Reviews

Knockabout adaptation of clever cult comic

Amiable shoot-the-shit comedy from hangdog actor/producer Ice Cube, Barbershop reveals a hint of drama (sinister gangster Keith David has designs on the shop), but is really a sitcommy chatabout between neighbourhood eccentrics. Topics range from slavery reparations to "the difference between a woman with a big ass and a big-assed woman!"

Buckling under the weight of expectation inherent in all 'New Latin Cinema' (this isn't City Of God), El Crimen still has another deft performance from movement poster-boy Gael García Bernal as the eponymous priest in forbidden lust scandal. The film also has a keen eye for the ritualised sexualisation at the heart of Catholicism (the Virgin Mary, the semi-naked Christ etc). Familiar, but intriguing.

Compilation of documentary, videos and live footage marking the 35th anniversary of the Krautrockers. Though their backgrounds were in jazz and classical, they blasted rock into the future via its first principles through repetitive, improvised sessions. This DVD has live material from Cologne and a '76 slot on TOTP playing their one hit, "I Want More". The live footage is irretrievably '70s in its visual mixture of the garish and dismal but the music's way out and beyond. Interviews confirm the cerebral underpinning of this most deceptively primal of bands.

Dreamy debut from electro-hippies formerly known as Slum

More no-fi than lo-fi, this rough, bootleg-quality document released on singer Paul Haig's own label acts as a companion to 2000's excellent Crazy To Exist (Live). You need to be a fan to sift through the murk in search of what made the band—who barely managed to release an album during their mayfly career—special, but once your ears adjust to the gloom, the caustic glory of Haig and Malcolm Ross' twin guitar rattle is well worth the effort. Magical, if muddy.

Mini LP from new badly drawn boy on the block

Stunning two-disc live set from recent dates in Toronto and Bloomington, Indiana. Accompanying DVD to follow

Glasgow platinum-shifters ring (albeit subtle) changes for their fourth long-player

Before the sex pistols there was New York's Lower East Side: trash aesthetes with short hair and kinky vixens in B-movie stilettos. Kids with minor drug habits and slim volumes of symbolist verse. Pre-punk 'punk' was Gotham's reaction to smug denim California and prog-pomp stadium blow-out. The new Bowery Bop was about immaculate posing, street-corner nihilism. It was railroad-apartment art-rock out of the Velvets, Stooges, Dolls, with a side order of Nuggets garage psychedelics.