In shops tomorrow: 27/2

Singles

The UK hype around Clap Your Hands Say Yeah seemed to die down the moment the album was released, which seems odd given it went top 30 and, as we remarked at the time, outdid Funeral at a stroke as far as the Guinness Book compilers are concerned. A similar new lack of interest seems to be busy blighting the chances of In This Home On Ice, not that Alec Ounsworth's vocal stylings were ever going to help it make a Radio 1 daytime breakthrough or anything. Henry Dartnall's hardly blessed with tones that would make Carrie and/or David Grant give up in disgust either, but at least the mix allows you to hear the words of Young Knives songs, which is the best way where Here Comes The Rumour Mill is concerned. Taking your time over an album, aren't you, by the way? Maybe they could drag the mainstream towards themselves as the Mystery Jets did by appearing on TOTP last week, an event made all the more out of place by the fact that the intro, back-announcement and caption all failed to mention how come the bloke on the left looked very much older than the rest of them, something covered in today's Sunday Times magazine Relative Values section ahead of said single The Boy Who Ran Away. The Rakes still can't find a commercial breakthrough inlet, although All Too Human gives it a good go, Jim Noir probably isn't overly bothered about acceptance from the kids if he's writing songs like Key Of C, and the decidedly odd Gogol Bordello were the subject of a bet between Moyles and Whiley about where Start Wearing Purple would chart. Buy it, send it top ten and watch Moyles lose a lot of money. You know it makes sense.

Albums

Looked back two posts for our considered opinion on the one release you must buy this week? Good. That just leaves Belle & Sebastian's curious stylistic mishmash of a contribution to the Late Night Tales series, proper indie revivalists The Research's Breaking Up and the harrowed more than harrowing return of Dan Treacy and The Television Personalities with My Dark Places.