Reviews

Soledad Brothers – Voice Of Treason

Third album from Detroit blues exponents and White Stripes chums

Bell X1 – Music In Mouth

Dublin-based quartet with Gemma Hayes, Frames and Mundy associations release second disc

The Essential Nino Rota – Silva Screen

Glamour, guts and surrealism. Nino Rota, who died in '79, won Oscars for his haunting Godfather scores, but his greatest collaborations were with his compatriot Fellini. Films such as La Dolce Vita, 8½, Roma, Amarcord and La Strada were among the highlights of their three decades of artistic alliance. Few if any have merged imagery and music to such effect: you could argue that Fellini's idiosyncrasies were such that Rota's job was hardest of all. The Prague Philharmonic here whistle through his warm, sure work.

Clarkesville – The Half Chapter

New kid from Walsall puts fresh leather on troubadour boot

The Zephyrs – A Year To The Day

The Zephyrs' desolate sound describes their war-torn history. First Scottish label Southpaw folded the same week it released their last album. Then a literal-minded rock revival forced their soporific sea shanties off the radar. Now signed to Setanta, things are looking up for the Edinburgh-based quintet who, with this third album, have created an unhurried portrait of emotional disquiet.

Manic Street Preachers – Lipstick Traces: A Secret History Of…

35 B-sides and rarities, with two unreleased tracks, on two CDs

Essential Logic – Fanfare In The Garden: An Essential Logic Collection

Anthologising nearly-lost gems from Lora Logic's arty post-punk outfit

Floating Weeds (Ukigusa)

Sumptuous theatrical tale from Japan

Swimming Pool

OPENS AUGUST 22, CERT 15, 102 MINS An uptight, emotionally constrained English lady crime-writer and a sexually aggressive Provençal bombshell, given to walking around butt naked: in his latest movie, François Ozon deals in archetypes. But having created characters who border on cliché, he then proceeds to subvert them by adding other, unexpected layers to their personalities.

Kiss Me Deadly

Robert Aldrich's blazing adaptation of Mickey Spillane's gut-wrenching nuclear age potboiler turns a well-worn genre on its head and retains its power to shock almost 50 years after it was made. Ralph Meeker yells his way through this movie as the quintessential Mike Hammer: loud, boorish, sexist, bullying and gleefully violent. Watch out for the back-to-front titles and apocalyptic climax. Truly the greatest private-eye movie ever made.
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