In shops tomorrow: 31/7

Singles

As we say somewhere down there, there's been an alarming evaporation in what should be a promotional campaign that sees TV On The Radio raised shoulder high for the work of greatness that is Return To Cookie Mountain. Whether because the NME can no longer be bothered to meet bands halfway or because this seems to be the summer of guitar hooks that need pointing out with great big arrows, it's a shame that Wolf Like Me might be allowed to pass by, mauling with itself, on the other side. It's possibly also why Seafood have been allowed to slip below the radar after the near-brekathrough brilliance of 2002's When Do We Start Fighting. David Line's lung collapsing three times in two years didn't help, so we should really be grateful they're still around at all to release Signal Sparks, the advance single from their fifth album. We were supposed to see Seafood this week but post-Truck sniffles kyboshed our chances. Anyone passing, let us know what they were like. (And yes, we're aware they played at Truck, but we took one look at the full tent and assumed we'd be seeing the full set later in the week. Oh, but we'll gladly see Seth Lakeman three months after seeing him support Billy Bragg and a month before we probably bump into him and his viola at Summer Sundae, eh? Anyhoo.) A couple of slightly odd acoustic cover versions to finish - call it post-Heartbeats if you want, although Iron & Wine's stripped down cover of the Postal Service's Such Great Heights has been around for ages, so lord knows why it's out on its own now. The other is Rodrigo Y Gabriela doing, just in case you thought a Mexican thrash metal indebted acoustic duo resident in Dublin was too much variety for one band, Stairway To Heaven.

Albums

Thin gruel this week, with even the release schedule highlight of the blues-punk-soul explosion of The Gossip's Standing In The Way Of Control actually being a better distributed re-release. Brief excitement did follow the discovery of something called D. Boon & Friends, which rather than a lost Christmas variety special by the late Minutemen leader is in fact just a load of old live, rehearsal, jamming and home recorded rarities. It's all above board, though, with Mike Watt on liner duty - and hang on a minute, the lengthy and authoritative Minutemen documentary We Jam Econo leaked out on DVD three weeks ago! Why were we not informed? Quick catch-up to close as we've been long time fans of MJ Hibbett's wryly lyrical trad-indie and earlier in the month he and The Validators released another slab of goodness, We Validate. The first track, Tell Me Something You Do Like, is about people who only seem to complain. Why that struck a chord with us we can't quite pin down.