Our critics round-up this week's biggest music releases...

The Strokes
Angles
(Rough Trade)
***
Good-looking, ineffably cool and perfectly attitude-enhanced though they may be, there has always been the faintest whiff of a suggestion that The Strokes are a tad overrated. In the early days, the band was wrapped in a cloak of New York decadence, gaining a reputation as moneyed rakes with an eye for the girls and a nose for the drugs. Somehow, they also found time to produce a debut LP of lean, drawling rock that had the world at their feet. That album's title - Is This It - also conveyed an air of supreme arrogance. There was nothing not to like about The Strokes.

Except there was this nagging feel that they weren't quite the business, the songs not being the real deal in the long term. This feeling seems to have permeated the group itself because Angles is an attempt to shed the load of old expectations. The closing Life Is Simple In The Moon, for example, is a pretty little song bordering on bossa nova territory, while Two Kinds Of Happiness offers a mild form of prog-rock. Sadly, other attempts at image change are less successful: the weedy Call Me Back; the dull Games; the grating Gratisfaction.

Ironically, the band are at their best when sounding like their old selves. Under Cover of Darkness exudes Strokes swagger, Metabolism oozes world-weariness, and Machu Picchu is the first and forever the best example of Peruvian-tinged reggae. Julian Casablancas and co have been doing some thinking: This Is It.
PETE CLARK

NICOLE SCHERZINGER
Killer Love
(Polydor)
**
A solo album was inevitable for Nicole Scherzinger, who stood out a mile in pneumatic girl group Pussycat Dolls and has lately been bolstering her fame on various TV talent shows.

But although the wholesome cover photo suggests that this is the moment we'll be meeting the real her, in truth most of Killer Love could be by any of half a dozen robotic pop divas. Upbeat tracks such as Club Banger Nation and Poison rely on bombast and little else for their thrills, while You Will Be Loved's mix of synthesised strings,
self-help lyrics and yodelling never gels.

When Sting shows up on the dreary Power's Out it is whatever the opposite of the cavalry turning up would be.
DAVID SMYTH

THE HUMAN LEAGUE
Credo
(Wall Of Sound)
***
Having released just two albums since 1995, no one can accuse The Human League of assuming too heavy a workload. But as the years pass, their reputation grows. Credo, their first album in a decade, is strange.

On one hand, the group formerly seen as the future are still trapped in the Eighties, singing about "night people" and deploying some woefully clodhopping, under-produced backbeats on Into The Night and Breaking The Chains.

On the other, Phillip Oakey's non-singing singing ensures there's nobody like them and when they stretch themselves on Never Let Me Go, closing lullaby When The Stars Start To Shine and the spring-heeled Sky, you realise how these stars from another world are missed.
JOHN AIZLEWOOD

SONGLINES MUSIC AWARDS 2011
Songlines Music Awards 2011
(Proper)
****
The Songlines Music Awards are among the most coveted prizes in world music, bestowing glory on the winners. This compilation boasts tracks by each of the 16 nominated acts, some well known, some who definitely will be.

We have Senegalese superstar Youssou N'Dour, Nigerian Afrobeat heir Femi Kuti and the Buena Vista-meets-Africa project that is Afro-Cubism. Then we hear Mongolian folk-punk outfit Hanggai, pioneers of the China-grass movement, and rollicking English folk collective Bellowhead.

Rising stars Tamikrest from the Sahara, Syriana from east London and the Middle East and the Creole Choir of Cuba from, er, Haiti help deliver snapshots of the world through its music.
JANE CORNWELL

AVISHAI COHEN
Seven Seas
(Blue Note)
****
Few double-bassists have the pulling power to tour with their own groups. Avishai Cohen, Dave Holland, Charlie Haden and the wondrous Esperanza Spalding are four distinguished exceptions, and, like Esperanza, Avishai also sings.

On his latest album, the New York-based Israeli, a rare non-American on Blue Note's books, wisely keeps his vocals wordless or non-English. More impressive are his original compositions, beautiful songlines which swing with a folk-like righteousness.

Pianist Shai Maestro and saxman Jimmy Greene add their dextrous touches to a typically tasteful and satisfying session. The group, minus Greene, visits Islington's Union Chapel next Thursday, March 24.
JACK MASSARIK