deftly encapsulated in the furiously driving single Taking Back Control but clearly evident in the lyrics of such other tracks as Born And Buried, Red. Right, Return, Weather The Storm, The Most Vicious Crime and the delicate balladry of Unstitch Your Mouth. If the same passion informs the live set, this will be the one you go home talking about. 2pm. £32.50 (3 days £80). NIA

Saturday April 28

Give It A Name

Day two and warming up for their summer US tour with Metallica, here come Finnish boys HIM, still riding high on the success of last year’s Dark Light album and its Bon Jovi meet Sisters of Mercy comparisons. With the chugging gothrock In The Nightside of Eden and the arena anthems of Under The Rose, those cigarette lighters are going to be kept well busy.

Then there’s the speed metal guitar squalls, thundering drums, and screamo rock yowls of Alexisonfire, serving up more helpings from the Crisis album with its  frenzied Drunks, Lovers Sinners and Saints and the delightfully titled Boiled Frogs.

Bulking up the bill you also get The Used, From First Till Last, Madina Lake, Cry For Silence, The Sleeping, Mindless Self Indulgence, Ignite, and Kill Hannah. However, the slot to mark your card for has to be Juliette and The Licks. Fronted by actress turned rock chick Juliette Lewis taking her musical cue from Guns n Roses, Patti Smith, and Courtney Love they made an auspicious debut two years back with Speaking My Language and barnstorming cuts like Pray For The Band Latoya,  I Never Got To Tell You What I Wanted To where she sounds like a Southern Marianne Faithful, and the wired Blondie of Got Love To Kill.

 Now they’re back sounding even better with Four On The Floor (Hassle), re-released with bonus live dvd and welding steamy swaggering sweaty rock n roll in the shape of the red hot Southern bluesy rock Smash & Grab,  sex oozing AC/DC grinder Hot Kiss, an ass shaking Sticky Honey that sees Debbie Harry hanging out with The Stooges and Purgatory Blues where Patti Smith snakedances through a Stones riffing juddery groove.

 She does moody too, ably evidenced by In the Cage and, bringing her acting chops to the fore, the smouldering narrative Death of A Whore that rolls out like an on stage rock n roll screenplay by a gutter-mouthed Tennessee Williams. Despite the fact she’s taken to wearing Indian feathers in her hair, she’s also one hell of a dynamic live explosion of writhing energy. Not to be missed. 12.30pm. £32.50 (3 days £80). NIA

Saturday April 28

Breed 77

Despite last year’s glorious In My Blood with tracks like the Floydian anti war juggernaut Tears, the Gibraltarian rock outfit still aren’t as a big over here as their  fusion of metal and flamenco (think an Andalucian Metallica) deserves.

Hopefully lifting tremulous big ballad Look At Me Now as the new single might help change matters, especially since it comes with their stunning latino-metal cover of the Cranberries hit Zombie.

They’re also celebrating their roots with a new album Un Encuentro (Albert) that features Spanish re-recordings of tracks from their previous three releases and which, judging by the version of Petroleo and La Ultima Hora, provide ample proof that classic rock roll can speak any language. Still, you might want to take the phrase book in case. 7pm. £9. Carling Academy 2

Sunday April 29

Give It A Name

The final day rolls out the bigger guns to see things off in loud style. St Albans hardcore/screamo trance metal outfit Enter Shikari will be doing their bit with the new album to reinforce those Yes meets Napalm Death comparisons while  Minneapolis boys Motion City Soundtrack will uncork the pop punk fizz of Commit This To Memory to pour out the summery anthem chug of Everything Is All Right, the spiked sherbet Make Out Kids and stadium power fisting Hold Me Down.

New Jersey’s Senses Fail promise one of the day’s highlights with the snotty bubblegum of Calling All Cars and the thundering Shark Attack from their Still Searching album while All American Rejects will have you wondering why, in the wake of Dirty Little Secret becoming a staple inclusion for every high school movie soundtrack and their power balladeering on  It Ends Tonight, they still can’t persuade the world to take home copious copies of their Move Along album.

 Nashville’s Pink Spiders arrive in trademark pink and black to preview their upcoming Teenage Grafitti (Suretone) album and its hooks laden amalgam of 70s punk and 80s new wave, all deftly summed up by swagger n strut first single Little Razorblade where Weezer get to hang out with the New York Dolls.

For more emo minded tastes, there’s Saosin, a radio friendly bunch with a propensity for the sort of  high soaring vocals, mountain scaling guitars and anthemic aspirations to be found on current single Voices (EMI).

 Which, when you throw in Mae, Say Anything, Kevin Devine, Kids in Glass Houses and New Found Glory leaves you with the night’s headliners, Brand New who, following their mini jaunt earlier this year to promote their post-emo album The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me, now return with its first single, the quietly unspooling tick tocking ballad anthem Jesus (Interscope), a track which, not undeservedly, as seen them touted as America’s answer to Radiohead. They promise a definite grand finale. 12.30pm. £32.50 (3 days £80). NIA

Sunday April 29

Bobby Conn

Mixing up jazz, Latin, metal, pop, prog and glam, eye-linered fringe cult hero Conn hits the road with solo album number six, King For A Day (Thrill Jockey), an apparently quasi conceptual Don Quixote fantasy inspired by celebrity culture and fuelled by queasy cynicism. Tongue partially tucked in cheek (how else do you sing a  song about toe-sucking fans at a gig?), it has a dig at the Hiltons of the world on Twenty-One, takes a nip at scientology (and Tom’s pearly whites) with Anyone and the short hollow shelf life of celebrity on the likes of  the falsetto plinking Mr Lucky, the breathy Bowie phunk posturing (I’m Through With) My Ego and the jazz  lounge swayer title track.

Opening with an eight minute instrumental that includes both birdsong and Latin chant and punctuated with musical interludes such as A Glimpse of Paradise where violin playing missus Monica Boubou gets to strut her strings, he punches it up on the slashing guitars of  a Steely Dan on acid Sinking Ships and grooves to more mellow keyboard art pop with Things or the sashaying 70s jaunty Love Let Me Down that should pick up the weirder members of Mika’s fanclub, ensuring your ears are kept on their toes and your toes in a state of dancing schizophrenia. 8pm. £8. Glee Club

Monday April 30

Jason Donovan

Strange indeed are the fickle fads and fashions of pop music. One day Donovan was the fresh faced darling of mums and their tweeny daughters churning out lightweight pop hits Too Many Broken Hearts, Sealed With A Kiss, Too Many Broken Hearts, Rhythm of the Rain, Happy Together and Any Dream Will Do, the next he’s yesterday’s news, a bit of a joke and target of sniggering gossip about his sexuality, all blown out of water by a court case, a marriage and two kids. Then the wheel turns again. First he becomes a respected star of the West End stage in shows like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Sweeney Todd then he does I’m A Celebrity and becomes suddenly cool (and he didn’t have to marry Jordan either) and finds himself enjoying a pop star renaissance, duly out making hay again while the sun’s still shining with this greatest hits tour that not only kicks off in Birmingham but returns for a second show later in the month.

On top of which he’s also got new material in the offing with Talking To Myself a bit of classy mid-tempo ballad which, were it released by Take That, would be an instant No 1. Go on, time to admit you really always liked him after all. 7.30pm. £22.50. Symphony Hall

Monday April 30

Cold War Kids

Back pushing the Robbers & Cowards (V2) album with its narcotic bluesy sound that’s seen them touted as a cocktail of Beta Band, Velvets, Dylan and Billie Holiday. They’re certainly fond of fuzzed up guitars, lurching rhythms and Buckleyesque soulful vocals, in plentiful evidence on things like Hang Me Up To Dry, Hair Down, bass heavy gospel stomp Saint John and the Weiner cabaret meets Tom Waits around a gypsy campfire of Passing The Hat. Then again elsewhere Hospital Beds conjures thoughts of early solo John Cale, Robbers and Pregnant  are slow drunken lurches and both Red Wine, Success and Rubidoux show off their clattering rock clothes.

They could, perhaps, find room for more light and shade with some softer arrangements here and there, but on the evidence of this they seem on course to be this year’s My Morning Jacket. 7.30pm. £8. Carling Academy 2

Monday April 30

Acoustic Ladyland

They began life as a Hendrix tribute outfit, transforming the music into polite easy listening jazz but they’ve progressed beyond the gimmick novelty to forge their own distinctive fusion of jazz and post punk sonics, one minute noodling through some smoky sax break, the next erupting into savage guitar and horn squalls of  a Pere Ubu persuasion. Often in the same number.

They arrive here on the back of third album, Skinny Grin (V2), where the punky hammering ‘sung’ title track (reminiscent of Blurt and Wire as it happens) sits alongside instrumental art jazz rock workouts like Red Sky and the bipolar Road of Bones.

An acquired taste to be sure and, at times prone to some of the self-indulgent beard-stroking experimentation of the 70s jazz underground that was a lot more interesting for the players than the audience. But whether clattering through the dissonance of Paris with Alice Grant on vocals, cha chaing  across the catchy parping Cuts And Lies or freaking out like Pigbag in a jamming reeds meltdown with the Scott Walker mixed Salt Water, it guarantees a pretty challenging live experience, whether they decide to throw in a Purple Haze or not. 7.30pm. £10. Bar Academy