POP / Albums: But where's the beef?

K7

Swing Batta Swing

(Big Life / Tommy Boy BLRCD 27)

LIKE a Latino Apache Indian, works in a poppy, Hispanic ragga style which has already drawn chart blood with the singalong chant of 'Come Baby Come', with its shouted invitations to 'bounce'. Just as infectious, though, are the scat vocal samples from an earlier jazz era; and the jazz influence continues in 'Hi De Ho', on which becomes a latterday Cab Calloway with his crew, The Swing Kids, offering shouted responses. There's more to than the purist jazz-rap loops of US3 and Guru, however; on 'Let's Bang', the standard sex / dance metaphor is taken in Take That vein, with a backdrop that bakes together the 'Theme from SWAT' and 'Hard to Handle' and ices it off with some deft turntable scratches. There's enough variety of samples and borrowings to satisfy the most ardent post-modernist, but the focus here is clearly on the charts, with the details just a welcome bonus.

DARYL HALL

Soul Alone

(Epic 473921 2)

DESPITE John Oates' unequal talents, Daryl Hall has never fared that well without his moustachioed sidekick - ever since, at the height of their fame, he tried to show on his solo outing Sacred Songs what a diversely talented chap he was. Unfortunately, his audience was not as diversely interested.

On Soul Alone, despite the cover photo of Daryl with dark shades and wispy beard, like some born-again middle-aged grunger, he's stuck to his forte, with a series of songs cut from early-Seventies soul templates sung in his best Philly style. Only right at the end, with 'Written in Stone', does he reprise the standard Hall & Oates formula; instead, Nick Ingman's string and flute arrangements on tracks like the hit 'Stop Loving Me, Stop Loving You' push the sound more towards Marvin Gaye's golden era. The result is the best album he's been involved with since 1984's Big Bam Boom.

KRISTIN HERSH

Hips and Makers

(4AD CADD 4002 CD)

IF Kristin Hersh's solo debut is anything to go by, Tanya Donnelly took all of Throwing Muses' pop zest off with her when she went and formed Belly. Hips and Makers is hard going: Hersh's voice and acoustic guitar are augmented by little more than Jane Scarpantoni's cello, and few of the songs offer readily comprehensible lyrical content.

Two modes predominate: on quieter songs Hersh opts for that Suzanne Vega jaded-ingenue vocal style, which adds a layer of self-consciousness the lyrics could do without. And on tracks like 'Close Your Eyes' she starts at a feverish pitch of hysteria which gives way clumsily, mid-song, to a passage of cloying introspection. High points are few, and not that high: the opener 'Your Ghost' profits from Michael Stipe's harmonies, and 'Houdini Blues', co-written with her father, is one of the more direct personal expressions on the album. But whatever strategy she chooses, it's hard to summon up much interest in her problems.

VOODOO QUEENS

Chocolate Revenge

(Too Pure PURE 31)

ON their debut album, premier Riot Grrrl outfit the Voodoo Queens reinvent several musical wheels from a feisty feminist standpoint - notably the punk thrash and a rather twee variant of power-pop. Sadly, there's nothing here that reaches the delirious heights of 'Kenuwee Head', their hit paean to Keanu Reeves. 'Princess of Voodoo Beat' is a serviceable attempt at The Cramps' punk-rockabilly style, but lacking the dangerous edge The Cramps invariably brought to their songs, and the consumer-nihilism ode 'Shopping Girl Maniac' apes femme-punk bands like The Slits, though there's little here that approaches their radical revision of girl-group methods and priorities. Chocolate Revenge is exuberant enough, but essentially an epigone.

VARIOUS ARTISTS

In Defence Of Animals

(Restless 772747-2)

A BENEFIT album for the American equivalent of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, In Defence of Animals features a variety of musical styles whose link is that their creators' idea of ethics is to only eat living things that can't run away from them.

Thus are we offered furrow- browed political rap from Hiphoprisy and others, featherweight indie pop from Lush, featherweight folk- rock from Sarah McLachlan, low- impact electro-pop from The Shamen, leaden grunge from Pearl Jam, and a crudely produced version of Robyn Hitchcock's 'Arms of Love' by the ubiquitous Michael Stipe. I quite liked Concrete Blonde's cover of Tommy James's 'Crystal Blue Persuasion', simply for being lighter and frothier in tone than the rest of the album. As for Primus' assertion that 'too many puppies are being shot in the dark', I'd imagine puppies are hardly the prime target of most nocturnal death squads. Prospective purchasers are advised simply to make a donation, if they feel the need.