The River in Reverse by Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint

Thirty years ago, Elvis Costello was writing pop-punk songs of the kind that Alex Turner has now made his own. He has spent his career picking through rock’s back pages, trying to work with as many established greats as he can in search of THE SONG. Now, he’s hooked in Toussaint, a New Orleans songwriting and production legend. In a bid to reinvigorate New Orleans post hurricane they've covered Toussaint tunes and co-written others. It's promising, (’All These Things’), and cripplingly boring (‘Broken Promise Land’). A good album, in a well-produced way. but it's not as good or as important as it thinks it is.

Cannibal Sea by Essex Green

Brooklyn indie-pop troupe The Essex Green are musical ostriches, stuck with their heads in the sand, refusing to admit that it’s anything other than a perpetually sunny afternoon in 1966 with Buffalo Springfield and The Lovin' Spoonful playing on the hand-held transistor radio. Accordingly, then, their third full-length album overflows with pristine melodies, sugary harmonies, a barely definable sense of heartbreak and. on ‘This Isn't Farm Life', lyrics about The iIllad. Then they go and ruin it all with ‘Don't Know Why (You Stay)’, which combines Gary Numan-style synths and guitars pinched from The Cars; a band from, scandalously, the '80s! That this small step towards brain-mangling future music is so disconcerting is a tribute to how fully realised the rest of The Essex Green's '60s centric vision is.

This New Day by Embrace

Embrace's new album is a bit like a bag of Revels. Chewy, toffee openers ‘New Use Crying' and 'Nature's Law' are the sound of Embrace Mk2 with a new found stadium aspiring confidence. There are some namby pamby soft-centred arm-waving orangey ones (“But I like namby-pamby soft-centred ones!" some people cry): ‘The End ls Near’ and ‘Exploding Machines’ are CoIdplay’s ‘Clocks' and ‘Talk’ with added underdog and, er. peanuts. And there's a couple of coffee creams, too. Of course. whether you still like Revels after all these years is the moot point. But ‘This New Day’ is, by Embrace's own standards, a triumphant album indeed.