Frances Black: "Don't Get Me Wrong" (Sony)

Loath as I am to make the comparison, this album will be adored by those who feel Frances Black's sister, Mary, moved out of their reach with her last album. Then again, Don't Get Me Wrong is produced by Mary's long time collaborator, Declan Sinnott, and shimmers with the kind of word-sensitive music at which he excels. As for the song selection, New York City shouldn't work, but does; and Black's reading of Love Song couldn't be better, never was. Likewise, intelligent love songs such as A Kiss Doesn't Make It Right. But the feisty soul of Frances Black really is better served by grittier songs like Armed With A Broken Heart, which allows her to assert herself in a way that is too often swamped by soft-focus on this album. One for fans. Joe Jackson

Sparklehorse "Good Morning Spider" (Parlophone)

What's in a name? A lot when it allows one man to project his idiosyncracies into his music without the uncomfortable direct association of it bearing his name. Would Neil Hannon sound as good as The Divine Comedy? Probably not. So it is with Sparklehorse. The vessel of one Mark Linkous, Sparklehorse make music as distinctive and brilliant as anything you will hear this year. Their 1995 debut Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot (not in any dictionary I know of) was a beautiful, slow-burning quirky slab of pop from Virginia, USA. If anything, Good Morning Spider is better. For although it is languid and often painstaking, there is nothing lazy or forced about it. No quick recourse to pompous string orchestras. No romantic self-pity. In fact nothing unconvincing at all. Crucially, it is a beautifully paced record, never even threatening monotony.

By Aidan Twomey

Luka Bloom: "Salty Heaven" (Sony)

There is a brace of nameless hungers at the soul of this album. Beating addiction, a brother's depression, the death of a mother, the loss of home, the rape of this planet, all these things, and more. Who knows? Only Luka Bloom, if even he does. But from the achingly reflective opening song Blackberry Time through relatively inconsequential tracks like Ciara to the epic, famine-based closing tune, Forgiveness, this album will either seduce the hell out of you and take you to, yeah, a tearful heaven or leave you cold. Depends on whether or not you are open to art that is quiet and caressing, rather than screaming to be heard. Not just a wonderful album but an album filled with wonder. And that is a real accomplishment.

By Joe Jackson