But it's Alex Glasgow's lament "Close the Coalhouse Door" that packs the most powerful punch, the cyclical piano like a minimalist murmur behind Becky's poignant delivery.

This 2CD set features one disc of early rarities, and one of sundry items from Cash's Columbia catalogue--not the most comfortable combination, but not without interest.

There are moments on Degeneration Street that suggest Dears' creative mainspring Murray Lightburn is hoping to effect an Arcade Fire-style vault from indie saltmines to popularity; but it's all too little, and at five albums into their career, too late for that.

The fingering and virtuoso touches, the deft harmonics, the subtle string-bends are all delivered with minimal fuss throughout, whether it's a solo piece like the wistful "Dery Miss Grsk", the Bach transposition "Cello Prelude In G", which works so well with his instrument or the jaunty ragtime of "Ugly James".

Now it's here, and it's a bit of a letdown.

Wagner's hesitant delivery is poignantly underscored by Tidwell's more emotive phrasing, while the arrangements of neat picking and weeping fiddle are applied with customary understatement.

Beady Eye may be just Oasis minus Noel, but this debut is rather better than the past few Oasis albums, if sadly no more innovative.

Yet as wretched as his characters often are, Cornog always affords them the dignity of their own volition.

Arbouretum deal in an odd blend of folk and heavy rock, these seven tracks trudging along like a deep-sea diver traversing the sea bed in ten-league boots.

It's a dub reimagining that takes the material further out, into a soundscape whose fractured dubstep tones, sped-up samples and drum'n'bass beats only occasionally work in its favour.

He doesn't care whether you want it or not, he's going to do it anyway. And How to Compose... confirms that he undoubtedly still loves music. The problem is, it's usually somebody else's music,

Chapel Club are another retro-indie band apparently eager to re-run the 1980s, albeit in slightly more musically adventurous manner than the likes of White Lies and Interpol.

The arrangements are pleasurable enough, less rootsy than before, with some skilled use of orchestration; but it's a shame to find such a gifted songwriter sounding so gullible.

A sense of awestruck wonder permeates tracks such as "Swallowed by the Night", though when Barthmus tries to deal in more human terms, with the inverse "Ebony & Ivory" schtick of "Shared Piano", the results are less successful.

[There are] some decent moments on this debut album.

Things begin well enough with the single "Rolling in the Deep", with its thumping piano quadruplets and gospelly backing vocals, and continues reasonably with the galumphing Tom Waits-style arrangement of "Rumour Has It"; until, two-thirds of the way through the song, it grinds to a halt for a slower, torchy middle eight.

This Jack White-produced comeback album suggests there can be few septuagenarians keener on raising hell.

Tracks like the delinquent reminiscence "How Life Changed" and the mea culpa duet with Chris Brown, "Get Back Up", teeter queasily on the cusp of boast and apology. But you have to admire the gall of a repeat offender brazen enough to feature a quote from Helen Keller in his lyric booklet.

As you'd expect, it relies heavily on programmed beats of spare simplicity, and layered dubstep synth riffs over which Albarn sketches his impressions of life on the road.

It's still northern Europe that dominates their music.

It's 16 years since Mariah Carey's first Christmas album, and there's nothing here to suggest she's developed significantly since then.