The hottest downloads
Girls Can't Catch: Echo A new trio from the Girls Aloud stable, with a metal-pop belter.
Hurts: Wonderful Life Fabulously forlorn, title-belying synth pop from the hotly tipped Manchester duo.
Princeton: Calypso Gold This LA four-piece's debut UK release is a strings-drenched, Beach Boys-like beauty.
Sub Focus: Could This Be Real The drum'n'bass producer tilts his cap at the charts with a house-infused concoction.
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Must-have re-issue
Ian Drury & the Blockheads: Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (DMG)
Released to coincide with the biopic of the same name, this "best of" does an excellent job of compiling the essential Ian Dury, whose career peaked brightly but extremely briefly, from the New Boots and Panties!! album in 1977 through to the single Reasons To Be Cheerful in 1979. Before that, his persona had been too off-putting for the mainstream, but the cultural shift of punk turned him from a scary outsider into a zeitgeist-hugging star. Why he never replicated the success of New Boots isn't clear, but falling out with his inspired keyboard player and co-writer, Chaz Jankel, can't have helped. Sensibly, this compilation gives you 90% of New Boots (the mouthy Plaistow Patricia has been left off) and the key singles. Magnificent.
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All Tomorrow's Parties Iggy Pop and the Stooges have been added to the bill by the curator, Matt Groening, as the man behind The Simpsons rocks out. May 7-9, Butlins, Minehead.
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Tindersticks The treasured and now thankfully re-formed band play Manchester Cathedral, March 23, and Shepherd's Bush Empire, W12, March 24.
Ash The three-piece follow up their innovative A-Z tour of less familiar venues with a more conventional outing that begins April 19, Southampton University.