Album: Vetiver, Things of the Past (Fat Cat)

The problem with covers albums is that you can't help comparing the new versions to the originals. Happily, that's not going to trouble too many people with Vetiver's third record, which resurrects little-known gems by little-known artists from the 1960s and 1970s (Garland Jeffreys, anyone?).

Band leader Andy Cabic takes his musicians through a feel-good country-folk jam that calls to mind Grateful Dead's 'American Beauty' and 'Workingman's Dead'. That mood is only disturbed by a cover of Hawkwind's "Hurry on Sundown" that's every bit as horrible as the original – a rare duff note in an otherwise excellent collection.

Pick of the Album: 'To Baby': a neglected gem by Biff Rose