Alexandra Burke - Elephant

It's been one of the most anticipated pop singles in recent months, and with a number of shifted release dates, the first single from Alexandra Burke's second album was starting to look like it might falter before it even got started. But hearing the full radio version of the single blows all doubts away in an instant: it's a full-throttle adrenaline rush of a song that hurtles from hard electro filth to nuclear reactor synth blasts.

For me, Elephant is the ultimate in dance-pop allure - a dark, sensual ride of apocalyptic rhythms and teetering bass - it remains definitively commercial whilst re-positioning Alexandra as an uncompromising disco diva. When she goes in, she goes in to win.

And of course, Elephant wouldn't be an Alexandra Burke without a sky-piercing high note in the middle-eight where she gets to show off the true extent of vocal acrobatics she can accomplish. In short, it owns - Ok.Com?

Sure, it might lack the uber-refined nature of her classic singles, it more than makes up for it with its dirty electronic rawness. This is Alexandra at her most dancey to date, a Euro-smash monster to slay dancefloors across the country and beyond. It's the sound of an artist that has left the X Factor for dust behind her, moving ever onwards and upwards to better things - the sound of a proper popstar.

Elephant is released on the 12th March.

Elephant by CaptainGravity

Lanterns On The Lake - You're Almost There

Newcastle six-piece Lanterns On The Lake know all about making their numbers count - it shows in their music, right down to every last piece of the artistic wonderment that is their track You're Almost There.

Listening to them is almost more like observing a masterpiece of fine art than a record in a way. There are so many details, so many aspects and layers to their work that it's hard to decide what is more involving - the grandosity of their music as a whole, or the intricacy of each individual part.

Pinned on a tear-jerking, sorrowful piano hook, You're Almost There is about as atmospheric a track as you get these days. Elusive and ever shape-shifting, it coils and spirals down and down into a shadowy realm of wintery melodies and yearning, enchanting female vocals.

As the track slowly draws to a close, violins sigh as if they're some weary animal heading for hibernation - it's a beautifully natural sound that the band manage to capture; an essence that is as much about themselves as it seems to stem from the bleakness of their Northern roots.

Even their name, Lanterns On The Lake, is so instrinsicly poetic, so expressive in its singularity. It's an image, and it's a sound - and a very wonderful one at that.

You're Almost There is available as a free download from Soundcloud here. The band's debut album Gracious Tide, Take Me Home is released on the 19th September.

Lanterns On The Lake - You're Almost There by Bella Union

Nadine Coyle - Sweetest High

A new single for a new, American album campaign - and with it, a new sound... of sorts. A hefty slice of Eurodance wouldn't perhaps be the first port of call for everyone looking to break into the States, but then again, the dance market has exploded over there in recent years - just look at what the likes of J Lo and Chris Brown are doing.

Nadine's powerhouse vocals remain largely unchanged from her Insatiable album, though perhaps this time round there's more of a raw, 'live-ness' to them. Nadine sounds less confined, more like she's actually having fun singing the track. And on a song called Sweetest High, you imagine fun would be central to that experience.

Hectic, bouncy, packing an irresistible synth riff; Sweetest High spills from the definition of summer anthem. All in all, it sounds like an intriguing move for her and we wait with baited breath to hear more from Nadine 2.0...

Nadine Coyle - Sweetest High by FreedomDevelopment