CD: Metronomy - Metronomy Forever

★★★★ METRONOMY - METRONOMY FOREVER Double album finds band at both their most accessible and most challenging

Double album finds band at both their most accessible and most challenging

According to Metronomy maestro Joseph Mount, his first attempt of album number six was a much snappier affair. But it wasn’t until he broke from his self-imposed immediacy that it started connecting with him. In its final form, Metronomy Forever clocks in at 17 tracks of singles, instrumentals and soundscapes, and though it skirts close to double-album indulgence, you’re never more than one song away from a winner.

Reissue CDs Weekly: Slade - Feel The Noize

REISSUE CDS WEEKLY: SLADE - FEEL THE NOIZE The great British popsters' singles in a box

The great British popsters' singles in a box

Original UK pressings of Slade’s Seventies mega-hit singles like “Coz I Luv You”, “Everyday”, “Gudbuy T’Jane” and “Mama Weer all Crazee Now” sell for between £1 and £5 if they’re in decent shape. If a copy is needed to listen to, there’s little need to fork out more than £2. On seven-inch, the real Slade rarities are their pre-hit singles and what they issued earlier as Ambrose Slade and The 'N Betweens.

CD: Bat For Lashes - Lost Girls

★★★★ BAT FOR LASHES - LOST GIRLS Return from the margins to pop majesty for Natasha Khan

Return from the margins to pop majesty for Natasha Khan

There's no knowing what to expect from Natasha Khan. Her most recent output has been furiously intense Thai and Persian psyche rock covers (as SEXWITCH in 2015) followed by torch songs full of shadow and eeriness (Bat For Lashes' 2016 The Bride). It rather felt from these two releases that she was happy cosmically dreaming on the margins – certainly in contrast to the strange pop promise of her early work, which prefigured the likes of Grimes and Lana Del Rey in many ways, and suggested someone with an eye on grandiose visions materially as well as mystically. 

CD: Caravan Palace - Chronologic

Easy-going fourth album from French dance popsters moves further from their origins

Parisian outfit Caravan Palace have now had a career that’s lasted over a decade. They’ve not busted the British charts open (although they have had hit albums in France), but they’ve long been festival favourites with multi-millions of YouTube plays, and their UK profile has never been higher. Their new album dials back the manic dancefloor energy they sometimes emanate, yet succeeds as a wittily constructed, summery, electronic dance-pop concoction.

Reissue CDs Weekly: Creedence Clearwater Revival - Live at Woodstock

CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL - LIVE AT WOODSTOCK The great American band in 1969

Overdrive and relentlessness define the great American band’s 1969 festival appearance

Apparently, Creedence Clearwater Revival drummer Doug Clifford’s snare drum broke during the first song of their set at Woodstock Festival. On the new double album Live at Woodstock, it’s impossible to detect this happening. As “Born on the Bayou” progresses, the band’s forward motion is relentless and their dedication to the groove is undiminished during this and the remainder of a blistering, paint-peeling set.

CD: Taylor Swift - Lover

★★★★ TAYLOR SWIFT - LOVER 18 earnestly epic tracks from America's loved-up sweetheard

18 earnestly epic tracks from America's loved-up sweetheart

If there's a central motif to the sprawling, 18-track opus that is Taylor Swift’s seventh release - and it’s an album that references both Drake and Springsteen, so it's hard to pin down - it first emerges in track three, the title track. Stripped of pop theatrics, “Lover” trades in what Swift does best: hyper-specific details made universal enough for every first dance, delivered with enough earnestness to rehabilitate a word pulled straight from the headlines of a tabloid magazine.

Reissue CDs Weekly: Come On Let's Go!

Thrill-packed compendium of ‘Power Pop Gems From the 70s & 80s’

The core paradox with powerpop is that most of those who sought to create the perfect guitar driven, hook-laden pop song failed to score hits. Come On Let's Go! – Power Pop Gems From the 70s & 80s is stuffed with the classy and memorable, but under a third of its 24 participants had any sort of chart profile. And, for 20/20 and Wire Train, it was fleeting and ultimately inconspicuous.

CD: The Regrettes - How Do You Love?

Teenage rockers deconstruct romantic relationships on second album

The perfect primer to The Regrettes comes towards the end of the colourful video for “I Dare You”, the bubblegum update to “Last Nite” by The Strokes that is the lead single from their second album. Teenage frontwoman Lydia Night delivers the title lyric for the first time in the song with a cheeky wink to the camera, but it’s so subtle - and her face is but one of four, off-centre on screen - that you’ll convince yourself you dreamt it.