Over the past six months Delorentos have found themselves in the not entirely enviable position of being tipped as the next big thing before they’d released a single note of music. Thus their debut EP finally arrives with great expectations. Fortunately, it’s a case of happy endings all round as the Dublin four piece pass their first test with flying colours. Indeed, you’d be hard pressed to recognise this as anything but the work of a band at the top of their game. Every aspect exudes pure confidence. The only possible worry, in fact, is that, with its twisted guitar riffs and awkward beats, they could find themselves tied a little too closely to the whole Franz / Bloc / Futureheads thing. Some lead, most follow and Delorentos are heading for the front.

This song has a nasty whiff of autopilot about it. All the hallmarks of a great Girls Aloud record – turbo-charged guitars, tag-team vocals brimming with attitude, a stomping disco backbeat – are here, yet something is missing. It could be the absence of any effective melodic hook to speak of: the Girls did not get where they are on style alone, and the substance of their previous work is in disappointingly short supply here.

The nimble guitar part that runs behind the chorus of ‘All I Want Is For You To Be Happy’ reminds me of Pulp’s classic ‘Do You Remember The First Time?’. The Aftermath may still have some distance to go to attain the pithy, effortless brilliance of Cocker and co., but let’s not be negative: the UK-based, Longford-bred group have delivered a solid slice of direct guitar pop, and the echoey treatment of the vocals is a nice sonic touch.

The debut from Naas quartet Miracle Bell shows plenty of promise, though it’s hardly an unqualified success. The overall sound hints at something potentially interesting: sloppy garage-rock, with electronic burbles floating just beneath the surface may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but there’s a platform established. Now they need to start building...

Lightspeed Champion are fronted by former Test Icicle Dev Hynes. This, however, has little in common with the Tests’ oeuvre. ‘Galaxy Of The Lost’ actually has a vaguely operatic feel, with its lush string arrangement and OTT vocal dramatics: overall, it’s not dissimilar to the Magnetic Fields, and not far behind them in terms of quality, either.

Lucky Soul make pop music for indie fans, in a similar fashion to St. Etienne and The Cardigans. What we’ve got here is lush, twinkling girl-pop, with a rich, Motown sweep and bundles of style. Hard to resist, frankly.

Since I dislike Maroon 5 almost as much as the next man, it pains me to admit that they’re capable of delivering moments of excellence. Imagine, then, my irritation when the one good track from their less than impressive It Won’t Be Soon Before Long album shows up in the singles pile. It is a good song, though, and it would be churlish to pretend otherwise. Check the awesome, rumbling stomp of the chorus for proof.

Every KT Tunstall single looks set to be greeted with unfavourable comparisons to her fabulous smash hit ‘Suddenly I See’ – an unkind state of affairs, perhaps, as almost any song would come out a loser in that particular battle. Here, she delivers a track that closely resembles her golden moment, yet exhibits only a fraction of its brilliance.

She has a fine track record of bringing wildly idiosyncratic music to the masses but this is impenetrable even by Björk’s wilful standards. The song is a caustic barrage of thundering IDM rhythms, topped off with the Icelander’s trademark, tremulous wail. Not unlike much of her previous material, then, but it lacks the undercurrent of vulnerability and petrified melody that characterises a great Björk record.

The news that the Kaiser Chiefs were to deliver a second album angrier and more politicised than the first was greeted with some scepticism in this quarter. It doesn’t seem to have worked out too badly in practice, though, and ‘The Angry Mob’ is testament to that. A chunky, infectious slice of guitar-pop, it provides everything you would want from a Kaiser Chiefs record, and more. A hit.

Paddy Casey’s music has improved dramatically since he first emerged, the David Gray-isms of yore being replaced with something far more ambitious and colourful. ‘Addicted To Company’ incorporates swooping strings, the odd splash of brass, and even some gospel-flavoured backing vocals. This has an ambitious feel to it and could be huge.

Caribou (AKA Dan Snaith, formerly known as Manitoba) makes music that is more compelling on paper than on record. ‘Melody Day’, for instance, features a mixture of surf guitar, bedroom laptronica and blissful psychedelia. Sounds exciting? Well, it’s not. The song is brusque and busy, and the production attempts to cram rather too much into a tight space. Frustrating, as there is a great track buried in here somewhere.