With Goldfrapp's album opener Clowns I thought I'd mistakenly been given a new Cocteau Twins album.

Alison Goldfrapp has a voice as distinctive and every bit as sweet as the Cocteau's Liz Fraser but I immediately couldn't tell the difference.

Seventh Tree is the follow up to 2005's Supernature and finds Goldfrapp ditching the Glam inspired style from that album and reviving the style of their debut Felt Mountain and the tunes have an incredible ambience.

Happiness skips a long at a joyous pace whilst Road To Somewhere and Monster Love are so laid back that they're all but horizontal.

The strangely named Cologne Cerrone Houdini or upbeat Caravan Girl would be the obvious follow up single to A&E but Goldfrapp will probably confound us by making the much less immediate Eat Yourself the next single. Whatever, this album is a treat, especially for any old time Cocteau Twins fans.

Graham Scaife.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!.

Incredibly this is The Bad Seeds fourteenth studio album, their first since 2004's Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus double offering, and despite hitting his fiftieth year Cave shows no signs of slowing down and joining the pipe and slipper brigade.

Album opener and title track instantly confirms Cave as the natural successor to Johnny Cash before the heavy bass line and Hammond organ of Today's Lesson tells the sinister tale of Little Janie and Mr. Sandman with a hand clapping beat guaranteed to get your feet tapping if not bopping around the living room.

Cave's vocals are superbly expressive throughout and The Bad Seeds are musically as tight as the proverbial duck's backside.

Night of the Lotus Eaters is rather ponderous with a recurrent bass line and little else backing the vocals and is the only one of the eleven tracks that had me reaching for the skip button.

Graham Scaife