Reviews

Hotly-anticipated second album from New York's finest

When '80s Northern boys hooked up with a pair of disco and hip hop gods

Stephen Fry's take on Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies

Bizarre variation on The Phantom Of The Opera, with Vincent Price as a deformed musician seeking revenge on the doctors who accidentally killed his wife, and achieving it by murdering them in a spectacularly imaginative series of set-pieces. A truly mixed supporting cast (Joseph Cotton, Terry-Thomas) and a memorably stylish approach, with Price on monstrously hammy form.

This sequel to 2001's The Fast And The Furious delivers the same brand of out-and-out nonsense as the first instalment without ever pausing to miss Vin Diesel or Rob Cohen, the breakthrough star/director combo who went on to deliver the less entertaining XXX. Shaft director John Singleton is on hand to whip up some hip hop flavour. Enjoyably brain-dead tripe.

Taking apart their original monster hit, piecemeal, including smart cod-philosophy, brain-teasing story-twists, set-piece kung fu spectaculars and final-reel resurrections, and then reassembling it with a much bigger budget and a greater dollop of hubris, the Wachowski brothers here prove that limitless resources plus final cut can be a volatile mix.

A valiant and moving last hurrah from the sadly departed Clash hero

High Llamas' guitarist's best solo album to date

Follow-up to James Lavelle's 1999 trip hop folly Psyence Fiction, again with starry guests

Follow-up to 2001's excellent Just Backward Of Square