CERYS Matthews, the Janis Joplin of the Valleys, has found a new, alternative country.

After the personal breakdown and band break-up, the alcohol abuse and clinic treatment, the party girl of Britpop has vacated Wales and Catatonia for a fresh start, marriage and pregnancy in Tennessee. Given her troubles, only the blues or country could have been her destiny, yet this is still the most startling reinvention since David Icke. Better still, Cockahoop is genuine and homespun. Her unfettered voice, with its erratic sense of key and tendency to screech and croak when in the grip of Road Rage, was always built more for tender, bruised ballads. Producer Bucky Baxter - Bob Dylan's slide guitarist - has rounded up Emmylou Harris guitarist Richard Bennett, Uncle Tupelo drummer Ken Coomer and Confederate Railroad multi-instrumentalist Jim Hoke for a dusty country-folk backdrop. From her readings of the Handsome Family's Weightless Again and the Welsh hymn Arglwydd Dyma Fi to Cerys's own first steps in songwriting, Only A Fool and Caught In The Middle, Cockahoop is a recovery as quietly impressive as Lemonhead Evan Dando's resurrection.

Oh Susanna, the alias for a Canadian singer songwriter by the distinctly non-pop name of Suzie Ungerlieder, has written her best slew of heavy, bared, emotional songs on her third album of stories of philanderers, loners, travellers and outcasts. She has added some earthy rock'n'roll spirit, too: more oomph to her Oh.

Laura Veirs, from Seattle via Ohio Clouds, is a new hypnotic voice in tingling country porch songs and sea shanties, sometimes troubled and spooky, other times as playful as the bluegrass yodel on The Ballad Of John Vogelin. Traditional as sepia yet experimental, she melds detail with simplicity in folk tales that sting and swing.

Updated: 09:22 Thursday, May 22, 2003