Reviews

Shane MacGowan's old running boyos in serious shindig

Frank Black Francis: the beginning and the end. One could treat these two dramatically different discs as bookends to Pixies history if the band hadn't just completed a triumphant reunion tour, while talk of a new album continues.

John Woo's 1992 cop thriller was his last Hong Kong movie, and it's a self-conscious career peak. Chow Yun-Fat packs an arsenal that would shame the Pentagon as a cop called Tequila; Tony Leung rehearses for Infernal Affairs as his undercover mob contact. The original HK title translates as"Hot-Handed God Of Cops", which is about right.

Compiled, it seems, by lucky dip, but Stage Fright, I Confess, Dial M For Murder, The Wrong Man and North By Northwest all explain why he's still The Master. The centrepiece, though, is a special-edition Strangers On A Train (also available separately).

Fine French ensemble comedy

Double-disc expanded edition of his best '70s solo album

Hip record company attempts to thrust stardom upon unwilling recipient

51-track double-disc comp gathering together hits and rarities

Bristol drum'n'bass godfather goes hectic and eclectic

Sometime bartender, midwife and reverend, O'Connor's true calling may lie as a remarkable interpreter of song. Though recent years have found her adding dewy vocal harmonies for Andrew Bird's Bowl Of Fire (and Mavis Staples), her solo debut is long overdue. A brace of impressive originals—"My Backyard", "Tonight"—are whispers of classic honky-tonk, but she truly shines on covers of James (Squirrel Nut Zippers) Mathus' "Bottoms" and "Nightingale", twisting each into the kind of lovelorn ballad Alison Krauss would kill for.