Reviews

Imagine Stephen Foster—or at least Van Dyke Parks—armed with a laptop and you're close to understanding the extraordinary charm of Californian duo Matmos' fifth album. Like 1999's The West, The Civil War negotiates a fragile entente between Americana and electronica, but does so on a bigger, constantly astonishing scale. Fireworks explode, battlefield drummers march across John Fahey's porch, Dr John is reconstructed out of glitches, an entire track is made from samples of a rabbit pelt, and "The Stars And Stripes Forever" is reduced to a postmodern shambles.

Light, bright solo debut from Charlatans' ex-pat frontman

Hip hop headscapes from Brighton beats magus

So-so stuff chiefly for Pitney fanatics

Cracking comeback compilation includes two stirring new songs

Competent Dublin crime drama on well-worn turf

A '70s remake of the Hitchcock classic, with Angela Lansbury as an English nanny kidnapped on a German train on the eve of WWII. Can dizzy US heiress Cybill Shepherd foil this Nazi plot with the aid of rugged news photographer Elliott Gould? It might have worked if they'd played it straight; instead, they go for screwball comedy, and it's a disaster.

It doesn't matter whether you're a fan. This study of Mitchell is a model of musical biography in DVD form. Over two hours we get her life story in perfectly matched words, music and images. The interviews with Mitchell are candid, the recollections from the likes of James Taylor, David Crosby and Graham Nash are fascinating, and the musical excerpts, which cover her entire career, are luminous.

Depressing study in madness, memory and murder from David Cronenberg, with Ralph Fiennes, recently released from a mental institution, setting up home in a halfway hostel in London's East End close to where he grew up, and the scene of a massive childhood trauma. Despite some typically creepy Cronenberg moments and universally impressive performances, the plot's predictable, and the relentless bleakness wears after a while.

Travis-lite trad-rockers' debut LP