Reviews

Slow-burning second album from Toby Burke's equine three-piece

Hitman who provided lavish productions for Frankie and Tatu oversees cult Scots' fifth album proper

Second album of the year, recorded with just a four-track and a healthy dose of vitriol

Laptop's third album is a synthetic joy from beginning to end. Continuing in the arch electropop vein of Opening Credits and The Old Me Vs The New You, Jesse Hartman's latest illustrates his ability to transcend simple '80s pastiche armed with a world-weary baritone and a clutch of untouchably sexy tunes. With deadpan voiceover and deluded romanticism, the Oakey-cokey melodrama of "Let Yourself Go" is both funny and moving, while "Back In The Picture" and "Testimonial #6" display lurching, Bowie-esque brilliance.

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.