Reviews

Two Texans plus two Mancunians equals the best debut album of 2004

Made-in-Taiwan teen flick

David Fincher's homage to Hitchcock (the North By Northwest title sequence, Howard Shore's score, the Rope/Vertigo-like apartment-as-stage conceit) finds Jodie Foster as the beleaguered mum trying to stay one step ahead of Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam and Jared Leto's housebreakers

The idea of Ralph Fiennes' sibling shooting a doc about God and guns in South Central LA is inherently tiresome. But, in fact, Sophie F manages to get inside the soul of this torn community. Grace Jones' pastor brother Noel is as fake as any pulpit rhetorician, but his Hoover Street church is a revival of hope.

Shot at Brixton Academy at the end of Moloko's 2003 tour, this is a limp wander through the band's hits which even Roisin Murphy can't lift. There's none of the inter-band tension that a year on the road might have generated, and they even manage to mangle "Sing It Back". For devotees only.

The first ISB albums on a twofer

A warm-hearted homecoming for Athens bard Chesnutt's earliest recordings

Norwegian prodigy's vivid second album

Those who remember the self-aggrandising extremes of Britpop with more horror than amusement won't look kindly on London-based fantasists Razorlight, who frontman Johnny Borrell recently claimed were better than Dylan.

Their 13th studio album is a stunning rebirth from one of Britain's most popular and enduring bands