Be honest, how many windows of your advent calendar did you open this morning? Just the one? Seriously? Whatever; as well as being the start of a month-long chocolate binge, today also sees the release of Glasvegas' 'A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like A Kiss)'. As you'll have gathered from Jamie Fullerton's review in NME last week, the fruits of their Transylvanian labours are well worth a listen – albeit not exactly glowing with festive cheer ("Fuck you" is becoming something of a catchphrase in the NME office).

With this in mind, we thought it the perfect time to run the rule over the rest of this year's tinsel-draped, sleighbelling Christmas releases.

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When you bowl into Paddington station half cut on a Friday night and hit W H Smith to buy some mags to later distract you from the fact that the man in the train seat next to you smells like a fungus ashtray and there are no other spaces, the last thing you expect to see is your local lo-fi indie doom-rock scenesters adorning the cover of a national style magazine.

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Yeasayer are a band of paradoxes. Following their stellar first-ever headlining gig in Los Angeles Sunday night, frontman Chris Keating - purveryor of heart-wrenching, challenging, Middle Eastern-influenced indie rock - admitted to loving pop music.

"I really like Justin Timberlake and corny R&B songs, like Rihanna," he confessed. "But I hate Alicia Keys. Her voice is all nasally. I just don't get it." Guess you've gotta draw the line somewhere.



It just so happened that Yeasayer took the stage at the Troubadour at almost the precise moment the above-mentioned artists performed across town at the American Music Awards . "I feel like every time we come to LA we're competing with some awards show," Chris said. So it goes in the land of self-congratulation.

Riding high on the post-show afterglow, Chris was in good spirits despite getting harassed by a drunken surfer who blagged his way backstage and offered to write a novel about the band. "We don't need a novel, just don't barf on me," was Chris' response.



Although it's been an amazing year for Yeasayer, Chris admitted they're eager to get off the road and head into the studio after touring relentlessly. "We're building a cool studio in upstate New York where we can hibernate for the winter," he said.

Meanwhile, moustachioed bassist Ira Wolf Tuton regaled us with some seriously intense stories while swigging on Wild Turkey. "You can't say anything because I know where to find you and I'll have a hit put out on you," he threatened. I admitted it was the first time anyone had threatened to kill me for writing about them and he seemed completely shocked. Umm, OK, Ira. Mum's the word.

"Are we human? Or are we dancer?" Much of the Killers interview in the new issue of NME is taken up with trying to work out what the hell this line means.

Brandon Flowers claims it's a "mild social statement", inspired by a Hunter S Thompson quote about America "raising a generation of dancers". But if that's the case, why not dancers plural? And in what sense does being a dancer preclude you from being human?

It's a puzzle. Then again, the history of music is rich with what Alan Partridge would describe as "gibberish classics". These can be divided into the following broad categories.

1.Stupid questions

Noughties indie is full of these, from Chris Martin's "How long am I gonna stand with my head stuck under the sand?" (Coldplay, 'Speed Of Sound') to Richard Ashcroft's "And did those feet in modern times/Walk on soles that are made in China?" (The Verve, 'Love Is Noise').

Daft questions often find their way into song titles, too. Creedence Clearwater Revival's 'Have You Ever Seen The Rain?' and Chicago's 'Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is?' are both crying out for curt one-word responses (namely, er, 'yes'). Others are rather more difficult to answer. Who's gonna ride my wild horses? I have no idea, Bono, sorry.

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It's interesting that Guns N' Roses' 'Chinese Democracy' and The Killers' 'Day & Age' are currently locked in a chart battle (as of Tuesday night Brandon and co are 20,000 copies ahead in the UK), because the two albums have a lot in common, certainly in the way they've been received in the press.

Both records have been described as overblown and lyrically gauche, yet most reviewers have also found something admirable in the sheer ambition and sonic maximalism on display – although in The Killers' case it's more a case of saxophones and harps rather than widdly-woo guitar solos.

Pretty much everyone notes the oddness of Flowers' lyrics, including Johnny Davis in The Observer, who nonetheless concludes that 'Day & Age' is "the Killers' most beguilingly strange record".

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Half the world's population have already heard it at myspace.com/gunsroses. It is the biggest and most important album ever made, having cost £8 trillion and taken 43 years to complete. Recording sessions involved a cast of thousands, including the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, a choir of mermaids, and Barack Obama on wobble-board.

You get the idea. Beyond the wild hyperbole, though, is 'Chinese Democracy' any good?

Reviews have generally been negative, with a number of critics complaining about the album's production (too overblown) and pacing (too many ballads). You can read NME's verdict by picking up the latest issue of the magazine.

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