Def Leppard - Yeah!: It's easy to scoff at a covers album, some even find it easy to scoff at Def Leppard but those are the people are just plain missing out. Yeah! is big ball of ridiculous fun as the band covers the songs that inspired them as young kids to become musicians, with the one rule being that they couldn't be the big hits. The result is a covers album that doesn't tread well-worn ground and in many cases may introduce the listeners to songs they've never experienced before. Read my review for tips on where to pick up the many bonus tracks.

The Futureheads - News and Tributes: You can put away your stuff by the Killers, the Bravery and every other band in between that sound just like them because you're going to get sick of them. Mark my words you will be sick of them very soon and you'll wish you'd invested in something that apes the same territory, with some real conviction and an obvious display of real love of the style they're lifting. The Futureheads cannot deny that they're stealing the sound of early XTC and the Jam, but at least they do so with an ear toward doing it right. On this, their second album, however they reveal a new intriguing influence that many might not have guessed at: Killing Joke, which makes for some interesting cross-breeding of styles.

Keene Brothers - Blues And Boogie Shoes: It's July and Robert Pollard has only put out four albums this year so far? Keene Brothers is his pairing with fellow ex-Guided By Voices guitarist Tommy Keene and is by far the strongest of the lot, including Pollard's own solo release (listed below.) Short, strong and full of huge guitars and incredible hooks, it's the kind of things GBV fans were hoping to hear after the band broke up New Year's Eve 2004 but didn't get with the consciously difficult From A Compound Eye. (If you're looking for the other two Pollard projects so far, check out the Takeovers and Psycho & The Birds - neither work quite as well as Keene Bros. or FaCE, but Pollard fans are a dedicated bunch and will probably want everything anyway, just like I do.)

Killing Joke - Hosannas From The Basements Of Hell: Like Built To Spill's You In Reverse, Killing Joke's latest also seems to serve as a summary of their entire career. It's nothing new, in other words but it works to cover most of the ground they tread in the past 26 or so years. With an emphasis on the direction hinted at on 1994's Pandemonium.