Imperial measures

It's not often that I'm in on a Friday night, and even less often that I bother to watch Later..., but sometimes it can be worth sitting through the inane banter of that slimy little man just for the music.

Take Friday just gone, for instance. Both MGMT and Vampire Weekend impressed, at least initially (with 'Flash Delirium' and 'White Sky' respectively), before going on to disappoint (with 'It's Working' and 'Cousins'), while the anodyne Crystal Castles of 'Celestica' bore little resemblance to the mentalist duo on whom the plug was pulled at Glastonbury 2008.

The pleasant surprise (and this is probably not something I should be admitting in public) came in the form of Tom Jones. "I wanted to get more nitty-gritty", Jones has claimed, and bleak soul-searcher 'What Good Am I?' and the fiery blues of 'Burning Hell' from forthcoming album Praise And Blame were arrestingly dark.

But best of all was Metric's brilliant 'Sick Muse'. Only the other day I was expressing my gratitude to Ken - I'm starting to think I really should have listened to him about Metric too...