After a turbulent time for Melbourne's Underground Lovers (leaving a major, setting up their own label, recording a new album), they've resurfaced with a brillant blast of power pop, distinctly Underground Lovers but also with a certain freshness and vitality. Like many of the songs on their latest LP Rushall Station, "In my head" has at its core a simple pop song but this is underlayed with sequencer, and overlayed with assaultive guitar, to give it that 'Lovers edge. Particularly memorable is the "ba ba bar" chorus, which lends itself to frequent singing for weeks afterwards. Second track "All Strung out" lays off the dissonance a bit and lets the grove take over, something like the Go-Betweens meets the Jesus and Mary Chain, (not a bad thing). Despite the abrasive start "Sue" is another magic four minutes which would have Sonic Youth kill for. Definately single of the month

Win In My Head CD's

Magic Transistor Radio, Sydney pop master's Drop City's, second album, is a masterpiece - and "Cool times" is one of the stand out tracks off it. Distinctly humable ,this tune has a catchy hammond melody wafting throughout, guiding the casual vocals and edgy guitars. Bonus songs "Fly Away" and "Brand New Start" are album tracks recorded live for Triple J late last year. "Fly Away" is a bright and bouncy Boo Radleys type affair, a delightful song to wake up to; then "Brand New Start" turns the guitars up for a bit of a Teenage Fanclub-ish anthem and "God knows I've really tried..." sing along chorus. The real surprise is the Catch the Breeze mix of "Cool times" remixed by Greg Wales, which sounds like it's been slowed down from 45 to 33 rpm but actually works!

Sadly the House are no more but before they chuff off they're leaving us with a couple of reminders. Number 1) is the three new tracks which are on number 2), a 'best of' package called Recurring Dream. Interestingly, while England gets "instinct" Australia gets "Everything is good for You". Not exactly a Crowded house classic, sounding like a Woodface era single, but still a very likeable, laid back tune. The other tracks feature a live slowed down version of "History Never Repeats" with Pearl Jam (and in particular Eddie Vedder) guesting, and live versions of the classics "Into Temptation" and "Chocolate Cake", the latter surprisingly not featuring on Recurring Dream at all.

I suppose a remix CD package is par for the course with the Pet Shop Boys but usually these types of deals don't send me into raptures. The mixes here add a bit more energy to the laid back grove of Before and are good value, at nearly 40minutes all up (hell, that's an album for most bands). Pick of bunch is the "Aphrodisiac Mix" which ups the BPM substancely, and includes the ubiquitous wailing (black?) female vocals and the "Extended Mix" which features most of the original's vocal and melody. But this really is aimed at a certain audience being DJ's, dance fiends and fanatical Pet Shop Boys fans, not the casual listener.

Not very well know in Australian, England's Terrorvision are big over there with 5 singles from their last album all charting rather well. The UK press also like them (well, mostly) which is surprising because Terrorvision are a bit hard to categorise, something the English press seem to cherish. Not exactly indie or metal, they're more of a fun-pop-metal group. Basically "Perseverance" has more hooks than a fishing competition but enough noisy guitars to be considered a rock song. While the humable chorus is the main selling point the verses suffer because of the lead singer's shouting/singing style of vocal. Thankfully he's taken throat lozenges by "Sick and Tired" a nice ballad, which has a familiar but comforting sound to it. "Hard to Feel" is another acoustic influenced tale which has Terrorvision sounding quite mature and even a bit MORish, which is cause for concern, even for them.

Not quite Spaceman, thank goodness but still within the Bowie//Bolan--weird lyrical-space cadet terrority, featuring a fuzzed up guitar and killer rift. Jas Mann is a talented musician to be sure, but his lyrical prowess has a long way to go - "Animal Army" features him wailing about "Elephants dancing" or something - who knows? who cares? Actually I can see Mann as a bizarre Michael Jackson rock eccentric with his own private Zoo and neverland, and after the success of "Spaceman" he probably could afford it. The additional tracks are rather long and indulgent re-mixes with slightly dubious names such as "arthur plays with the animals" (erm, due to arthur baker doing the remix duties) and the "babylon bass mix" which, surprisingly doesn't feature much bass at all, but maybe that's the point.

This was the real breakthrough for Shed Seven in Britain being their big cross over hit (going top 10) . God knows why. While "Getting Better" was the Sheddies doing exactly that, "Going for Gold" is out reaching their abilities and has them coming a definate last. This ballad-cum-anthem starts with a nice acoustic guitar rift and Rick Witter's mature vocal (not that bad actually) but then lumbers into a big chorus with lots of horns and power chords but not much else. It wants very hard to be a classic song but there is a distinct lack of a good melody,riff or emotion for it to do that. The other two tracks don't booster they're chances of winning the medal either, being very ordinary. Have to settle for Bronze I'm afraid boys.

And we come to Menswear, probably the single that which has been the hardest to review. Not with the main track mind you - that's a beautiful, orchestrated ballad that actually succeeds in being non-cringeworthy. No, not that but rather the "bonus" tracks which are causing me angst. On the one hand you've got 3 very well produced pop (and one punk) songs, on the other I finally realise that all the derivative and plagiarist jibes landed on Menswear have merit. First off the rank is "sunlight on the moon" a duet with rachel norman (no I don't know who she is) - nice but rather innocous. Next is "this will be our year", and from the opening piano bars it screams out "John Lennon rip off" (circa double fantasy/instant karma). Menswear don't steal directly unlike say, Elastica but they're so close it's not funny. The final track is actually a proper cover, PIL's "Public Image" and technically it's brilliant, but that's the rub, it's too good. Every Lydon sneer, bass rumble and keyboard squeal is duplicated but with better recording technology. Not really the point of a cover is it? Maybe they've just gotten sick of the Wire impresonations and are branching out a bit. But isn't the world too small for two Johnny Rotten's?

This newie from Blur was actually released before Charmless Man in England but as often is the case, Australia is getting things back to front. Still that shouldn't stop you one bit from enjoying the tounge-in-cheek (we hope) bouncy tale of wife swapping being the future. Discussion on its merits should be largely redundant, as most people will have heard the song by now, one that always was destined to be single material. The real reason to get this CD is because of possibly the best Blur b-sides ever - "The Man Who Left Himself" a breezy, acoustic number, with bonus handclaps and Morrissey like maudlin lyrics and vocal inflection. "Tame" scores well for its fuzzy guitar, weird keyboards and again a restrained Damon. "Ludwig" the weakest of the bunch is a jokey, hawian guitar instrumental, (well apart from a few La, la, la's) type thing, which more the quality of Blur's usual b-sides. Oh and CD sleeve is great too.

In another strange release (Mulder, why are Australian record companies releasing singles out of order and reissuing them a year later? Hmmm, because they've still got a whole pile that didn't sell Sculley.") is the reissue of Pulp's lower class breakthrough hit from last year. Even after a year of playing it's still raises a smile and induces the feet to start moving. Clem got it right when he gave it the number 1 placing in the "Top 10 singles", feature of 1995:

An anthem for our time, no less. Or for that matter, anyone's time. If you've ever felt down about your social standing, listen to this. Being common is not a trend. It's not fun, it's not cool but at at least it's yours.