AMADOU AND MARIAM
Welcome to Mali
Little-known outside West Africa until three years ago, blind Malian duo Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia are now huge stars all over the world – thanks to their 2005 album Dimanche à Bamako.
For its successor they're joined by Damon Albarn and a crack team of session musicians – and the results are no less enjoyable. Djama is reggae with an African lilt, Djuru fuses some gorgeous kora-playing with funky guitar and vocals, while Masiteladi is surprisingly rocky and Compagnon de la Vie adds some Stax-like brass and organ. The standout track though is the Albarn collaboration Sabali, a lovely slice of Air-like electronica that leaves you wishing they'd recorded a whole lot more together.
Because
Rating: 4/5Click here for more

ALESHA DIXON
The Alesha Show
Never underestimate the power of Strictly Come Dancing. Twelve months ago Alesha Dixon's singing career was in the doldrums, having had her record contract cancelled after a couple of her solo singles flopped – but everything was to change after she won the 2007 series of Strictly. Now back with a new deal, she's ditched the UK garage sound of her old group Mis-Teeq for the shiny pop delights of Xenomania (the backroom team behind Girls Aloud) and the blousy ballad-writing skills of Diane Warren (If I Could Turn Back Time, I Don't Want to Miss a Thing). The formula works a treat on the mambo-tastic single The Boy Does Nothing and the candy-coloured funk of Cinderella Shoe; Alesha also does a solid job with the typical Warren weepie Do You Know The Way It Feels. Elsewhere though there's a lot of run-of-the-mill material that no amount of dressing-up can quite disguise.
Still, few would deny Alesha her second shot at stardom.
Asylum
Rating: 3/5
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LEMAR
The Reason
In 2003 Lemar Obika failed to make the grade in another TV talent show, Fame Academy. His third place was baffling at the time; five years and two million album sales later it looks positively bizarre (whither his fellow finalists David Sneddon and Sinead Quinn now?).
The Reason, Lemar's fourth album, is smoother and more Americanised than its predecessors, but the 30-year-old Londoner's soulful vocals still shine through tracks like Weight of the World and If She Knew.
The album does occasionally veer towards blandness but the slinky Not What You Say and the overtly poppy Over You more than make up for such minor lapses.
Epic
Rating: 3/5
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I LIKE TRAINS
The Christmas Tree EP
Not, sadly, a full-scale follow-up to I Like Trains's 2007 album Elegies to Lessons Learned, this five-track EP is nevertheless another majestic offering from the Leeds band.
Originally written to accompany a French film that never got made, this entirely instrumental work has subsequently been adapted to soundtrack a new short film about Captain Santa (Herman Scheunemann) and his ill-fated journey across Lake Missouri in November 1912, delivering Christmas trees to the people of Chicago. So far, so I Like Trains. But as the guitars swell and shimmer – like a cross between Felt and Explosions in the Sky – you have to admit nobody does epic melancholia quite as movingly as this.
Fantastic Plastic
Rating: 3/5
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BELLE AND SEBASTIAN
The BBC Sessions
Was there ever a band more indie than Belle and Sebastian? Born out of a college project, they combined wry, literate lyrics with fey vocals and shuffling arrangements that usually involved acoustic guitars, piano and brass.
For a couple of albums and a handful of EPs they really were great – and it's from this period, from 1996 to 1998, that the majority of this BBC Sessions album originates. In truth there isn't a huge difference between these versions of The State I Am In, The Stars of Track and Field etc and the ones on Tigermilk and If You're Feeling Sinister; of primary interest to completists, though, will be a 2001 Peel session which was their last to feature Isobel Campbell and includes the previously unreleased Mamas and Papas-like The Magic of a Kind Word and the glorious harmonica and vibes number Nothing in the Silence.
Jeepster
Rating: 4/5
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