Quite a few medium-profile releases this week, including Queens of the Stone Age’s new effort, “Era Vulgaris”, “Tally Of The Yes Men” by Goldspot (I can’t stand it, but has some big record company backing, so could be one to watch), Calvin Harris’ “I Created A Disco”, Tiny Dancers’ “Free School Milk” and finally Bon Jovi’s “Lost Highway”. However, the one I’m going to focus on for this week’s “Band of the week” feature is Ghosts, another sort of middle of the road indie pop band from London who have their debut album out on Monday, “The World is Outside”.

Normally I’d just write them off as being another bunch of Keane wannabes, and they may always be destined to have that label. However, they have one song that is simply sublime. Its “Stay The night”, which you may have heard recently on Virgin radio.

Their lyrics are typical teenage simplicity that’s not gonna win them an Ivor Novello, with ‘original’ lyrics such as:

Oh why don’t we take a taxi back to mine,
I’m sure that we’ll find a way to pass the time,

As much as I want to hate this band I just can’t bring myself to, with their catchy songs and simple tunes that just beg to be hummed along to all summer long. Definitely a band to divide opinions, they will have you loving them or hating them pretty quickly! Hardly a band that will earn you a lot of street cred, they could well be one of the slow burners of the year, doing a Snow Patrol on us and slowly wowing festival crowds.

Epic and beautifully orchestrated, dark at times and playful at others, Rufus Wainwright’s fifth studio album “Release the Stars” is further proof of how he deserves his burgeoning popularity. However, if his voice irritated you in the first place (like me), or you prefer his covers to his original songs, this is most certainly not your sort of album. For lack of better albums (that I’m aware of on a very quick scoot through Amazon), this is my album of the week.

I can recognise that Rufus is a one-in-a-million talent, and that this album is his best one to date, however personally I’m not a big fan. His voice grates against me, and I find him whiney at times, but that shouldn’t detract from his skill. My boredom is another’s excitement, and vice versa.

Opening with “Do I Disappoint You?” it conjures up imagery of a fantastically vivid stage show journeying through a jungle, such is the vibrancy of it, with full orchestral sounds evolving slowly.

“Between My Legs” is my personal highlight of the album, joking, camp, livelier than many of the other numbers and quite possibly one of the most chart friendly songs on the album.

“Not Ready to Love” is one of the most melancholic songs since Jeff Buckley’s ‘Hallelujah’, slowly moving into “Slideshow” which brings the tempo up again.

Overall, a mixed bag for me – genius and innovative, yet grating and a bit too classical for my liking, Rufus is undoubtedly back with a big (camp) bang, but don’t expect me to be going to see him live. Great, but not for me.