Reviews

A hit in Spain, this only goes to show what Almodóvar is up against. Friends sleep with each other but not with their partners, whom they speculate may be gay. Intermittently they break into dire Euro-pop songs. You keep waiting for taboos to be challenged, stereotypes to be skewed?and you keep waiting. Paz Vega fans would be better off with almost anything else she's done.

Amoral biopic of '70s serial killers

Bowie-obsessed Brian Molko and co put plenty of low-rent sex and sleazy glam into videos such as "Nancy Boy" and "Bruise Pristine" while the Thin White Duke himself appears in "Without You I'm Nothing". But by the time Molko gets fed to the sharks in "You Don't Care About Us", his foetal whine has become so irritating you don't feel much sympathy. NIGEL WILLIAMSON

All of Ashcroft and co's plus two Urban Hymns outtakes

Lennon's troubled homage to the music he grew up with

Seven-disc addition to Miles Davis box set series

Mugison's follow-up to last year's acclaimed Lonely Mountain debut is the score to a Fridrik Thor Fridriksson film, recorded in a church and in his girlfriend's mum's front room in remote Western Iceland. Fridriksson (whose last, Falcons, boasted a song by Keith Carradine) has also used Sigur Rós and Psychic TV in the past (on Angels Of The Universe), so this isn't (quite) as wilfully obscure as you might assume. It's very rough, broken and sketchy, with minimalist acoustic guitars probing spectres of melodies till they crystallise (or don't).

Virginia's insurgent country queen dazzles on first live album

Lashings of syrup from the selfless champion of good causes and queen of the lovesick

Guitar-free noise freaks barely dodge prog-rock tag for the third time