HIT MISS OR MAYBE?

7:00am Saturday 3rd May 2008

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CRISIS - CONSEQUENCES

CRISIS is a charity which raises awareness about homelessness. For this single which is in aid of the organisation, a whole host of artists, including Paul Weller, Dirty Pretty Things, Beth Ditto of The Gossip and Supergrass all recorded their parts without hearing what the other bands were playing. The resulting vintage soul-esque song is stunning and it's in aid of a great cause. What more could you want?

THE SCRIPT - WE CRY

With elements of folk and commercial R&B, The Script are looking mass appeal in the face when they release this, their debut single. The Irish trio have plenty more where this came from too.

ALLY KERR - THERE'S A WORLD

If melodic, radio-friendly acoustic pop is what you crave, look no further than Ally Kerr's latest single. The Glasgow-born singer songwriter has a huge following in Japan. A few more like this and his home country is sure to follow.

PORTISHEAD - THIRD

It's been a long time coming - 11 years to be precise - but is it worth the wait? After winning the Mercury Music Prize in 1995 with debut Dummy and then releasing a highly acclaimed, self-titled follow-up a couple of years later, Geoff Barrow, Adrian Utley and Beth Gibbons have a legacy worth preserving. Thankfully, Third, keeps any heritage firmly intact while markedly moving the band forward into the 21st century. Eerie, unsettling beats and blips dominate this album and Gibbons's voice has lost none of its uniqueness in the decade or so since we last heard it on a new Portishead track. Single Machine Gun, with its mechanical rhythms, is among the stand-out moments but Third is a largely cohesive affair. Let's just hope we don't have to wait until 2019 for a follow-up.

HADOUKEN - MUSIC FOR AN ACCELERATED CULTURE

This Leeds-based quintet are undoubtedly the current darlings of the nu-rave scene. Their third single Declaration Of War is all over Radio One and past efforts such as That Boy That Girl and Liquid Lives have rocked Skins parties from Bristol to Bognor. Their high-energy electro punk-meets-grime sound has earned them a gaggle of fans who will not be disappointed by this, their first full-length release. The Nintendo-esque beats are unrelenting and the rhyming is slick, but anyone wanting a more varied sound should certainly look elsewhere as this is pretty much the standard throughout. Forget the Klaxons, this is what nu-rave was always meant to be about.

By Nick Howes

CAJUN DANCE PARTY - THE COLOURFUL LIFE

Even when they had A-levels to preoccupy them, North London quintet Cajun Dance Party still managed to release a debut single worthy of being NME's Track Of The Week in April, 2007. Without exams to get in the way, their first album should be a stroll in the park. It would seem they've passed with merit and The Colourful Life is sure to increase the band's fanbase all over the land while highlighting the potential they so clearly have. This debut is a well-crafted and refreshing mix of tracks and, as a first effort, must be applauded.