Domino Vinyl & CDs

Review: Astonishingly, seven years have now passed since the release of Franz Ferdinand's most recent studio album, the dancefloor-fired colour of Always Ascending. Reuniting the Glaswegian post-punk rockers with former mixer/engineer Mark Ralph (who this time steps up to produce), The Human Fear has been trailed as a kind of extended lyrical meditation on prejudice and fear. It's a notably grown up and musically varied affair, with opener 'Audacity' joining the dots between the jagged guitars and energy of the band's earliest recordings and the inventive, try-different-things arrangements made famous by the Beatles in their golden 1966-67 period. Compare and contrast this with Night Or Day', where fuzzy 70s synths and jangling piano riffs squabble for sonic space with metronomic drums and bass, and the fizzing nu-rave/indie dance revivalism of 'Hooked'.

Review: Hot Chip are back! The coolest dudes since Devo return like a monkey with a miniature cymbal with their seventh full length album. With vocoding effects layered over the sweet tone of Alexis Taylor's voice referencing all matter of contemporary and retro-active pop and trance sensibilities, this album once again sees Hot Chip at the front of pioneering, friendly and avant garde pop music. Produced by the late Philippe Zdar (one half of Cassius) - also responsible for applying award winning touches to albums by Phoenix and Cat Power, Domino is calling the record "a celebration of joy but recognises the struggle it can take to get to that point of happiness". Our tips: album opener "Melody Of Love" and the '80s trance-pop that is "Hungry Child".

Review: This collection takes us back to singer/songwriter Cass McCombs formative years, offering up music recorded between 1999 and 2001 while he was living in San Francisco. McCoombs subsequently washed up in New York, on the back of extensive touring of the United States, and bagged a deal with 4AD. Effectively, this is an "origin story" release that showcases material laid to tape in a Bay Area apartment, rather than a professional studio. Atmospheric and naturally lo-fi, the recordings are rooted in a laidback Americana and electric neo-folk, albeit with a woozy, dreamy and meditative, effects-laden finish. Sparse, heady and with a vocal style that leans towards 'Screamadelica' era Bobby Gillespie, it's a fine collection of previously unheard gems.

Review: My Bloody Valentine frontman Kevin Shields has talked a lot about the stress of making Loveless, the band's now iconic 1991 sophomore album. It took over two years (and trips to 20 recording studios) to make, such was Shields sharply focused desire to capture a very specific sound. As this reissue proves, his attention to detail genuinely resulted in what many critics cite as their best album - a wonderfully immersive, wide-eyed and enveloping set that fuses their fuzzy alt-rock guitars with gaseous musical textures, dreamy aural colours and painstakingly layered musical soundscapes that sound as gloriously intense and druggy as they did way back in 1991. It's an album that everyone should own - or at least all those who doubt the sonic potential of primarily guitar-based music.