Insanely great. When critics talk about ‘a band to watch’ and ‘a band laden with promise’, this right here is the album they always hope will come out. Manchester Orchestra are built around the precocious talent of Andy Hull, whose prolific output includes two EPs and one album for Manchester Orchestra and two Right Away Great Captain albums (for a man barely out of his teens). Mean Everything To Nothing adds in layers of maturity to the I’m Like A Virgin Losing A Child debut album, whose songs were outstanding, but whose production was occasionally ropey. Here, under the direction of Joe Chicarrelli (The Shins, My Morning Jacket), the production perfectly balances the raw talent with some elegant musical ideas. All this from a band who could make a 60-year old classical music fan headbang and mosh, while keeping the kind of sophistication that comes from writing songs that work wonderfully when acoustic (a la Dave Grohl). If there is competition for Manchester Orchestra, it might be the Foo Fighters (maybe, at a stretch, Biffy Clyro), although that would underplay the honesty Andy Hull is capable of in his lyrics. Manchester Orchestra are the best new rock band to leave America in 10 years.

ACE rating 9/10

When you’ve been living as a working musician for half of your life and you’re only in your late twenties, there’s some indication of talent right there. Ben Lee broke through with his 2005 album Awake Is The New Sleep, and on this, his 7th studio album, he refines and hones his songsmithery to the point of perfection. In a career that has seen him work with Evan Dando, Ben Kweller, Ben Folds and even Kylie Minogue, Lee’s Australian roots have always been apparent – there is a touch of the bright and positive sunshine dripping all the way through The Rebirth of Venus. It is poppy in the way that Crowded House managed well – it is easy to leave this album feeling better than you did when you went in, without any cloying sweetness. Lee is obviously in love, following his marriage to Ione Skye, and The Rebirth of Venus is a reference to the Goddess of Love and Beauty – if that sentiment lights your fire, you’re in the perfect place for this album.

ACE rating 7/10

Tom Fuller is from Chicago, and makes the kind of music that makes adult men flock to Tom Petty, John Hiatt and Michael Penn – straighahead rock that makes guys strut about in the kitchen with an air guitar. It is radio-friendly (Radio 2) in that ELO way – upbeat, bouncy, poppy with a 70s rock core. Maybe too much so – there is a little of the sense of a pastiche album rather than one that had to be made, that there are styles explored to add more ideas to the mix, rather than any innate drive. Albert Hammond’s The Air That I Breathe is included for no obvious reason, other than a workout for the heavy-handed drummer, for example. The Tom Fuller Band is the kind of band whom you’d be more than happy to find playing in your pub, but Abstract Man needs more difference before you’d go seeking them out.

ACE rating 6/10