Emotional by Trabant

Oh Lordi, what have you done? Icelandic quintet Trabant prove that the madcap Eurovison winners aren't the only musical mentalists from the Norselands.  An unholy amalgam of Prince. Queen and Scissor Sisters but with fewer tunes, Trabant look like a team of hod-carriers at a New Romantic-themed fancy dress party. Their music is just as subtle. Compatriots Sigur Ros and Bjork had the ability to make their lyrics either unintelligible or enchanting, but there's no such luck here. "Sexual suicide, tear out your heart/Close your eyes and kill the beast before it barks". growls 'Emotional Meltdown', it makes The Da Vinci Code read like Bukowski in comparison and much of it is set to a disturbing funk battery of bleeps, whoops and whistles. Mum. the funny men are scaring us. Make it stop.

Powder Burns by Twilight Singers

A post Hurricane Katrina album recorded in curfew curtailed New Orleans could misfire. It could be a soppy, chest beating piece of hokum.
But then Greg Dulli, frontman of Ohio's soul shouters Afghan Whigs. has never written hokum. His trade is messed up relationships and late night whispering. After three Twilight albums that never lived up to his previous might, he's now hit paydirt. ‘I wish I was’ is a love song to the messed up New Orleans. It's the place where he's searching among the abandoned “mangey dogs"for a curfew party (‘Forty Dollars’). And of course, sex, ‘Candy Cane Crawl’ recalls the rumbling might of the Whigs. After weathering many storms, Greg Dulli has emerged battered, but on top.

Dig Your Own Grave EP by Test Icicles

As Test lcicles reach their inevitable messy conclusion, Dev's new project ‘Naked Babes’ (with Tom Vek and two Semifinalists) shows his urge to create. He, like the other two, er, testes, might have ‘hated’ performing and the scene, but they couldn't bottle up the talent as this career ending compilation proves. There's plenty of questionable tracks (since when did adding B-movie sound effects to an unchanged song constitute a ‘remiX'?), including some early demos that offer the raw energy of the band but remain pretty unlistenable. However, the Chromehoof mix of ‘Circle Square Triangle‘ is sublime and unreleased track ‘Stuck In The Bend’ makes their premature demise more depressing. A “for collectors only” release, then, that lays bare the drawing board of the most creative and self destructive band we've seen in years.