Reviews

This Month In Americana

Stunning all-star tribute to country music's first dynasty, produced by John Carter Cash As musical legacies go, the Carter Family takes some topping. From an obscure 100,000-watt Mexican radio station, the truly seminal recordings of Alvin Pleasant Carter, wife Sara and cousin Maybelle took country to a whole new coast-to-coast American audience in the '30s. As vocal-harmony innovators, they were as vital to the development of bluegrass as Bill Monroe.

The Delgados – Universal Audio

Epic Scots find fresh focus for fifth LP

Grand Drive – The Lights In This Town Are Too Many To Count

Fourth album from leading UK Americana exponents

Phone

Korean horror gets bad reception

Pole Vaults

Following last year's release of his earlier work, this is an artfully presented set of Polanski's commercial breakthrough movies—Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown and The Tenant. Given a ready-made yarn with a thread, he could concentrate on brewing his own unique, dislocating atmospheres and obsessions, and did so brilliantly.

Caveman

In 1980, one year before Anthony Burgess composed a whole new language for Quest For Fire, the producers of this dumbass Neanderthal comedy achieved much the same effect by just having actors go "oog". Insanely, Ringo Starr plays a horny caveman who forms his own tribe of losers (a young Dennis Quaid among them) and gets into scrapes. A must-have for Beatles completists; for everyone else, the animated dinosaurs are sweet. (DL) DVD EXTRAS: None.

The Comeback Kid

Greedy triple-disc excavation of The King's finest hour

Elvis Costello

Fifth phase of two-disc reissue series

Irma Thomas – Straight From The Soul

Unsung '60s soul queen of New Orleans
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