The latest releases reviewed

DAMIEN DEMPSEY To Hell or Barbados Sony BMG ****

The heat's been turned up on Damien Dempsey's slow-burning career. Having coaxed and honed

a formidable stage presence for himself from irritatingly doe-eyed beginnings, Dempsey excels in storyboarding the anthemic with broad brush strokes. Tales of ethnicity and identity, lost, bartered and found, abound here. How Strange is another muscular salvo that ricochets from the Dempsey canon, two parts bravado melded with one part sheer, unadulterated innocence. With producer John Reynolds, Dempsey has captured more subtlety, more colour and more shade than previously. The first single, Your Pretty Smile, pursues a suitably languid reggae beat while The City sums up the sheer viscerality of Dempsey's worldview equally well. Slow- burning songs with a determinedly healthy shelf life. www.damiendempsey.com

SIOBHÁN LONG

Download track: Your Pretty Smile

ANDREA CORR Ten Feet High Atlantic ** 

With The Corrs on a bit of a career break (Sharon, Caroline and Jim taking time out for their families) little sis Andrea has decided to pass the time by making her first solo album, with Björk producer Nellee Hooper behind the desk. And why not? The girl can carry a pop tune, and here she effortlessly hunks 10 self-written ones. Shorn of The Corrs' trademark diddley-aye doodlings, and with Andrea firmly eschewing the schmaltz, songs such as Anybody There, I Do and Champagne from a Straw come across as perfectly pleasant if unremarkable soft-pop. Opener Hello Boys struts in on a raunchy synth beat, sounding like something Sugababes or Girls Aloud might stomp all over. Shame on You (To Keep My Love from Me) evokes Everything But the Girl and has an anti-war barb in the lyrics, but Stupidest Girl in the World seems to have absent-mindedly mislaid its chorus. The album's sole cover, of Squeeze's Take Me I'm Yours, is brash and bold, but you could take it or leave it. www.andreacorr.co.uk

KEVIN COURTNEY

ASH Twilight of the Innocents Infectious   ****

Let's hear it for the good guys. Ash have been snookered by their own past mistakes: hitching their coattails to the metal bandwagon for their Meltdown album did them no favours; neither did their abortive attempts at trying to break into the US. With longtime (but not original member) guitarist Charlotte Hatherley now departed, and with this cracking little record aching to get out of the traps, it seems the band are once again embracing the kinds of songs that kick-started their success in the first place: tight pop/punk tunes, one or two dreamy slow tracks, guitars switched to "sting" and lyrics that fuse lead singer-songwriter Tim Wheeler's inner turmoil with emotional and romantic resignation. Heard it all before? Probably, but Ash do this kind of thing so well you're best advised to engage, then marry.

TONY CLAYTON-LEA

Download tracks: You Can't Have it All, Polaris, Shattered Glass

VARIOUS ARTISTS Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur Warner Music  *** 

While Paul McCartney is reduced to serving up lattes, the deification of John Lennon continues apace. This time round Lennon's name is invoked in an effort to make a drop of difference in war-torn Sudan. An impressive army of stars has been mustered, with entertainingly mixed results. It's the big guns who fire blanks: U2's jaunty reading of the title track lacks the original's drum-tight delivery, REM sleepwalk their way through No 9 Dream, and Green Day's Working Class Hero works just a little too hard at seeming real. Old hand Jackson Browne shines on Oh, My Love, while Corinne Bailey Rae belies her youth on I'm Losing You. Full marks to Christina Aguilera for braving the psychological minefield of Mother, but Avril Lavigne doing Imagine? What - imagine there's no homework? The best stuff comes

from leftfield: Flaming Lips' going cheesy-whiz on (Just Like) Starting Over, Snow Patrol getting dead deep on Isolation, and The Raveonettes waxing seductive on One Day at a Time.

KEVIN COURTNEY

PRINS THOMAS Cosmo Galactic Prism Eskimo  ****

There have been countless attempts to emulate Coldcut's 70 Minutes of Madness (1995), the blueprint mix for eclectic DJs. Most would-be turntable alchemists lose the flow by throwing together too many disparate elements. Norwegian DJ Prins Thomas succeeds because his own productions are an unpredictable yet cohesive mishmash of Italo Disco's absurdly melancholic sensibilities, psychedelic rock's loose rhythms, and house music's swagger. This double CD mix adopts the same approach. Joe Meek's wall of sound pop vies for attention with former Can member Holger Czukay's goofy disco, Boards of Canada and Closer Musik's sublime electronic melodies, Zombi's pristine electro disco, and offbeat house from Soylent Green. Ignore prog-rock bores Hawkwind and you've got a mix to rival Coldcut's masterpiece. www.eskimorecordings.com

RICHARD BROPHY

Download tracks: Zombi, Sapphire; Joe Meek & The Blue Men, I Hear a New World; Holger Czukay, Cool in the Pool

VESTA VARRO Exit Here Eavesdrop Music **

Neophyte Limerick band Vesta Varro could easily be long-lost cousins of A House or The Atrix in all their mock-heroic glory. Treading a path that's so well- worn it's almost velveteen under- foot, Vesta Varro throw the kind of shapes that would have snagged them swagloads of airplay in the early 1990s. Now, though, their guitar lines ricochet between raucous rock'n'roll (Yellow Rooms) and hummably twee (Coming Back). Damien Drea's lead vocals are suitably elastine, occasionally tracing Bono-like routes from pathos to childlike glee (Babies). Sometime U2 producer Richard Rainey puts his weight behind

Exit Here, but ultimately Vesta Varro sound like five guys in search of an identity: pretenders to a throne that they don't even recognise themselves. www.myspace.com/vestavarro

SIOBHÁN LONG

Download track: Pyramid Clocks