From his Sarah Records days with the Sea Urchins to the 1990s with Delta, James Roberts has been one of British pop's great hard-luck tales. His career has seen critical acclaim but also albums lost amid corporate reshuffles. Understandably bitter but not a man to be kept down, the Brummie defiantly imagines his solo album as "a modern Jimmy Webb album propelled by a 21st-century Carpenters".

In fact, Everything You Know laces Midlands soul with strings and grit. Roberts has a distinctive sound - Lennonish edginess meets mid-period Verve - but finds room for everything from dance-tinged sub-bass to fragile pieces in the mould of Nick Drake or the Beatles' In My Life. Third time lucky?

Download: Yeah So; If Time Was All; Sun Somehow