Which brings us to King of the Beach. Williams’ “comeback album” sees him teaming up with the rhythm section that walked out on the late Jay Reatard and conjuring a bigger, cleaner sound under the studio supervision of producer David Herring. The same falling falsetto harmonies and Phil Spector beats are ever-present, proving that rather than trying to evolve his songwriting, Williams is forcing melodies to fit the same template utilised on ‘So Bored’ from last year’s Wavvves.

Flashes of effective pop writing (‘King of the Beach’, ‘Take On The World’) are watered down with throwaway moments that become unbearably grating, from insipid rhymes (“My feet... are a-sleep”) to unconvincing exercises in self-loathing (“I hate my music, it’s all the same,” “All my old friends hate me, but I don’t give a shit”). Ultimately King of the Beach feels like an effort to establish Wavves as the male equivalent of close friend Best Coast, right down to a similarly styled album cover, but ultimately the only edginess here is the sound of barrel-scraping.

But the disparity between her status as a mansion-buying, record exec-marrying, gauche political ingénue and her self-perception as a fourth-world radical isn’t really that important as regards her output... just add her to an ever growing list of occasionally demented pop stars who do some of their best work while losing the plot (Bowie/Prince/Ol’ Dirty Bastard). So beyond the dayglo, fashion mag, slum face rapper’s confused message, this is a collection of mainly superb tracks.

Among the essentials here are ‘Teqkilla’, a lolloping, acidic slice of skwee-leaning dubstep that successfully mimics the experience of being leathered on the lethal South American liquor, while the rhythm is partially bolstered by glasses clinking and shots being poured. The heaviest here is ‘Steppin’ Up’, which survives her slightly spam-tongued “dub a dubba dub/club a clubba club” rhymes because of its 100 per cent sonic militancy, coming across as ‘Stigmata’-era Ministry being remixed by Adrian Sherwood. Taken without its video, the Can-style freak-out drums and sped-up Suicide loop of ‘Born Free’ is utterly masterful.

One of the real misfires here is ‘It Takes a Muscle’, a slightly wonky take on eighties pop reggae worthy of UB40 or Boris Gardiner that is surprisingly is produced by the normally reliable Diplo. Only the permanently retarded or pot addled will buy into her assertion that Google and your iPod are being used as monitoring devices but, overall, this is a genuinely refreshing album on which the post electro-clash/Kate Nash single ‘XXXO’ is actually one of three lowlights.

John Doran

When the duo’s demo, 2HELLWU, surfaced online last autumn, the track ‘Ring Ring’ stood out as a soft, sugary pop number that utilised a loop from Funkadelic’s 1971 classic ‘Can You Get to That’ to great effect. Now re-titled ‘Rill Rill’, Sleigh Bells have made that groove their own, jazzing it up with bells and finger snaps, offering a welcome moment of respite from the album’s otherwise unrelenting bombast.

Though it doesn’t always work - the misfiring ‘Rachel’ tries to get away with bluster alone, providing a lull towards the album’s end - the likes of ‘Straight A’s’ and ‘A/B Machines’ crank up so much sonic destruction that any missteps are quickly forgotten. Having scored a record deal with M.I.A’s label, N.E.E.T., Sleigh Bells look like a shrewd signing for whom mainstream breakthrough seems inevitable. But at this point it’s too early to tell whether the duo’s pile-driving arrival will endure or whether they’ll prove to be a novelty act that lasts just about as long as the ringing in your ears.

This new opus reunites Devo with the label on which they first emerged, namely Warner Bros. The DIY route has plainly never appealed to a band committed to subverting the system from within, and their desire for another crack at the mainstream has only built over 20 years of enforced silence, halfway through which they released a retrospective titled ‘Pioneers Who Got Scalped’. Even anti-capitalists want to get paid, it seems.

‘Something for Everybody’ harnesses accumulated frustration to great effect, delivering an emphatic, exhilarating surge of synth pop which re-broadcasts Devo’s message with a power that defies any onset of cynicism or conservatism. Following tradition, the album is styled as an ironic corporate mission statement, poking fun at its creators’ aspirations via its title and cover image, not to mention the mock desperation of ‘Please Baby Please’ or jokily banal ‘What We Do’ (“...is what we do”). Alarmingly, Devo claim an advertising agency assisted with the presentation of the album - a joke, one hopes.

The album might seem smug if Devo weren’t as energetically eccentric as ever. Though technological advances have added some precision and heft to their sound, Devo’s aesthetic remains identical to that which guided them in 1978. Mark Mothersbaugh’s vocals are still disquietingly nerdy and lustful. The rhythms are still robotic and relentless. Comically simplistic melodies power the choruses, not least those of ‘Cameo’ and ‘Mind Games’. Elsewhere, old glories are revisited, as when ‘No Place Like Home’ evokes ‘Beautiful World’.

The album rolls back the years and sates Devo-addicts’ cravings for more of the same. The lack of artistic progression is inevitable. After all, de-evolution is real...

Niall O’Keeffe

There’s no reason why the soul or spirit of a recording studio should rub off on people who record there - it’s just a building after all. But frequently when bands or artists do set up in supposedly sacred spaces, wonderful things happen. Bill Callahan cut his masterpiece, A River Ain’t Too Much To Love, in Willie Nelson’s Pedernales studio in Texas and here The Black Keys have done something similar, by stepping into the hallowed Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama.

There are actually two celebrated studios in Muscle Shoals and this is the newer one, famed for its all-Caucasian, super-tough studio band and for hosting sessions by the likes of Wilson Pickett, the Stones, Staple Singers, and Aretha Franklin.

Realising that the grungy, bluesy two-piece thing would lead them straight down a cul-de-sac, The Black Keys went classic rhythm’n’blues with their last, Danger Mouse-produced album and they’ve expanded on that idea here, with equal success. Album  six begins with a gospel-style banger called ‘Everlasting Light’ that front-dude Dan sings in falsetto, then they move onto John Lee Hooker-like boogie, scorching trad rock, vintage soul...

The album never gives up. Track nine of 15, ‘Ten Cent Pistol’ is a superbly swampy blues; it’s followed by ‘Sinister Kid’, which evokes the watertight funk of The Meter from nearby New Orleans

This record is a triumph in every way: tight as a nun’s proverbial, varied, clever and further proof that they were never a cut-price White Stripes. In fact, as Jack White gets sloppier and more flatulent, these two boys from Ohio have found deep focus and real flavour. There just isn’t a wasted moment on here. PH

You should know by now why The Fall are the greatest English rock band of the last 40 years. If you don’t, we politely suggest the onus now lies on you to find out why, rather than have us draw you a diagram and throw in some (laser accurate) John Peel quotes. Their 28th studio album is just more evidence that the band are going through their third imperial phase. The first was one of narrative lyrical genius coupled with thuggish, art-informed post punk. The second saw them as unlikely Top Of The Pops stars with guyliner, Armani sweaters and brilliantly infectious pop. Their current revivification, which started with 2000’s The Unutterable, has included Imperial Wax Solvent, Fall Heads Roll, the Von Südenfed project and arguably the two best live line-ups of the band to date, continues apace with Your Future Our Clutter, their first album for Domino.

And it seems that their new record company has been cracking the whip (recent live backdrops have read ‘What Domino Want, Domino Shall Have’ and on ‘Bury’, Mark E. Smith barks, “A new way of recording! A chain round the neck”). Perhaps this refers to the fact that while Smith thought the album was ready for release last autumn, his new paymasters did not share his enthusiasm. And while one can only imagine how much it must have pissed off Smith to have his album returned for reworking - that simply doesn’t sit easily with his group’s fearsome work ethic - it has undeniably resulted in one of the best-sounding Fall albums for a long time. It’s a shame they weren’t signed to Domino for Reformation Post TLC, in fact. This shift in attitude in and around the group is summed up by ‘Bury Pts. 1+3’. The track starts as a deliciously lo-fi, dictaphone-quality demo, all needles in the red, then ragged studio recording, through to glistening chrome monster. Elsewhere there is the galloping “country and northern” of ‘Cowboy George’ which, if I’m not mistaken, has a sample of Kanye West’s ‘Stronger’ cheekily woven into it. The Fall, then: still harder, faster, stronger and better than your favourite band. JD

In The Red

Filthy humour, a doo-wop sensibility and garage rock production are bound to make for a novel, if not sloppy cocktail. The third album from this Germany-based Indo-Canadian duo sees Khan’s bravado relatively contained in favour of making the scatological sound soulful. But when the guffaws fade, it’s hard to disguise the flat production and uniform pace as something more than two lads mashed out of it in a Berlin bunker.

Various Artists / Ghana Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Ghanaian Blues 1968-81

Soundway

After Ghana achieved independence from Britain in 1957 it gradually moved into a period of relative affluence. The clubs and night spots of the post-colonial Gold Coast reflected the changes with the spread of the feel-good Afro music Highlife, and then later Palm-wine.

This fine compilation provides a great introduction to the boom time musical climate of the country before the economic collapse of the 1980s. Much is made of the vibrancy of Highlife and that’s probably down to its rich base of sources, including colonial brass bands and Liberian rhythm sections to Ashiko and Gombe - basically musical forms practised by freed Maroon slaves from Jamaica and handed down through the generations - from Sierra Leone.

There’s certainly something of the music classroom cupboard eclecticism to some Highlife, given that it utilises a refreshing mix of bongos, violins, maracas, guitars as well as traditional orchestra instruments. And a colourful culture was replete with colourful characters. The City Boys Band (represented here by the 1976 cut ‘Nya Asem Hwe’) was fronted by J A Odofo, who was known locally as The Black Chinese; something that he obviously approved of given that he was constantly dressed in an extravagant interpretation of Maoist Chinese dress.

The comp, like its beautiful sister, Nigeria Special, thankfully has a slight bias towards the dancefloor-friendly and funky. One could be forgiven for thinking that they were listening to the JBs transplanted to early 1970s Ghana upon hearing The Big Beats’ ‘Mi Nsumboo Bo Donn’. In fact, the group were signed to Polydor for a short time, the home of Soul Brother Number One, Mr James Brown, who can’t have failed to have heard his stablemates’ stuttering New Orleans style back beat Afrofunk.

One of the stand out tracks here is the blazing ‘Obi Agye Me Dofo’ by Vis A Vis from 1978. It really captures the rattlebag, progressive nature of this music featuring cheeky synth squelches, a guitar line that could be an African cousin to The Amboy Dukes’ ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’ and a Rocksteady Tommy McCook-style Trench Town groove.