Straight off the bat the best album of the week. Is it for you? Well, if the idea of Talking Heads had an appeal to you, but not the whining of David Byrne, Fanfarlo are your band. With a wonderful, loose dynamic that can turn to anthemic rock when it needs to, Fanfarlo are like the best Delta Spirit, Port O’Brien and Beirut experience in one place. This is indie pop at its best – a Snow Patrol riot of something infectious and loveable, which may have been why they were selected to support them recently. The lead songs, I’m A Pilot, Fire Escape and Luna combine Smiths-y wonder and melancholy with that Talking Heads energy. It is wonderful to hear a British band explore their instrumental sides in a way that the Americans and Scandinavians have led – the album throws in some violin, trumpet, mandolin to great effect – and to use song dynamics to lift and lower the mood throughout. Fanfarlo deserve so dearly to leapfrog so many fashionable Brit bands on merit alone – it is hard to think of a reason someone wouldn’t love this disc (or, as it's being offered on iTunes, this download...)

ACE rating 9/10

This isn’t an album you’ll have divided opinions about. In fact, David Stith does his best to put you right off on Track 1, Isaac’s Song. Break through that rather odd crust, though, and you’ll hear something akin to the voices in Jeff Buckley’s head – a soaring musical experience that is so of itself. Pity Dance, track 2, establishes the new theme of slightly skewed beauty. Like a mix of Sufjan Stevens and Andrew Bird, the ideas come from all sides, embellishing the central song theme as it meanders and takes fractal paths from its starting point, at times woodsy like Bon Iver’s disc, at times Iron & Wine-lie in its use of rhythm, at others classically beautiful. The ambition may be over-reaching, but any time spent with this album (and it must be spent as an album, not as a collection of songs) reveals another depth. If there is a criticism, it may be that the songs themselves are surrounded by so much melodic space (Heavy Ghost is a real headphone album), that it may be hiding songs that don’t have much to them at their core – that may not be a concern at all, however, if the overall effect is the thing. And it is here – a really rather lovely effect. It isn’t the album the music press would have you believe, but it does suggest his second just might be…

ACE rating 8/10

Bishop Allen have a refreshing simplicity to their music. They do ‘jaunty’ really well, but unfortunately have taken that piece of their palette to the extreme on this third album. The overall effect is a little twee, a little plastic in its smile, a little smugly clever. It isn’t bad, in its niceness, but too many songs of niceness lead to a bit of a sugar rush, whereas its predecessor The Broken String mixed in some nice dark chocolate to the benefit of the overall album. Whereas the DM Stith album needs a run though in its entirety, Grrr… needs to be consumed in pieces – sampled like that, it is easy to think that Bishop Allen may be onto something. After all, Vampire Weekend managed the same thing with great success. As it is, Justin Rice and Christian Rudder could do with being ignored for a while so they can leaven the mix for the next.

ACE rating 6/10