A minimal, head ‘banging’ groove, which out-minimals The White Stripes but is very danceable. Then out of the blue the song drops away into a caustic guitar solo. Yup, a solo. Nothing else. It swarms around your head, deviating endlessly, and turning on itself with pedals. A grating bass line is finally added, then a vocal break before the drums start raining down and the song drops back in. Staggering.

For those who think that Kasabian’s Club Foot is the height of swagger. Listen to this instead.

Listen to the way that there are about four songs here, all in 5 seconds shy of 5 minutes, in the way that mid-career Throwing Muses sounded, but here each piece merges with its neighbours smoothly and naturally. Janet Weiss’ drumming is brilliant, especially when she’s not drumming – there are bits ‘missing’ or slightly offset. Let’s not forget those vocal harmonies which recall the best of Scrawl. Or that they have no bass player.

I bought Sleater-Kinney’s new album, The Woods, last year as soon as it was released in the UK. It took me until today, seven months later, to summon up the courage to listen to it. Because if the reviews were correct, The Woods sees Sleater-Kinney galloping towards classic hard rock: Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Jimi Hendrix. It would also be reaching back to their earlier albums including my (up until today) favourite Dig Me Out.

The reviews were right. And frankly, I’m blown away. Jumpers, a harrowing but musically stunning song, would have surpassed Cat Power’s He War in last year’s top tracks.

The DVD that accompanies The Cardigans Super Extra Gravity is an interesting curio. I watched it last night and I found it amazing that they were actually be able to record anything.

The recording studio looks like a junk shop, or the leftovers from a car boot sale. There’s no vocal booth, just lots of mics a couple of feet away from the mixing desk, various ramshackled chairs and tables. Loads of vintage equipment piled up against walls. When recording or rehearsing, everyone sits around doing their own thing, sometimes pairing up, trying things out. Nina (lyrics and vocals) scribbles in notebooks, taps at her laptop or does knitting. She does a lot of knitting.

Nina prefers to write the lyrics after she’s got demos of songs from Peter (their lead guitarist and main writer). Except he likes making up his own lyrics to some songs, which annoys her and influences what she ends up writing. She says she’d prefer it if Peter just sang ‘la-la-la-la’.

The demo is hidden away on the DVD and plays over a photo slide-show. Primarily guitars, bass and drums, with, I presume, Peter’s airy vocals, it’s a great alternative version to that which ended up on the album. The intro to the song was ‘discovered’ by Peter while he was watching television and playing his guitar.