The Single Life: Noel Gallagher, Kasabian, Jack Ladder & More

There’s a bit of a double-edged sword to having an immediately identifiable voice – sure, the audience knows it’s you, but there has to be some variety in the style to keep it fresh for the listener. Of course, this rule apparently does not apply to Leonard Cohen. But it does to Jack Ladder’s increasingly familiar croon. So for next previewing single for upcoming album, Her Hands (Self-Portrait/Inertia), he and The Dreamlanders go from the neon stroll of Come On Back This Way to this one’s bed of buzzing synths of retro model. It is certainly different, and it is almost certainly good.

Richard In Your Mind also mix it up, behind Conrad’s airy vocals. Over time, they’ve done scribbles of psychedelic racket, to sea shanties, and latterly taken on the challenge of keeping a sitar in tune when playing live – that’s up to 20 strings likely to not help your guitar technician’s emotional and/or substance problems. For its part, Shooting Star (Rice Is Nice) drives down an almost Kraftwerk-ian autobahn, but slows down to inspect the ‘medicinal’ cacti growing on the nature strip just outside of town.

In The Heat Of The Moment (Sour Mash) is Noel Gallagher’s famous northern tone, over something that sounds like a late-period Oasis stomper, of the sort that’d give Liam a rest before they played all the hits in the encore. Comes from the next High Flying Birds album that the more interesting Gallagher brother says will include "space jazz" among its musical adventurings – but as a preview this is cut from a familiar piece of Manchester. Or possibly circa 1970 Liverpool.

The most recognisable element of anything with the Tom Morello nameplate is that strafing and howling guitar noise he’s been exercising as part of the Springsteen collective for the last couple of years. But his political conscience remains as strident and taut as his six strings. Marching On Ferguson (FergusonOctober.com) is self-explanatory as it looks at the land of the free, that so often isn’t if you’re the ‘wrong’ colour – i.e.: not dressed in blue.

And as we seemingly fall into another war of someone else’s making, the re-release of a 30 year old song shouldn’t be as scarily relevant as it is. But it’s centrepiece of a celebration of the singer that is the inspiring Robert Wyatt; and the song is the towering, aching, heartbreaking Shipbuilding (Domino), written by Elvis Costello as the Falklands War spilled too much blood over a couple of craggy rocks and a few sheep – oh, and the oil that was nearby. Sound familiar? If you don’t know the song, you should. Ditto the singer.

Thankfully, there’s still some making scruffy and scuzzy noise in the garage. Even in Adelaide. The Wireheads is Australian slacker in all its drawled glory. It doesn’t actually go for the 8 Minutes & 19 Seconds (Tenth Court) – that being the time it takes light to get from the sun, astronomical science fans – but for just over four minutes it’s the stumbling sound of the suburbs, made with instruments likely got from the local Cash Converters, with no guarantee they won’t end up back there.

There’s garages in New York as well. But from Public Access TV, it’s a different mood. They somehow just seem to know they won’t be storing the drumkit behind dad’s Pontiac for long. They’re gonna be The Strokes one day. In The Mirror (Gudrun) doesn’t stroll, it strides. It struts, godamnit. All of us are in the gutter – they’re the ones who’ve already picked out their place in the stars. They’ll be your favourite band - or you’ll utterly hate them - by about next March.

Then there’s the ones you wonder why are still at it. Or maybe being a terminally second division band in the UK is a reasonable comfort zone. Kasabian do carry themselves with that sort of self-confidence, but Stevie (Columbia) is pretty much just another few interchangeable minutes from them. The video, while not as wilfully arsehatted as that ‘bank robbery with guitars’ one they made here, is still right up there on the Muse scale of stupid concepts.

Some might reckon The Ting Tings had their three-and-a-bit minutes of fame with That’s Not My Name, but at least they tried to be a little different on what comes next. Do It Again (Finca/Warner) is more dancey than shouty as it goes about its pop business. But it pretty much comes down to if they can escape their past, or take those previously enthused along with them.

Then there are those who won’t be rushed. Damien Rice’s voice is a delicate thing of real emotion, but the Irishman will chalk up around 8 years since his previous album by the time My Favourite Faded Fantasy appears in the next month or so. I Don’t Want To Change You (Warner) is plain-spoken, lilting and longing. And kinda great.