Free

The Addiction plug straight back into the main vein

Belated but brilliant follow-up to Choochtown from one-man Angry Brigade and Uncut columnist

First full review of 39-track follow-up to Stankonia from fractured hip hop duo

I know what you're thinking. Oh Lord, what's McCartney doing now? What desperate revisionism is he foisting on a Lennon-free world? Now calm down.

Lively, multi-layered Dublin-set comedy drama

Their major label period. Better than you remember

Rough Trade bands celebrate the label's 25th birthday by covering songs from the catalogue

The best of compilation: a time to reflect upon a career, including even the early mishaps that eventually shape one's body of work. That's how it should be, anyway. It's telling reflection on the control freakery and uptight nature of Primal Screen that they've chosen, like some pampered footballer or insecure soap star, to relate a sanitised autobiography with Dirty Hits, ignoring their early but substantial first recordings as both fey indie janglers and one-dimensional rockers.

Excellent debut in style of Hartley or Labute

Set fire to anything. Set fire to the air," urged John Cale at the beginning of Music For A New Society. That 1982 masterpiece was the evisceration of a man whose fractured psyche was mirrored perfectly by songs arranged in jagged, improvisatory style; a knife held at the throat of sweetness. Now he reappears with his first album of songs for seven years, and his finest album in any genre for over two decades.