It's an understatement to say that France and Germany have 'history' - and that's even just thinking about football (for all of Zizou's heroics in 1998, Seville in 1982 still touches a raw nerve here in France).

All of which makes it surprising that the current idols for French teenage rock fans are Tokio Hotel, a four-piece band from Magdeburg in Germany. Even more amazing is that this is a group that sings in German.

Tokio Hotel trade in the same teen-angst nu-metal as Linkin Park, and we presume they're also singing much the same type of self-pitying lyrics. The group's image centres around singer Bill Kaulitz's distinctive hairstyle and heavy make-up. All around France, parents are asking the time-honoured rock question: C'est un mec ou une fille? (Is that a boy or a girl?).

Singing in German has so far not hindered the band's success in France. Their first two albums Schrei and Zimmer 483 have both gone top ten in the French charts, and the videos for their singles 'Durch Den Monsun' and 'Ubers Ende Der Welt' enjoy heavy rotation on French music television. They recently appeared before 600,000 people at the massive free Bastille day concert on the Champs de Mars (the park beside the Eiffel Tower) in Paris.

With a heavily-mascara'd eye on world domination, the band has just recorded their first album in English: 'Scream' is a compilation of tracks from their first two records, and it's due to be released in the UK in August. You may be hearing more about Tokio Hotel very soon.

In the meantime you can watch the video for 'Ubers Ende Der Welt' and learn how to say in German 'I hate you!', 'I won't do my homework!' and 'Daddy wouldn't buy me a pony':

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Review Snapshot: This reviewer's first childhood memory was hearing the Beatles' "I want to hold your hand" and he's been in love with pop music ever sionce then,"Volta&qu...

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Review Snapshot:
The new White Stripes album shows off its blues and folk influences the way a pre-pubescent boy wears a fake moustache. An uninspired and uninspiring rock trudge that's not half as odd or interesting as it seems to think it is.

The CLUAS Verdict? 5 out of 10

Full Reviews:
In the sleevenotes to 'Icky Thump', Jack White admits to being an impressionist. Fair play to him for his honesty; this record sounds like one long Led Zeppelin homage - blues-rock guitars and little else.

White's songs are as flat and unremarkable as ever but this time around there's no 'Seven Nation Army' killer riff to carry them off. Like with Morrissey, his titles are more interesting than the songs themselves - 'You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do What Your Told)' and 'A Martyr For My Love For You' are unmemorable plod-rock.

Only the mariachi-style 'Conquest' is quirky and appealing - but that's a cover version.

The low point is 'Prickly Thorn (But Sweetly Worn)' a hilariously bad (but apparently serious) attemp at Celtic folk-rock. Also good for unintentional laughs is 'Saint Andrew (This Battle's In The Air)' - "Saint Andrew, do not forsake me", squeals Meg White with her schoolgirl-voice. Even twenty years from now, street urchins will be taunting her in public over it.

 If Jack White were to put into his songwriting at least half the imagination and energy he devotes to his imitation of a Deep South bluesman/medicine show huckster (as on the irritating 'Rag And Bone'), then The White Stripes might yet make music that lives up to the hype and mythologising they seem to inspire.

On the evidence of 'Icky Thump', however, they seem to have hit a creative dead-end.

Aidan Curran

 To buy a new or (very reasonably priced) 2nd hand copy of this album on Amazon just click here.

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Review Snapshot:
A fine work of Cohen- and Reed-influenced lo-fi folk-pop from a globetrotting chanteuse. One to put alongside Feist as this year's coffee-table albums of choice, perhaps?

The CLUAS Verdict? 7 out of 10

Full Review:
Born in Israel, raised in the Netherlands, matured in Paris and domicile in New York, Keren Ann Zeidel is a successful chanson francaise singer in France. This, her fifth album, is in English and it's good enough to get attention as international as its recording (in studios in Paris, Tel Aviv, New York, Rekjavik and Los Angeles).

Keren Ann's music is not as eclectic as her globetrotting - she sticks mainly to intimate folk-pop, a lo-fi Feist, if you will. For the most part, most noticably on 'The Harder Ships Of The World', she seems heavily influenced by Leonard Cohen's world-weary writing style and murmuring delivery.

Other times, as with many Paris-based female singers these days, Keren Ann also draws heavily on Lou Reed - first single 'Lay Your Head Down' features a 'New York'-style spoken word verse and a blatant VU guitar drone. Her sweet chorus (and some well-placed handclaps) saves the song from being a complete Lou parody, and throughout the album Keren Ann manages to flavour her borrowings with her own personality.

Vocally she barely rises above a low croon, though sometimes with a touch of Beth Gibbons' soulfulness and Stina Nordenstam's quirkiness. Instrumentation is minimal but with enough subtle layers to keep the listener engaged to the end.

The whole package is that of a quiet, thoughtful musician writing melodic and intriguing songs. Definitely worth a listen.

Aidan Curran

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Review Snapshot:
Three years since ‘Infinity Land’ the curiously named Scots trio Biffy Clyro return with ‘Puzzle’. Less complex and slightly more accessible than their three previous albums to date, ‘Puzzle’ is still one of the most inventive and ambitious guitar albums you will hear all year.

The Cluas Verdict? 7 out of 10.

Full Review:
Is the simple pop melody, superimposed on a swathe of hard-rock guitars and thumping drums, the perfect rock equation?The myriad genres and sub-genres that clog the crowded world of alternative music will always confuse and enthral in equal measure. It’s easy to get lost within the surfeit of styles and attitudes, of empty poses and rock-careers built on a strict drug regimen. Ever since Bob Mould’s Husker Du started gluing pop melodies to hard guitar signatures, tuneful yet emotional hard rock will always grab the listener with an immediacy that other styles never will. Husker Du were the spark for the fire of The Pixies, who married off-kilter and disquieting song-structure with deceptively simple melodies. Kurt Cobain, in turn, liked their style. He copied their quiet/loud dynamic wholesale but pushed it a little further. While Black Francis’ world view was singular and distorted, Cobain’s world was one of narcissistic self-loathing. He put his feral, anguished howl over ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, injected the song with a pop DNA and turned it up to….12. It worked because it got under your skin and made your heart pump a little faster. It was cathartic and violent yet it was essentially a conventional pop-song, albeit hidden under layers of misanthropy.

Is it ridiculous to claim Biffy Clyro as the next link in the chain? Maybe in different times, Biffy might have been huge as they balance perfectly the two supposedly mutually exclusive concepts of a pop melody with hard rock, as ‘Teen Spirit’ did. But music will never be the social force that grunge was. It will never unite the disaffected on a global scale as everything now is easily accessible and compartmentalised. The Internet, with its attendant blogs and networks, is now the social force, and no Art form will supersede it. Yet, Biffy have a spirit that eschews fashion and famous girlfriends and empty NME hyperbole. There is something going on in their music that would unite people in the same intense way Nirvana did, if the world was the same as it was in 1990.

But it’s not just Nirvana that can be heard on their fourth album ‘Puzzle’. There is Queens of the Stone Age’s grimy, mechanical funk-rock on ‘Who’s Got a Match?’ There are even a few subtle nods, possibly ironic, to the skinny trouser angular-rock brigade. The theatrics of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is in evidence (in a good way) and a few knowing winks to early U2 (always early U2).  Muse can be heard on the monolithic opener ‘Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies’. It starts with an atypical intro, a series of short, sharp stabs of strings and drums before exploding into a trademark Biffo chorus, replete with full choral accompaniment. Like Muse, Biffy always try to incorporate arena friendly song-structure into their unique, music-as-math template. Although, ‘Puzzle’ is a little more straightforward than their previous efforts, it still jolts the listener throughout the course of its 14 tracks, both for its disconcerting tempo changes and for the plain fact it is so damn catchy. ‘Saturday Superhouse’has got a massive chorus that shows that no matter how complicated they try to be, they have a strong pop sensibility at heart and it’s no surprise it reached number 13 in the UK charts. Later ‘The Conversation Is…’ showcases another effortless hook on an album that is full of them.

 ‘Puzzle’ creates a puzzle. If Cobain was still alive, and became a little more musically adventurous, might he have come up with something like this? Quite possibly. Though they hail from Ayr in Scotland, ‘Puzzle’ is an American sounding album. It has a scope and expansiveness that is at odds with the musically blinkered outlook of contemporary British rock. You would be well advised to spend some time with it.

Ken Fallon

 To buy a new or (very reasonably priced) 2nd hand copy of this album on Amazon just click here.

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Review Snapshot:
Funeral For A Friend return with a rock album that shows them trying to be taken serious, but it's hard to when the songs are just not there.

The CLUAS Verdict? 4.5 out of 10

Full Review:
On Tales Don’t Tell Themselves Welsh band Funeral For A Friend move away from their emo beginnings and become an all out rock band. As part of this transformation and they have also attempted to create a concept album. This, their third full length, is a story about a fisherman, named David, who is lost at sea. Excited?

The album starts well with the epic opener ‘Into Oblivion (Reunion)’ raising my hopes for this album. Both ‘The Great Wide Open’ and ‘The Diary’ are also highlights on this album making the first third of this album actually pretty solid as Funeral For A Friend rawk out. After that however, it all goes down hill. ‘The wheels fell off’, as some might say. The album just seems to blend into a mesh of repetitive riffs and annoying whiney vocals. It is a record that musically reminds me of local ‘battle of the bands’ competitions - technically proficient, but lacking any song-writing inventiveness.

The whole nautical theme really grates after a while. It may have seemed like a good idea, but the ‘concept’ is a boring one. My mind just shuts off listening to him sing about raising sails and the open water. It’s about as engaging as the dialogue scenes from Castaway.

They may no longer be emo, or post-hardcore (on that note, what is it with music journalists and putting the word ‘post’ before a genre to make a new one?), but in changing direction, they are now a boring, mainstream rock band. Consequently it may lose them a lot of fans who adored their debut effort, ‘Casually Dressed & Deep In Conversation’, and, honestly, I can’t see them finding new legions of devotees as a result of this album.

Garret Cleland

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Review Snapshot:
From the same label that gave us Bjork, The Shamen, & Chumbawamba, with this album B.C. Camplight is assured of household named status. A possible Pet Sounds of the noughties.

The Cluas Verdict? 7.5 out of 10.

Full Review:
Just like many artists before him, Brian Christinzio (or B.C. Camplight to us) set out in life to make the perfect pop record. On his debut album ‘Hide, Run, Away’ was a good try, but now on his second album he’s certainly getting closer.

Opening with the brilliant ‘Suffer For Two’ Christinzio’s harmonies and piano playing make this sound like an unheard Brian Wilson gem. There’s reminiscence for Pink Floyd on ‘Lord I’ve Been On Fire’, and ‘Soy Tonto’ would sit well on any lounge lizard album.

Despite struggling with his own mental illness, he worked as a volunteer in mental hospitals and a New Jersey Jail, specifically to collect stories that he could write about, and it’s from these stories that he’s created this album. Some happy, some personal and some unique (such as 'I’ve Got A Bad Cold', which has a bit of Pink Floyd and The Beach Boys all mashed up together).

There’s something for all tastes here.

Mick Lynch

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Review Snapshot:
Even Rick Rubin’s magical production skills can’t save this mediocre album as Linkin Park set about looking for a new direction, and new fans, but in the process, forget the 40 million that fell in love with their previous sound.

The Cluas Verdict? 3 out of 10.

Full Review:
One of the most anticipated albums of 2007 sees American sextet Linkin Park team up with Rick Rubin, the man with the midas touch, as they try to expand on the success of Hybrid Theory and Meteora.

Recorded over 14 months, ‘Minutes To Midnight’ sees Linkin Park taking a chance at trying to re-invent themselves, but putting a weak instrumental ‘Wake’ as the album opener doesn’t do them any favours. By track two ‘Given Up’, the screams of “tell me what the f**k is wrong with me” doesn’t make the song a memorable one, and on ‘Bleed It Out’ Mike Shinoda raps over some out of date 80s clapping sound effects.

Chester Bonnington takes lead vocals on ‘Shadow Of The Day’ and he sounds remarkably like Bono. The song is very reminiscent of ‘With Or Without You’, but I put that down to Rubin’s influence.

The first single from the album ‘What I’ve Done’ isn’t great, but it does contain a haunting piano intro that would sit well on any Hitchcock soundtrack.

 George Bush’s war on Iraq isn’t ignored here either. The bands frustration is demonstrated on songs like ‘Hands held High’ and ‘The Little Things Give You Away’, the latter written shortly after they visited New Orleans, following Hurricane Katrina.

For me the standout tracks are the ballads. They may never reach the brilliance of Rob Thomas and Matchbox Twenty but on ‘Leave Out All The Rest’ Bonnington does a superb job vocally and displays the soft rock side of Linkin Park, a side that I never knew existed.

Speaking of ballads, ‘Valentines Day’ starts out as one, but halfway through; the band loses their way and are unsure what sound they are trying to achieve. They have saved the best for last however with the aforementioned ‘The Little Things Give You Away’.

With this album Linkin Park wanted to create something that maintained the integrity of the band's personality, but pushed their boundaries. The fans that bought their previous albums will have problems adapting to this new direction, and with 100 songs to choose from during the making of this album, I think they could have chosen more wisely.

Mick Lynch

 To buy a new or (very reasonably priced) 2nd hand copy of this album on Amazon just click here.

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CLUAS Verdict: 8 out of 10

Prince once again demonstrates why he is the pre-eminent popular musician in American life on this big name tribute to 1970s songwriter Joni Mitchell

Originally planned for release in the 1990s, this tribute to Joni Mitchell by some of the biggest names in the music business such as Elvis Costello, Brad Meldhu, k.d lang, Annie Lennox and her former lover James Taylor conforms to type by being neither flesh nor fowl. Lovers of Mitchell's spare arrangements and tensed up, anguished vocals will find these interpretations over produced and slick and fans of the contributing artists will equally wonder why their heroes recorded songs by an artist better known for her lyrics than her melodies. The low point of this record is an appaling rendtion of 'The Boho Dance' by Bjork and the absolute highlight is 'A Case of You' by Prince which flows out of the speakers like Manuka honey. The man is a solid gold genius and this cut sounds like it was done in a single take; Prince sits down at piano, tape starts rolling, wonderful music pours out of him, effortlessly. The 8 I've given for this record is reserved for that track alone. Nice one Prince, nice one Joni.

Jules Jackson

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CLUAS Rating: 3 out of 10

Spidey finds his inner dark side: cue rather predictable 'alt'-'rock' mixum-gatherum. Of the new songs, only Yeah Yeah Yeahs sound vaguely motivated. Snow Patrol parody themselves; The Killers photocopy U2. Apart from YYYs and 'The Twist', not worth the listen.

Plot summary of 'Spiderman 3' (as deduced from the soundtrack):

He can save the world (U2-soundalikes The Killers) but Spiderman just can't tell his feisty girl (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the only interesting new track here) his real feelings (Snow Patrol, sounding like a 'Gift Grub' version of themselves). Instead, he spends his evenings spurting out icky white gunk (Jet, The Walkmen).

Suddenly he's faced with a mutant villain who irritates innocent victims to death with his nuclear-powered smug wackiness (Flaming Lips, irritatingly 'wacky' as ever). There's a surprise plot development ('The Twist' by Chubby Checker, sounding as fresh as tomorrow's bread), a tearful hospital bed death (Snow Patrol; see above) before Spidey finally prevails and saves the world to the sound of cheering from citizens/random nobodies (Simon Dawes, Rogue Wave, The Wyo's, and lots more)

Meanwhile, the real heroes (Jason Falkner plays keyboards on two tracks here)go about their daily grind with no fanfare...

Aidan Curran

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