Reviews

Raw-as-blisters rock from Jack White cohorts

Bizarre female electropop debut with several Kid 606 productions

The garage rock virus spreads to Canada

Sixth album from multi-award-winning British-Asian pioneer

This album from Detroit electro-garage band, Electric Six, invites the listener to consider two obvious reference points. One being Dynasty, the abysmal 1979 disco album by stadium rock clowns Kiss, the other being the inside cover of Daft Punk's 1997 debut Homework (a collage of grubby teen paraphernalia—comics, rock stickers, Chic seven inches). Electric Six nail a kitschy hybrid of '70s rock and disco—AC/DC & The Sunshine Band, if you will—but repeated plays reveal little charm and less real humour.

Today's New York rockers, posturing Gotham dance music and yesterday's post-punkers from Blighty

Two neglected '70s funk/soul albums; part of a Universal Funk series

Vintage French noir makes a reappearance

Like a title fight between the two greatest actors of their generation, The Young Lions cares less about adapting Irwin Shaw's anti-war bestseller (which it subsequently mangles) than allowing Montgomery Clift's neurasthenic Private Ackerman and Marlon Brando's fey Nazi officer to out-Method each other on camera. Though the two icons only share one incidental scene, their separate contributions are still electrifying.

Belated DVD release for Stephen (Blade) Norrington's flaccid 2001 meditation on the nature of, wince, 'celebrity culture'. Max Beesley, ineffably irritating in Alfie mode, is Billy Byrne, a talentless wannabe whose driving desire for fame sends him on a Hellish Journey™ through London's criminal drug-dealing S&M underworld. Hateful characters, no discernible narrative voice, and hackneyed visuals. A mistake.