Nominees Charged with Churlish Chores,

Give a man in a car some country roads and he’ll think he’s Colin McRae.

I’ve been listening to most of my new CDs in the car, rather unusually; they’ve mostly been issued by American artists.

Ben Kweller’s self-titled album is full of songs that have Ben Kweller written all over them. I’ve always liked Ben Kweller’s work, he has a real talent for writing Ben Kweller songs, which he leads us through on his Ben Kweller piano or Ben Kweller guitar. I especially like Penny on the Train Track because it’s has “train” in the title, “train” in the lyrics and the piano keys chosen and the order in which they are played by Ben Kweller make me think of a train – I liked Train by Goldfrapp for the same reason, however her later stuff was not about trains, she should have stuck to writing about trains, calling her records "Train" and making records that sound like trains.

Micah P Hinson has a gravelly voice and this makes the tragedies on Micah P Hinson and the Opera Circuit sound tragic and the triumphs sound triumphant. Some of the songs are very quiet and subtle, but still they have a majesty that’s too rare. The strings on this “cosmic country noir” (for those who want a pigeonhole) album are superb in the sadder numbers and the brass gives the upbeat songs like Jackeyed a real bounce. There are too many instruments and their players to praise, but watch out for that banjo.

I’m never quite sure where I stand on The Walkmen, they had a few good songs on their previous album, Bows and Arrows but the rest was a lot of turgid clattering. I bought their newest one solely on the basis of the trumpet on Louisiana, the opening track of Hundred Miles Off. This album is just the same as the last for me at the minute, I hope I can grow to like it but I can’t help think that the basslines are similar to Interpol’s and that I’d rather be listening to them instead.

Whilst listening to KEXP Seattle at times when BBC 6music choose to broadcast shows presented by wassocks, I heard Band of Horses and The Album Leaf. Everything all the Time is the debut album from Band of Horses, they could easily be described as a big mish-mash of Flaming Lips, Grandaddy, Secret Machines, Neil Young and Mercury Rev with the vocals of Perry Farrell and Wayne Coyne. Those seem like decent enough ingredients and the result is magnificent. There’s some great stuff on this album but The Funeral is the “hit”, it goes “At every occasion, I’m ready for a funeral” which is often relevant enough. Hat’s off to Band of Horses. The album comes with three postcards which I’ll stick up somewhere.

Into the Blue Again by The Album Leaf is mostly a collection of chilled but progressing instrumentals. It’s rather low-key and beautiful. Where vocals do feature, they’re as good as and better than many of the others out there, I picked up on The Album Leaf after hearing Always for You. Into the Blue Again is about nice modern rhythms. It’s as good as Eingya by Helios.

The timely release of Year of the Leopard by Fencemeister James Yorkston allows this amateur musicologist to praise at least one Scottish artist before the end of this haphazard review. Thirty seconds into opener Summer Song on my first listen of any James Yorkston album, I knew that this was a corker. "A gem" is more appropriate description, "a corker" would be too loud. Some people call James a folkie, some people call me a folkie, none of this is strictly true but there’s nothing else to call this breed of music. The lyrics are top notch and the layerings of instruments, especially the entrances of the accordion and the organ, are sublime. I bought this CD directly from Domino Records, just to make sure I received extra Domino goodies – there were no badges but there was a wonderful bonus CD of some acoustic versions of the songs on this album.