Reviews

Irish-born singer's impressive solo debut

Charmless Gallic prank-fest falls flat on its ass

Sam Fuller's explosive pulp classic, a red-menace thriller, pitched near hysteria from start to finish. Richard Widmark's lone-wolf pickpocket winds up caught between the Feds and the Reds when he unwittingly lifts stolen microfilm from Jean Peters, a hooker being used as a courier by a Soviet spy ring. Thelma Ritter's loveable stool-pigeon suffers one of the great movie deaths. Definitive Fuller, definitive noir.

Directed at mercilessly cool, wickedly tense pace by René Clément, the original 1960 French adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley pisses from on high all over the Anthony Minghella remake. As Ripley, the ambiguous sociophobe planning to steal dissolute playboy Maurice Ronet's life in a blazing Mediterranean, Alain Delon has never looked so much like a saint made of ice. Delon versus Matt Damon? Where's the contest?

A decade ago, Heather Nova burst forth as a kind of female Jeff Buckley. She's never quite fulfilled the promise but is a hugely popular live act. Her understated backing band are superb, but it's her soaring vocals that grab the attention at this show dating from September 2003, which concentrates mainly on material from her most recent album, Storm, and suggests she's toned down some of her earlier jagged edges.

Germany's industrial music pioneers at their most uncompromising, from 1980-1982

The '80s albums which made them the most successful duo in US chart history

Halifax, Nova Scotia's answer to The Beach Boys

Enjoyable debut by 'female Dizzee'

Three years ago, Skyscraper National Park heralded the arrival of Hayden Desser as heir to the mumbling miserablism of Smog's Bill Callahan. Like the latter, Toronto-born Hayden's nagging melodies and deadpan delivery occupy their own peculiar kingdom. His fourth LP finds him applying sonic bluster to the usual sad-slow creep. "Hollywood Ending", for example, is a raucous tale of being caught up in a blockbuster outside his front door.