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The Unthanks Diversions Vol. 2 RabbleRouser, out tomorrow We don't hear enough brass bands in pop, but Adrian McNally, leader of Northumberland's ever-worthwhile The Unthanks, grew up near Grimethorpe, a bastion of Yorkshire mining culture. The second in a trilogy of Diversions records is a collaboration with the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band. The folky Unthanks make a wonderful noise with this amateur band that has kept alive a Northern tradition through sheer dedication. Among the songs is Trimdon Grange Explosion, a ballad about a mining disaster in which 74 people died 130 years ago. It's timeless and truly affecting. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Flaming Lips & Heady Fwends [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

From The Roots Up [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Searching For Sugar Man [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Paul Heaton The 8th Proper, out tomorrow Paul Heaton has been following his solo muse since 2007, after 20 years with first The Housemartins and then The Beautiful South. He knows how to write a hit, but that's not the aim of The 8th, a 'soul opera' exploring the seven deadly sins through the tale of a poverty-stricken neighbourhood. Writing with Beautiful South's Dave Rotheray, Heaton hands most of the singing to guests, including South colleague Jacqui Abbott. There's a lot to digest, including some lumpy hip-hop and a stream of grittily beautiful between-song vignettes, narrated by The Wire actor Reg E. Cathey. But by the time you reach Heaton's ska/reggae-flavoured eighth sin - Gossip - you know this is something odd but impressive. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Smashing Pumpkins Oceania EMI, out now A talented but humourless Nineties rock god needs to say something to get noticed when he pops up again, and Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan's recent attack on the pompous reverence accorded to good-but-notthat-good Radiohead was quite right. But his new album, Oceania, is a 13-song slice of an unreleased 44-song work called Teargarden By Kaleidyscope so he wants to be careful using the word 'pompous'. With all original Pumpkins now replaced by keen youngsters, Corgan is exercising tighter quality control than he has in years. Less abrasively nasal now, he rides thrillingly silly riffs through a pretty landscape of Seventies classic rock and gothic synth-pop, ascending to melodic-rock heaven on stand-outs such as Quasar and The Chimera. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hard-faced Maroon 5 talk about their music like big record companies wish all their acts would: as a product made to sell in bulk. Despite the success of the single Moves Like Jagger, 2010's album Hands All Over didn't meet targets so they've pumped out a new one, tacking that perky hit on the end. Adam Levine's ghastly whine and the synthetic sound behind it are obstacles to pleasurable listening, as is Levine's dispiriting world of shenanigans with girls he doesn't like much. Packed with tunes that you're certain you've heard from them before, Overexposed may restore Maroon 5 to their former glory, but it would be nice if it didn't. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Fiona Apple The Idler Wheel ... Columbia, out now In full, Fiona Apple's fourth album is called The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than The Driver Of The Screw And Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do. That's pithy - the name of her second, When The Pawn..., ran to 90 words. Model-gorgeous yet contrary, Apple tries to throw everyone off but never quite succeeds. That's charisma for you, and here, even with nothing but a piano, her words and percussion, she's luminous. But with her unflinching look at dreadful relationships, she isn't an easy prospect. 'I just made a meal for us both to choke on,' she coos on Every Single Night. Her control is masterful, but I understand those who don't fancy it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Built on a catalogue of recent disasters, including a divorce, the death of her father and a pulmonary embolism that nearly killed her, Mary Chapin Carpenter's Ashes And Roses comes at life's big events from the painful side. No need to wonder where the record's gently sorrowful, autumnal sound finds its inspiration, then, as she turns her story-teller's eye to loss, pain and renewal, with no melodrama and plenty of wise, dignified detail. In Learning The World, she characterises grief as a silent companion, riding in the passenger seat or sitting by the bed. One for those who have suffered, a lot. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Neneh Cherry and The Thing The Cherry Thing Smalltown Supersound, out now In 1988, Neneh Cherry was on Top Of The Pops singing Buffalo Stance while seven months pregnant: foxy, tough and maternal. Now the granny of an eight-year-old and back with her first solo record in 16 years, she doesn't look - or sound - much changed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Carrie Underwood Blown Away Sony, out now Where cocky British stars heading for the US can generally expect months of ego-shrivelling disregard, 2005 American Idol winner Carrie Underwood's first British show on Thursday was at the Royal Albert Hall. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Levellers Static On The Airwaves On The Fiddle, out tomorrow No one with the scantest awareness of The Levellers will be surprised at the central themes of Static On The Airwaves: war, injustice, the horrors of conformity and our troubled times. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Giant Giant Sand Tucson Fire, out now Songwriters almost always write better songs than they do stories, but that doesn't stop some of the smarter ones - the Albarns, the Townshends, the Ray Davieses - from aspiring to some sort of 'operatic' project. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hue And Cry [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Various Artists [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Paul Weller [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Shins Port Of Morrow Aural Apothecary, out tomorrow Natalie Portman launched countless blog posts when she confided, in 2004's winsome US indie movie Garden State, that the song on her headphones - New Slang, by New Mexico quartet The Shins - changed lives. Chief Shin James Mercer has certainly changed a few since then, replacing every last member of the outfit that recorded that and the other ultra-melodic indie-pop gems which made the band's name. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Giants [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In My Dreams [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

If 2010's The House sounded like Katie Melua growing up and leaving home - swapping mentor Mike Batt's balladry for relatively edgy Robbie Williams collaborator Guy Chambers - Secret Symphony finds her moving back in search of home comforts. Mike's at the wheel again to steer her through gentle originals and covers of Ron Sexsmith and Travis's Fran Healy, cushioned by a symphony orchestra. Songs such as Better Than A Dream and The Walls Of The World strive for the naive simplicity of Melua touchstones such as The Closest Thing To Crazy. Mild, familiar and unchallenging: that, you sense, was very much the intention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Nashville's The Civil Wars have the enthusiastic endorsement of Adele, who took the bluesy, folky male-female duo on tour, calling them the best live band she has ever seen. We don't know, of course, whether Adele makes it to a lot of gigs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sinead O'Connor How About I Be Me (And You Be You)? One Little Indian, out tomorrow Sinead O'Connor has followed a sometimes troubled path since Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U briefly made her a superstar 22 years ago. But she sounds as calm and sage as she ever has on her first album in five years. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Roses Cooking Vinyl, out now *** [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Ting Tings Sounds From Nowheresville Columbia, out now Having conquered sticky dancefloors everywhere in 2008 with That's Not My Name, The Ting Tings opted for the full tortured artist excess for their second album. Katie White and Jules de Martino binned one set of songs and missed the deadline by 18 months - a risky strategy for a band known for addictive but slight shout-alongs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Wall: Experience Edition EMI, out now **** [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hell In A Handbasket Proper, out now ** [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In experimenting lately with neo-folkie pastoral sounds and straight-up pop ones, Goldfrapp are generally held to have rather diluted the impressive effect of the glacial electro-glam that they honed on 2003's Black Cherry and 2005's Supernature. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Van Halen [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Gotye [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Future This Polydor, out tomorrow £7.99 ** [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

50th Anniversary: The Singles Collection 1961-1971 Universal, out now £34.99 ****+ [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For The Good Times Parlophone, out now £11.99 *** [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Maccabees Given To The Wild Fiction, out now £8.99 With members called Orlando and Felix and a name suggesting a quality education (Maccabees: an ancient Jewish rebel army, didn't you know?), it's probably fair to say they don't represent the rebirth of working-class rock. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Michael Bublé [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Rolling Stones [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Up All Night [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

JLS [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Kami Thompson was born in 1983, just after her parents, British folk-rockers Richard and Linda, split. If it sounds as if she was born under a bad sign, her debut album backs up the story. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Birdy Birdy [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Lisa Hannigan quit as long-time foil to moody Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice three years ago to be a noted but rather less moody Irish singer-songwriter in her own right. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Julian Lennon [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Kelly Clarkson [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Paul Simon [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

You Are Not Alone: Michael, Through A Brother's Eyes [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Björk Biophilia One Little Indian, out tomorrow £19.99 Artists have been reinventing the album in recent years. They have allowed fans to name their price, download a new song every Saturday or assemble their own tracklist, but none has yet sparked a revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Lady Antebellum [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Nirvana Nevermind: 20th Anniversary Universal, out tomorrow £18.99 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Tony Bennett [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Doris Day [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]