Only one question you need to ask about yourself before dipping in here – do you like the kind of sloppy, loose, indie that spends no time at all explaining itself? The genre was defined by Pavement, and picked up more recently by Modest Mouse, and has always had a core, small audience – people who hate, absolutely hate, the idea of polish and single-minded songs. Why There Are Mountains can be abrasive on first listen, as the ideas come ten to the pound, like some 90s indie band retro-find. However, there are times, when you’ve dipped in, when you can’t imagine pulling away – when Cold Spring starts, you’re there for the duration. The imagination and pure joy expressed in the massed instrumentation and lo fi recording are wonderful. Similarly, with Wind Phoenix, it is hard to avoid the feeling that a band that could really play this with polish would ineffably spoil the experience – the amateurish delivery adds immeasurably to the charm – when it comes in all excited and buzzing, you believe every word, hang on every guitar thrash and go with the song’s many mood changes. There’s nothing really ‘good’ about anything on this album except the fact that it exists, and is full of great songs.

ACE rating 8/10

Silversun Pickups’ debut, Carnavas, was a real grower – you’d realise a couple of months in that a couple of songs had you hooked… Add in guest appearances on the Guitar Hero game, and a cult following became something much bigger. Get past the fact that, when they were good, they were basically the Smashing Pumpkins earlier, better period recaptured, and just enjoy the fact that someone was still making the kind of music the Pumpkins did once… Swoon is the follow-up, and it doesn’t really build on Carnavas at all. The same formulae apply – some portentous, ominous gradual builds that really deliver, some Cure-y Muse songs and you’re done. Get caught up in it, and you can believe that this is a great band. However, Carnavas didn’t hit the same high water mark that the Smashing Pumpkins had previously laid down, so to see the same slide that Corgan et al experienced start to occur with their followers so early is a little bit sad. Swoon has a great half an album in it (seriously, songs like Growing Old Is Getting Old are simply fantastic), but it doesn’t have a whole album’s worth of songs. The same producer and the same feel as the debut, but it all just seems a lot more ho-hum.

ACE rating 7/10

Imagine, if you will, the charmless progeny of The Streets and Blur, and you have, pretty much in a nutshell, Art Brut’s new album. With songs so thin you can see right through them to the Lily Allen ideas (Chocolate Milkshake, WH Smith) that sit behind them, delivered in a yobbish shout by Eddie Argos, Art Brut’s new album will give you a cheap cider headache after 3 songs. Where they’ve come across before as edgy and interesting, here they just come across as chavvy boors. Although the band split from EMI before making this album, it was produced by Pixies-man Frank Black, so one might have expected more. And, in part (the parts without Argos), it kind of works. The band have actually become a caricature of themselves – so much that it is hard to imagine even their most loyal fans giving Art Brut vs Satan much of a play after the first listen. When you understand that you, the record-buying public, are the Satan of the title (because you don’t ‘get’ them), you’ll probably have made your mind up entirely. Avoid.

ACE rating 4/10