Beverley Knight -- Affirmation

I thought Knight was doing an Anastacia as this album opened to the rock-tinged tune of her latest single Come As You Are.

Thankfully she soon settles down to deliver the sort of classy songs that made her Britain's best soul star.

Affirmation is an excellent album that, without boasting any potential mega-hit singles, is a consistently better collection than her last long player Who I Am.

Avoiding the pomp and pizzazz of US groups like Destiny's Child, Knight prefers an evocative and personal style perfect for winding down to.

David Knights

Marjorie Fair -- Self Help Serenade

Makes you think of fey, American lady singers doesn't it? Well, you'd be very wrong as what we have here is one of the debuts of the year.

A band who combine the best elements of Coldplay, Keane, The Flaming Lips and all those other slightly off-kilter bands who have you swooning.

Well, when I say band, it's basically a one-man operation with a supporting cast, but that's no bad thing when Jim Keltner and Billy Preston are among the cast.

Some excellent early 70s laid-back tunes come complete with soaring crescendos, which coupled with the singer's slightly dazed vocals, make for everything you'd ask for in an album. Go buy it.

Antony Silson

John Frusciante -- The Will To Death

Album opener A Doubt is exactly what I got when the Joe Cocker vocal kicked in.

Mix together one part Led Zeppelin, a little Black Sabbath and lashings of Arthur Brown and you get John Frusciante.

With the exception of Helical, which is an acoustic guitar instrumental and dull as dishwater, every song sounds very much like the one before it.

Frusciante plays all the instruments with the amusingly named Josh Klinghoffer.

Quite why he grabs all the limelight is a mystery, Klinghoffer would make such a good band name whereas John Frusciante is, rather like the recording, instantly forgettable.

There's nothing to grab the listener and I found my mind drifting off onto things like what I was going to have for tea tonight.

Graham Scaife

Beyblade -- Let It Rip

In my day you'd never have got an album of music to go with Mousetrap or Buckaroo!

How times have changed. Here's an album that you can play whilst you are battling with your pieces of rotating plastic.

Some poor unfortunates have been paid to write songs about Beyblading and the rest of the album is made up of predictable tracks from Busted, Nickelback, Feeder and Alien Ant Farm.

Whilst I found it all a bit depressing to see yet another way to fleece people of their money, my seven year old really likes it. Go figure!

Antony Silson

Kings Of Convenience - Riot On An Empty Street

Norway is famous for scoring 'nul points' at Eurovision. Kings Of Convenience go some way to repairing Norway's musical reputation with this album.

Homesick is pure Simon & Garfunkel and much of the album could be compared to the famous American duo.

Misread features wonderful instrumentation with piano, viola, cello and double bass vying for the listener's attention. Stay Out of Trouble features the great opening line of 'I walked around for hours, two ten-pence pieces in my hand'.

Live Long has a real jazz feel to it and Surprise Ice could easily be a New Model Army song with its Justin Sullivan style vocal and acoustic guitar. A CD many of you could ill a-fjord to be without!

Graham Scaife

Disco Classics

If "classic" means "old" as well as "pretty good", this album does the business.

Most of the 40 tracks on this double album are the ones that first come to mind when you remember the days of funky strutting.

The fact that some don't come to mind -- and other bone fide classics are missing -- is explained if you closely examine the track listing.

This collection, compiled by the Ministry of Sound, features only the songs that created the disco scene in the clubs of early 1970s New York. Diana Ross, Sister Sledge, Chic, Barry White and Gloria Gaynor are all present and correct.

David Knights