Placebo -- Sleeping With Ghosts

Following two outstanding albums and the blip that was Black Market Music, Placebo are back on course with their fourth long player.

Bulletproof Cupid is a fast tempo instrumental with multi-layered guitars and a snare drum that sends a shiver down the spine.

The first we hear of Brian Molko's distinctive vocals is on English Summer Rain. This picture is a behemoth of a song,that the likes of JJ72 can only dream of aspiring to.

The only poor track finds Molko giving his best Courtney Love impression. Not a wise move, Love can't sing to save her life, Molko can, and Something Rotten is just that. If like me you thought Placebo had burnt out with Black Market Music, you'll be glad to hear Sleeping With Ghosts is a masterpiece.

Graham Scaife

Melanie C -- Reason

Occupying that strange soft-rock and ballad middle ground that many find so alluring, Melanie is neither offensive nor compelling. Leading off with Here It Comes Again, her second album plunges us into the world of the predictably-rhymed ballad.

There is a lot of the same mushy AOR, but even this wasn't enough to make me rip out the album and smash it against the wall.

Perhaps it's something to do with Melanie herself, never that much of a self-publicist and seemingly down-to-earth.

If she continues to outsell Mrs Beckham and the Ginger one, she has my vote anytime.

Especially if they find it unbearable that she's doing so.

Antony Silson

The Burn -- Sally O'Mattress

After high-profile tours with Oasis, Ian Brown and The Coral, The Burn finally step out of the shadows with a magnificent debut album.

From the rhythmically-driven stomp of Calling All to the closing psychedelia of The Cove, there is no mistaking this band's Northern musical identity.

The influence of Oasis, Verve and Stone Roses is evident here, yet on occasions is sacrificed for a more intimate sound, such as the understated Big Blue Sky and lushly layered U2-esque Enlightening.

Mixing old-fashioned rock 'n' roll with acoustic subtly makes Sally O'Mattress an interesting album, sounding comfortingly familiar, at the same time wholly refreshing.

* The Burn plays Leeds Rocket on April 16.

James Sills

You Can Feel Me -- Har Mar Superstar

A portly man named Harold, seemingly styling himself as a sexed-up Toadfish from Neighbours, produces an album inspired by Prince and James Brown.

It may sound like the worst coupling since John Major and Edwina Currie but the results aren't as odd as you may imagine. You only have to rewind a few years to find this album's equivalent in pop culture -- namely Beck's Midnite Vultures opus.

That is, white funkateer howls cleverly about sex and nightclubs through hip-hop and electro beats with a little help from his posse and a hefty funk record collection.

But, where Beck reshaped the genre and refined it to suit his own individual style, Har Mar Superstar merely rehashes it. And it shows.

Though this record is fun, with some neat twists and turns, it remains unconvincing and sounds too much like a thesis on white funk rather than the real thing.

Manny Grillo

Black Box Recorder -- Passionoia

It's been almost three years since Black Box Recorder last menaced pop music.

Their unexpected top 20 hit The Facts Of Life, a frank look at teenage development to the tune of manufactured pop irony, saved us during our bleakest hour.

The man behind Black Box Recorder, Luke Haines, formally of The Auteurs, cleverly uses subversive subject matter and fuses it with accessible melody and production.

Co-written with John Moore, Passionoia takes a look at the artifice of Celebrity.

From the sleeve depicting a naked man face down in an outdoor swimming pool, to the track The New Diana, Haines and Moore explore the sycophantic showbiz catwalks with wonderful accuracy.

If you like your pop music laced with smug raillery, this is for you.

James Heward