CHARTS ANALYSIS: Killers shoot down Guns N' Roses return.

DEBUT RELEASES FROM RHYDIAN, THE PRIESTS AND ONLY MEN ALOUD and eagerly- awaited new albums from The Killers, Guns N' Roses and Kanye West helped the UK record industry to shake of some of its recent gloom to record a massive 39.4% increase in album sales week-on-week. A total of 4,499,589 albums were sold last week - a highly creditable 3.85% above same-week 2007 sales of 4,332,590.

The Killers' Day & Age makes an emphatic debut atop the artist album chart, with first-week sales of 200,299. It is only the fourth artist album to sell more than 200,000 copies in a week this year, trailing first-week sales of 302,074 for Coldplay's Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends, 220,879 for Kings Of Leon's Only By The Night and 200,866 for Oasis's Dig Out Your Soul.

It was way too much for Guns N' Roses, whose first album of new material for 15 years, Chinese Democracy, sold 119,331 copies to debut at number two, and last year's X Factor runner-up Rhydian, whose self- titled debut sold 90,138 copies to enter at number three.

Day & Age is The Killers' third regular album, and they have all reached number one. 2004 debut Hot Fuss debuted at number six (29,349 sales) and reached number one on its 32nd week on the chart, whereas follow-up Sam's Town had a stellar opening tally of 286,946 when debuting at number one in 2006. Despite its slower start, Hot Fuss is the bigger seller, with a current tally of 1,823,887 sales, compared to Sam's Town's 1,304,575.

While Rhydian has the week's top-charting classical crossover album, there are debuts from three other albums in the genre in this week's Top 75. Joining already charting efforts from Il Divo, Fron Male Vocal Choir, Katherine Jenkins, Andrea Bocelli, Jonathan Ansell and The Cistercian Monks are new entries for self-titled debuts from The Priests (number five, 69,087 sales) and Only Men Aloud (number 16, 33,317 sales), Lesley Garret's Amazing Grace (number 50, 12,010 sales) and The Salvation Army's Together (number 20, 31,679 sales).

The Priests are three Catholic clergymen from Northern Ireland - Father Eugene O'Hagan, his brother Martin and Father David Delargy. Only Men Aloud are a choir who rose to fame as winners of the BBC's Last Choir Standing competition earlier this year and are one of five Welsh acts in the Top 75, a record. The aforementioned Rhydian, the Fron Male Voice Choir, Katherine Jenkins and veteran Tom Jones (down 32-54 with 24 Hours on sales of 11,749) are the others.

Meanwhile, Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak album debuts at number 11 on sales of 44,720 copies. It comes 14 months after last album Graduation earned West his first number one with sales of 84,611. His second album, Late Registration, also opened bigger, debuting and peaking at number two on sales of 67,240 in 2005. His 2004 debut album The College Dropout debuted at number 49 on sales of 6,064, but later peaked at number 12.