Reviews

Ambitious and underrated, this finds the Godfather team of Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo mired in Harlem's seedy underworld of steamy dives, bootlegging mobsters and sultry divas circa 1920. Richard Gere and Gregory Hines kick out the jazzy jams while Walter Hill fave James Remar provides a disturbing portrait of Dutch Schultz. This is Coppola at his wild and uneven post-Apocalypse Now peak.

From the same '96 sessions that produced Dowd's startling debut Wrong Side Of Memphis, these four-track recordings are the overspill. You'll find (slightly) more sanitised versions of some on Pictures From Life's Other Side (1999) and last year's The Pawnbroker's Wife, but these—in JD speak—are "the original bad seeds". It's mostly slow-stealth swamp blues, rendered fearsome and moving by his scowling delivery, sounding forever snagged on a barbed wire fence.

More eclectic Eastern punk from label that brought us Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her

Swiftly-recorded follow-up from scuzz-rock trio

Narrative 10-song cycle about a fictional clan is Young's best work in a while

Seminal rap duo makes compelling claim on cutting-edge supremacy

The Cult of Bill gathers pace, nine years after the rock'n'roll comic's death

Some imagined that by Avalon, Roxy Music had degenerated into non-ironic AOR. But the sounds on this, the biggest-selling album of their career, are as avant-garde as anything they'd ever done, just more subtle, Ferry having exchanged art attack for ambient seduction. Remember this came out in spring 1982, as New Pop was peaking—it's as if the Godfather had returned to show the rookies how elegant isolation should really be expressed. Throughout there are expressions of Ferry's uncertainty, plus evidence they'd been listening to Joy Division and Jan Garbarek.

Intriguing animated African folk tale

Mildly engaging Mexican comedy concerning female empowerment; a kind of My Big Lardy Greek Wedding for liberals. Should our heroine work to feed the poor folks, or follow her dream of further education? Will she learn that true beauty comes from within and body size isn't everything as we arrive at the dénouement? At least it hasn't got Rosie Perez screeching through it.