Last year Nerina Pallot chose to release an EP a month and it's really paid off on the new album. The Sound and The Fury is a classy collection of mature pop songs but not of the sugar coated version

Opening with There is a Drum (about the death of Lee Rigby) and ending with Longest Memory (about the death of Maggie Thatcher) this is a lyrical tour de force.

If I had a Girl is the feminist anthem the Spice girls would have loved to have written... sounding like 'hit the road, jack' it's all hand claps and chorus with some withering observations about the lack of dicks on page 3

Four of the songs were re-recorded from the EP experiment with Rousseau being the catchy highlight

The lead single Roads sounds like Lorde with added eastern flavour and shows off Nerina's deeply warm voice superbly

Really this lady should be huge......

I'm not that knowledgeable on the Scandinavian black metal scene but the full length debut from Myrkur, simply titled M, feels like something special in the genre. 

It's brutal in places with all the black metal staples of blast beat drums and buzzsaw guitars but the majority of the all female vocals are almost choral. There is also almost folky feel at times with what sound like traditional instruments being used on the opening track, Skøgen Skulle Dø. 

At time this is like listening to Clannad being mixed with early Ulver - which is very appropriate as the producer here is Garm, the leading force behind Ulver. 

Side 2 opens with Nordlys a pretty 2 min track of just piano and vocal leading into the ferocious Mordet which is bolstered by guest guitars from Arch Enemy 

This is a very concise album at only 37 mins over 11 tracks but that just means no filler and could just be the most important (black) metal album of the year