New releases last eight weeks: Indie/Alternative

Review: 'Fast Car' was a groundbreaking song when it came out. Making Tracy Chapman a household name. The song became an international hit and entered the top ten in many countries including being number one in Canada, Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands and Portugal. The single went triple platinum in UK alone. The song was lauded for being a moving account of escaping life's difficulties and achieving some material success only to fail again. Tracy's performance was riveting and the song propelled her to win three Grammy's that year including Best New Artist, Contemporary Folk Album and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The song was also nominated for Song of the Year and Record of the Year. The song continues to be an enduring classic having entered the charts multiple times and been covered my many artists. The song is also featured in Rolling Stones 500 greatest songs of all time.

Review: Impossibly powerful and soul fuelled sounds from Gabriels,who have headlined a fine list of all the major musi events, not least Glastonbury with a stirring performance that took them to all new levels. 'Love & Hate In a Different Time' is their most hard hitting tune but still comes with plenty of sweetness and sits at the centre of this 12" of the same name with an alternate version also included next to dusty and lo-fi soul gut wrenchers like 'The Blind' and the intimate vocals, swooning strings and finger clicks of 'In Loving Memory.'

Review: Metronomy mark their signing to Ninja Tune with a new single that comes not long after their Posse EP Volume 1, a collection of tunes all made in collaboration with up-and-coming artists like Biig Piig, Spill Tab, Sorry, Brian Nasty and Folly Group. This one is another collaboration, this time with Pam Amsterdam. 'Nice Town' deals with the lead singer's own battles such as "internal versus the external or, intangible versus the tangible." It is a delightfully snappy dance-pop ditty with great and tight synth sequences, old-school rap vocals and nice broken early electro beats. Metronomy and Alain Ogue add their own remixes to a great label debut.