Robyn - Robyn

Real international success has been a long time coming for Robyn even though she's already had two smash-hit singles in the last decade. The fact that one came in 1997 and the other earlier this month shows just what a long strange ride it's been for the Swedish former teen pop star. Show Me Love first brought her to the attention of the world ouside her home country as an 18-year-old after a couple of years of success in Sweden. However, when she tried to move away from the teen pop market with second album My Truth, Robyn suddenly found her record company less than receptive, resulting in a stalemate that meant the album was never released in the USA. Her third album was given even less exposure worldwide, even though one track, Keep This Fire Burning, reached the UK Top 20 in 2005, performed by Beverley Knight. That same year, she split from her record company and recorded her self-titled album with help from The Knife, completing her transformation into a grown-up electro-pop star. Two years later, that same album is getting a proper release over here after second single With Every Heartbeat reached number one in the charts earlier in the month. A collaboration with Kleerup, With Every Heartbeat is a new track that wasn't on the original release and quite clearly sounds different from the rest, with its vaguely trancey backing, but Robyn is such a varied and eclectic collection that it doesn't really matter that nothing else sounds much like the big hit single. Starting off with a skit called Curriculum Vitae - which details all of Robyn's 'achievements' in a satire of the bravado and braggadocio of similar tracks on hip-hop albums - it dances along a skittish and occasionally wayward path of pop music, with her vocals making her sound like a long-lost Sugababe on tracks like Be Mine! and Handle Me while Konichiwa Bitches is a spicy hip-hop track and Crash And Burn Girl is pretty much overtaken by its own banging beats. It doesn't always work, but the album as a whole is certainly fun and rarely dull, and you've got to respect Robyn for fighting to make the kind of music she wants, particularly as it looks like it's really going to pay off.

Elektrons - Red Light, Don't Stop

Luke Cowdrey and Justin Crawford are The Unabombers and they are also Elektrons. Confused yet? The Electric Chair DJs have become a Manchester institution and this is their debut album as Elektrons and Red Light, Don't Stop encapsulates everything that their legendary club nights are about as well as mixing together almost every kind of underground dance and R 'n' B music you could care to mention, from East End grime to Northern soul and futuristic disco. "I think people will be surprised by the album," said Luke, "but that's what we wanted. We didn't want to just try and emulate our old American heroes, we wanted to make something which was rooted in Black music but quintessentially British and contemporary, and break a few barriers." On first listen, the mixture is slightly jarring as the frequent shifts in pace and style can come as a jolt, but when you allow it all to start to blend together, this is a very classy record. It's bookended by two tracks featuring long-time collaborator Pete Simpson on vocals and he sums up the variety on offer here with the bouncy up-tempo single Get Up and the chilled-out soul of closing track Joy. Get Up features Soup from Jurassic 5, but most of the vocalists on here are relatively unknown British artists like Mpho Skeef, Eska, Tor and Holly Backler and they all bring their own influences to the mix, with Tor's contribution to grime track Stop It Hold It taking the album in a completely different direction after just three tunes. Red Light, Don't Stop is an album full of colour and attitude, much like the city Elektrons hail from, and it's a party record that gets better with each listen.

Daughtry - Daughtry

Over here, reality TV talent shows like The X-Factor are mostly the sole preserve of pop and 'soul' singers because that's the kind of music that works best in the format of the show and for the kind of people who watch them. However, American Idol has produced some slightly more varied artists, with Kelly Clarkson infinitely preferable to any of the talentless schmucks our programmes have hoisted upon us, and Chris Daughtry has gone on to have a massive-selling debut album after doing well on it with his performances of tracks by bands like Aerosmith, Alice In Chains and Guns 'n' Roses. So, is Daughtry the first really great product of a TV music talent show? No. Firstly, we have the issue of the fact that 'Daughtry' is the name of the band he hastily threw together (after recording the album) to give himself some rock kudos and make himself not seem like a pop star. And then there's the music. Single It's Not Over is actually quite good as a big grunge-lite power ballad, but then second track Used To comes along and sounds pretty much just the same. And so does Home. And so does Over You. There's a pattern emerging and it's not a pretty one. Daughtry are sold as being influenced by the likes of Pearl Jam, but it's bands like Matchbox 20, Creed and Fuel that they most closely resemble, full of faux-angst but without the musical quality of the original grunge bands, while Daughtry's vocals stray dangerously close to Nickelback terrority at times. The only time this debut album ever gets remotely interesting is on What I Want when Slash turns up and brings some decent guitars into the slushy mix, but that's the seventh song and only the most hardy of souls will be able to get that far into the album without nodding off.

Eisley - Combinations

Family groups have been a part of music since, well, forever, as that's how most music started, with families getting together and singing in the days before reality TV gave them something else to do. From The Carter Family to the Beach Boys to The Corrs to Hanson (note the decline in quality down the years...) there's been lots of successful family acts and Eisley are one of the latest to try their hand. At first, they sound scarily like they could be another Hanson, with four siblings from Texas, but thankfully none of them are named after people from the Bible and they don't live in a caravan. Like the Wilson brothers from the Beach Boys, they've also brought their cousin into the band, but that's where the similarities end with any of the acts we've mentioned so far. Eisley get their name from the Mos Eisley cantina in Star Wars (they dropped the 'Mos' early on so that they didn't get sued) and take their musical inspiration from bands like Death Cab For Cutie and other American indie bands. Combinations is their second album, with most of the band now in their early twenties, apart from keyboardist Stacy, who is 18, having been just eight when the band first starting playing together. They were apparently inspired to do so by listening to OK Computer by Radiohead, but there's very little evidence of that from their sound, with is much more mainstream and melodic than any of the bands they play with or aspire to be. That's not a criticism though, because Eisley make really nice music, with lead singer Chauntelle having a nice voice and getting great vocal backing from her sisters, and while Combinations has a few darker moments (most notably the brooding A Sight To Behold and the sea shanty-styled rocker Many Funerals), it mostly floats along on the lighter side of life and is all the better for it, with the title track particularly good. It's certainly a step up from their debut, as you would expect for a band growing into their stride, and frothy indie pop doesn't get much better.