The Twang - I Love It When I Feel Like This

Worst. Band name. Ever.

Or thereabouts. However, the cover's not bad. It looks like a fox in a parka. Good stuff.

There's a good song title too: 'Push The Ghosts'. This is a tactic rarely used in horror films. Running around shrieking comes quite high; calling The Ghostbusters is another option; sitting still getting really freaked out is another still.

But pushing the ghosts? No-one's tried that.

Ghosts have had it their own way too long. Why do they always get to be the ones freaking US out. Why can't we freak THEM out for a change - with our opaque appearance and ability to consistently manipulate objects?

Do it tonight. Give a ghost the heebie-jeebies by spookily appearing with plenty of warning from somewhere-very-obvious.

Maroon 5 - It Won't Be Soon Before Long

It won't... be soon... before long...?

When will it be soon? Before how long will it be what? How soon is 'before long'? How long is 'before soon'? Why won't it be soon before long? How can you say with such certainty that long, long before soon, but soon before long it soon won't be long?

I'll tell you some things I CAN be sure of:

Soon you'll be sick of Maroon 5, if you don't loathe them already.

Before long you'll do a 'double Van Gogh' so as to save yourself.

Siobhan Donaghy - Ghosts

"Holy fucking crap, what was that?"

"I think it was the boiler going on."

"Really... Oh... Sweet Jesus! - what's that then?"

"That? That's a bed."

"No, not that. THAT!"

"That? That's your jumper."

"That's not my fucking jumper. My fucking jumper doesn't go there."

"It is. It is your jumper. It's on a hanger."

"Oh, right. Yes. It is my jumper... Sorry... I thought it was a ghost."

"So what? You're a ghost."

"... S'pose."

Mutya Buena - Real Girl

Mutya Buena has been unkindly branded 'Munter' Buena by some people.

I would never stoop so low as to take issue with her appearance. However, I will go on record as saying I'd rather have sex with the moon.

The middle of this record features a light-hearted, buoyant run of tracks: 'Breakdown Motel', 'Strung Out', 'It's Not Easy' and 'Suffer For Love'.

I'm guessing that times have been tough for Mutya. I guess being in The Sugababes was equivalent to working in a Victorian workhouse and I'm guessing leaving The Sugababes was like walking out on a loved one.

As Leonardo Da Vinci once said: 'You can't have it both ways, Buena. Belt up. Make some records about upbeat things like picnics and Christmas presents. Don't make me tell you again - I'm busy inventing helicopters and the contact lens.'

Yes, he did say that.

Sponsored review: www.progressivetrance.net

Progressive Trance Network have requested a review via ReviewMe, the sponsored review site. I'm probably not the best person to do this as I've no real idea what Trance music is, let alone progressive trance and I've also got something of a track record for going off topic. Still, I'll do my best. Or thereabouts.

According to progressivetrance.net: “Progressive trance music originates from the combination of psychedelic trance and progressive house and has a distinctive sound softer than normal trance and harder than normal house music.” So now you've all pinpointed the genre, let's dive into the site.

The problem is, there isn't actually a great deal to get your teeth into, even if you're a progressive trance nut – and let's face it, who isn't? Progressivetrance.net offers some profiles of top progressive trance DJs and artists, but these contain less information than you could glean from Wikipedia.

Other than that, it merely provides links to other sites for various services. Want to download some MP3s? Here are some links to sites that do that. Want to know about some prominent progressive trance record labels? Here are some links to a few.

There's a shop, but it's merely an affiliate program for Amazon. Progressivetrance.net don't provide anything themselves, they just take a percentage of the Amazon sales that are made through their site.

There's also a news section, which contains links to news from various blogs. Unfortunately the links are poorly coded and many just lead you to a page of HTML or plain text rather than the original posts.

I'm not very impressed.

Sophie Ellis Bextor - Trip The Light Fantastic

Sophie Ellis Bextor's supposed to be attractive. Oh yeah? Why does she look like the fucking moon then?

Look at her face. It's almost perfectly spherical, pale enough to blind you by reflecting the sun's rays straight into your unguarded retinas and sports practically no features. It's the fucking moon.

I wouldn't go within 238,857 miles of her. I wouldn't touch her with Apollo 11.

Natasha Bedingfield - Nb

'I've got a fantastically oversized mouth. I wonder what I should put on the cover of my album. I know. I'll use my mouth and pretty much nothing else'.

This probably wasn't the train of thought that led to this album cover, but I can't really comprehend what did happen.

This is yet another pop album where the song titles are all utterly meaningless. 'Still Here', 'Who Knows', 'Say It Again', 'Not Givin' Up'. There is, quite simply, NOTHING that means ANYTHING amongst that. It's like staring at a wall you've painted white. Some bits appear to stand out, but it's actually just your mind imploding as a result of the unrelenting blanditude.

However, there is one hidden gem: 'Pirate Bones'. Anything overtly piratical can't be bad. It's not possible. Pirates are inherently wonderful. Think about it: Captain Pugwash, Pop Up Pirate - both works of genius.

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HIM - Uneasy Listening Volume II: Rarities

His Infernal Majesty - there's a band name.

'Rendez Vous With Anus' - there's a song title. There is literally nothing I can add to that.

One track's called 'Hand Of Doom'. I remember contracting a hand of doom once. It was bloody murder. I couldn't do anything without inevitable destruction. Obviously I learnt early on to use my other hand, the left, but I'm so painfully one-sided that it wasn't a great deal better. My left hand's a hand of inadvertent doom.

Of course even at its best, when my left hand was successfully working its way through a mundane task, the Hand Of Doom was unoccupied and would amuse itself by sabotaging the left's efforts. Eventually, after a course of antibiotics, the symptoms subsided. A mate had an anus of doom. You don't want to hear about that.

A quick note about track five, 'Beginning Of The End': Track five is neither the beginning nor the end. Idiots.

Various Artists - The Best Disco In Town

Here's what the best disco in town must feature:

Very comfy armchairs

A selection of alcoholic drinks that don't taste worryingly chemical

A broad menu

Waiter service

A large television broadcasting live Test match cricket and then series three of The Wire after close of play

Here's what the best disco in town mustn't feature:

Bald men with tiny eyes, shiny shirts and short tempers

Disco music

Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank

Modest? I'll say. Positively reclusive. If I were a mouse who could make records, I'd be on ITV's 'Musical Rodents' before you could say 'Roland Rat'.

It's a shame he wasn't a rat actually. Rats famously flee the sinking ship rather than just lying around on deck, terminally ill, awaiting their fate.

Back in real life, this band now features Johnny Marr, one of the finest guitarists in the world and one who appears to have pretty much renounced making a great deal of effort with his instrument of choice about 20 years ago when he was only 23.

At the time of writing, I'd achieved Jack Shit. When I was 23, I'd achieved even less.

Good Shoes - Think Before You Speak

Think before you speak? Why? Why do you need to do that? What are you thinking? It's something bad, isn't it? You're thinking of desecrating something, aren't you? Shame on you.

The point is, only terrible, bad, evil people need to think before they speak. Why else would you need to monitor your thoughts. I for one have never thought anything bad in my life. It wouldn't so much as cross my mind to badmouth Jesus to a Christian or repeatedly slap a child in the face for crying too much.

You should never think before you speak. Just speak. That way everyone knows where they stand. If you wonder out loud how you're going to steal that beggar's hat full of money, he'll hear you and can take steps to stop you. As a result the world's a better place.

The Maccabees - Colour It In

I like it when a band has a recognisable look to their album covers. The Maccabees' covers are very distinctive. They've got nice subdued pastel shades and thick black outlines.

This cover's particularly good because everyone looks like they're related to Morph. Hopefully the Maccabees will adopt Morph's shrill murmur in place of their own singing voices. Morph-talk's much underused in popular music.

What would you do if you were plasticine? I'd roll myself into a ball and sit in the corner gathering dust until I'd gone solid and unmalleable. Then you'd have to replace me with a new sheet of plasticine.

Yes, plasticine does come in sheets. Wriggly corduroy-style sheets.

Deftones - White Pony

One track's called 'Knife Party'. What the hell is a knife party?

I read the lyrics. There aren't many. It seems very repetitive. Mostly it's 'get a knife' and 'have a little bit of a lie down' or words to that effect. The only thing that hints at anything more is the word 'anaemic'.

I was going to write something hilarious about anaemia and The Deftones, so I went and read about anaemia for a bit. Unfortunately, due to my abnormally small brain, I find that I can never glean any actual information about anything medical or scientific. The upshot is that you'll have to include your own anaemia joke.

Anaemia's probably a really rich comedy seam. If only my puny brain would help me mine it.

Deep Purple - The Platinum Collection

I see that platinum's the best substance there is now. Better than gold. Better than diamonds. Better even than cheese.

Some idiot cricketers self-applied the nickname 'The Platinum Club' once, instantly making themselves look like dicks.

It's a bit more excusable in the world of rock, where a platinum record at least means something and pretty much everyone's a dick already. It's still lazy naming though.

Here are some other suggestions as to what this album could have been called:

The Deepinator 9000
The Purpinator 9000

The list's virtually endless.

Chemical Brothers - We Are The Night

Every single Chemical Brothers album is near-flawless. Sometimes you read a review saying that such-and-such an album showed them 'off-form' or was 'below par'. These reviewers are demented simpletons with no critical faculties. Every single Chemical Brothers album is near-flawless.

Some albums are better than others, but mostly it's a matter of taste. The fact is that any Chemical Brothers song is nine times more ambitious and imaginitive than anything else around. Listening to a Chemical Brothers song for the first time, you can not know where it's going to go. This is a good thing.

It's strange then that they've decided to release a rubbish song, 'Do It Again,' as the first single off We Are The Night. It's okay though, because the first single off Come With Us - 'It Began In Afrika' - was also rubbish.

That's rubbish by Chemical Brothers standards of course. If a rubbish Chemical Brothers song is a glass of chilled champagne, then the next best song of the year is half a mug of cold, weak Bovril with a poo floating in it.

Various Artists - Hed Kandi - Serve Chilled

A highly disappointing release from Hed Kandi. It only features one cartoon woman on the front cover and she's a blonde one. As I've previously informed you: Never the blonde cartoon woman from the Hed Kandi albums; always one of the other ones.

She's in close-up as well, so you can't see the saucy cartoon outfit she's no doubt barely wearing. She appears to be on a beach, so it would probably be some form of bikini.

All I can think about is the much better cartoon women who are cavorting around in bikinis off-canvas - probably playing volleyball or emerging from the surf looking like they've some place better to be.

Those cartoon women are the ones who should be representing this album: The surly, disinterested, non-blonde ones. This girl looks like she might actually speak to you. Rubbish. If you'd bought her that rocket lolly, she'd probably have said 'thank you' rather than just looking away from you with barely concealed contempt.

Prince - 1999

Prince: Looks like a gimp; acts like a gimp; produces a large amount of actually quite good music.

I remember seeing the layout of the opening guitar chord of one of Prince's songs once. I tried to play it, but even from a standing start, I couldn't actually get my fingers into the correct position.

I'm not a guitar novice. Prince clearly discovered the ultimate guitar chord. He's tiny as well and I'm guessing his hands are to scale. He must have a child's guitar or he'd never stretch beyond one fret.

I remember another time, back when I was a child - one of my Star Wars figures appeared to move of its own volition. On closer inspection, it had the word 'slave' on its cheek. It was Prince himself. He'd somehow found his way inside my Millennium Falcon and had become trapped.

I carefully scooped him up in my hand and dropped him outside my window. He scampered off and promptly recorded 'Something In The Water (Does Not Compute)' - one of the more disappointing songs off the 1999 album.

Linkin Park - Minutes To Midnight: Special Edition

Over the years, Linkin Park have been dogged by allegations that they're nothing more than a pale imitation of fey Nineties indie rockers, Gene. Nowhere is that more apparent than on Minutes To Midnight.

The vocals on 'Bleed It Out' and 'No More Sorrow' are pure Martin Rossiter and the guitars throughout are jangly and insistent, a la Gene.

One further influence is also apparent. The percussion on 'Little Things Give You Away' is pure Cud. If the drummer from Cud doesn't get some sort of financial recompense, it will be a grave injustice indeed.

There is one internet rumour that the drummer from Cud underwent extensive reconstructive surgery after falling in the bath and is actually behind the kit for Linkin Park. I thought this was far-fetched, but my ears are less convinced.

Amerie - Because I Love It

Amerie's first langauage was Korean. Her mother attempted to limit her use of the language after the family moved to the US, believing it might hinder her English development.

Apparently, Amerie still speaks Korean with her mother, which isn't a particularly rigid enforcement of 'not speaking Korean' on her mother's part. This perhaps explains Amerie's lamentable English.

'Hate2loveu', 'That's What U R', 'When Loving U Was Easy' and 'Losing U'. It's 'you', Amerie - 'you'. Maybe that kind of single-letter representation of full words might wash in Korea, but here in the United Kingdom, we spell everything in full.

Even in an emergency, it's considered rank bad form to depart from the recognised standards. If there were a fire in an Englishman's home and through some complex set of circumstances he needed to write a quick note prior to fleeing the blaze, he would sooner die than use 'U' or 'R' in place of the full version.

He would sooner die.

The Backstreet Boys - Millennium

I used to call The Backstreet Boys 'The Back Passage Boys'. I was so funny back then. I don't know WHY I didn't try to become a stand-up comedian.

'Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely'. Now THERE'S an idea. Why didn't anyone separate The Backstreet Boys sooner? Surely it must have occurred to someone that they couldn't muck about making records if they were all sitting separately.

'I Want It That Way', the angel in question would have said. 'Don't Want You Back', they would have added.

Did you know that there was a comic called 'The Backstreet Project'? In it, The Back Street Boys are "cyber crusaders"... They have special amulets... They have adventures...

There are a large number of lies on this site. Astonishingly, the above isn't one of them.

Ocean Colour Scene - On The Leyline

This week's entrants in the 'didn't know they were still around' category are Ocean Colour Scene.

Ocean Colour Scene confuse and frustrate me. They confuse me because they're prone to haircuts which are longer at the sides than on top. It's a tremendously unflattering look, particularly now they're all middle-aged.

They frustrate me, because despite showing a bit of promise with the old guitar, they have literally NO ambition. None whatsoever. Why pretend that it's not the distant past when you could just reinterpret sixties blues-rock until the end of time?

They're like those hippies who wish we all still lived in the Middle Ages before the world was ruined by television, increased free time and civilisation.

Well if you're going to wallow in the past you have to take the negatives as well, be they leprosy and the Black Death or drug-fuelled paranoia and an income of about £3,000 a year.

That's what it was like for bands in the Sixties, Ocean Colour Scene. Go on - live it like you mean it. (The leprosy and Black Death were for the hippies, but you can give them a whirl too, if you want).