Interpol Our Love To Admire Polydor (46m 25s) ***

SO THE New Yorkers haven't split up and here is their third album. But wait, here's a piano and a harmonium. Uh, oh, the first single 'The Heinrich Maneuver' is a rather happy affair. What's going on? Calm down, Daniel Kessler's guitar still vigorously weeps and Paul Banks is still singing like a man condemned but it just sounds bigger and lighter.

As usual the sound is kept in check by the pummelling drums of Sam Fogarino but part of me is disappointed that this isn't truly the project it could have been. It sounds like a band trying to progress but lacking the conviction to go for it.

Download: 'No I in Threesome' 'Pioneer to the Falls' 'Rest My Chemistry'

Neil Dunphy

The Beastie Boys The Mix-Up Capitol (41m 40s)****

YOU know the funky-lounge flourishes that the Beasties have long used to punctuate the heavier hip-hop? Well they've now made a whole album of them. No rapping, not so many samples, just a live jam with the band employing guitars, bass, drums and organs. And quite frankly it's a subtle masterpiece. Close your eyes and you're on the streets of New York sometime during the late 1970s when the Beasties formed. Oh, there's Huggy Bear over there. And the entire cast of Hill Street Blues. Weird. The lads have promised this album will soon be released with full vocals which probably means we will hear some of it at the Electric Picnic.

Download: not really that kind of album

ND Clinic Funf Domino (29m 20s) ***

TEN years on and Clinic's influence is probably a little wider than most would think. Guillemots and The Young Knives have taken their loaded ramshackle eccentricity and made it into something slightly more marketable than the original could hope for. This fifth record is, as always, completely confusing. 'The Majestic', an Arcade Fire-ish instrumental opens the album and is followed by speed metal, mediaeval jolts, stoner rock, prog rock and assorted random thoughts. It almost feels like there are 12 different bands on the album. It's all very interesting, but seriously, what are they smoking?

Download: 'The Majestic', 'Christmas', 'The Scythe'

Una Mullally

Somadrone Of Pattern and Purpose Trust Me I'm A Thief (48m 00s) ***

THERE is some damn good introspective electronic music around Ireland at the moment: Si Schroeder, Halves and, now, Somadrone. The sparse, often barely audible beginnings of most of the tracks here are really false starts, as Somadrone often forgets himself, heading into a poetic, slightly reluctant layer of sound. Oriental melodies, unidentifiable sounds and, above all, the sheer intensity of the purpose here make this quite a record. The only real fault is the overuse of strings on a couple of tracks, which jars when the beats and other sounds are so modern . . . the record may have sounded better without them.

Download: 'Melodie Neilson', 'Tumble Down', 'San Soleil'

UM

Blues

Charles Brown Groovy Rev-Ola Bandstand *****

BEST remembered as the progenitor of smooth piano blues . . . in which guise he was a big influence on Nat King Cole, among others . . . Brown is depicted in more lively and ebullient mood on this splendid compilation, its 30 tracks drawn in roughly equal measure from his early days fronting Three Blazers and his later solo career. Despite the absence of the pianist's best-known hits, such as 'Black Night', there's compensation aplenty here in tracks such as 'COD' and 'Bobby Sox Blues'. Throughout, Brown's sprightly pianistics and warm delivery display an unexpected affinity for gentle humour, rather than the sweet, smoky melancholy for which he was best known.

Andy Gill Classical Bruckner Symphony No. 4 Simon Rattle/Berlin Philharmonic EMI Classics (71m 19s) *****

THE symphony that finally confirmed Bruckner's great potential as a symphonist, his 'Romantic' symphony . . . the magnificent 4th. That this recording is taken from a live Philharmonic performance is its ultimate triumph. Rattle's Bruckner surpasses the realms of excitement and evocation. Rattle hasn't always elicited the palette of emotion from his forces to match the technical accuracy of the venture but here the balance is very much corrected. The listening experience is never passive as Rattle's journey map is not only dotted with such infinite detail as to near-outdo Bruckner's own markings, his destination is never less than exhilaratingly palpable.

Karen Dervan