Reviews

Jack Black's favourite band reignite garage rock's flame on second LP

Something is stirring in country music.

Deathless proto-ambient dinosaur that punk could not kill returns for 21st-century remake

Fabulous Thunderbirds frontman keeps it bluesy

Part-new album, part-remix project from post-rock supergroup

Ten years ago, as Sonic Boom's new sleevenotes attest, he and Jason Pierce were "making hypno-monotony" and smoking a lot of grass. Spacemen 3 were a cult on the brink of brimming over, which soon happened with the spin-off of Pierce's Spiritualized. Their penultimate LP as a pairing was The Perfect Prescription, here stretched to a double with the addition of various demos and unreleased sessions. In two modes, hippie-trance riffery and hushed faux-religious reverence, it's love-it-or-hate it puritan-rock. The drugs, clearly, worked for them.

Punk compilation selected by Sniffin' Glue editor Mark Perry

Exclusive donations from the great and the good on behalf of Iraq's children

Holiday romances, French-style

Musical remake of The Philadelphia Story, with heiress Grace Kelly being romantically pursued on the eve of her wedding by ex-hubbie Bing Crosby and dashing reporter Frank Sinatra. If the casting somehow lacks the faultless pizzazz of the original, the score of dazzling Cole Porter tunes more than makes up for it.