Reviews

Best album in years from British eccentric

Former Lone Justice leader turned solo artist returns with her first studio album in seven years

Bernard Herrmann. To any soundtrack devotee the name's sacred. From Psycho to Taxi Driver, his music made good movies great and great movies greater. Here he even caused a rubbish film to linger in the collective memory. Flying saucers and robots were '50s cinema staples, spawned by a real public fear of science (in the aftermath of the atomic bomb). Robert Wise's 1951 sci-fi message movie (war is bad) would today look more hilarious than it does were it not for Herrmann's tonal and symmetrical score. Conducted by Joel McNeely, here it's been recorded in digital sound for the first time.

Intriguing, literate return by '60s folk icon

Classic albums re-released with many bonus tracks

Fine if sometimes obscure music-making from fiery Scots legend

Lavish best-of for classic late-'60s funk band

Meaty debut from Tartan Tarantino

Steve Martin darkens his usual screwball comic persona for Novocaine, playing a suburban dentist implicated in drugs and murder charges in a noir-tinged comedy thriller which turns increasingly Hitchcockian as it unfolds. Helena Bonham Carter's femme fatale, Laura Dern's dental assistant and Kevin Bacon's hilarious cameo appearance lend extra clout to a patchy but commendably accomplished feature debut from writer-director David Atkins.

Two years ago, Bill Wyman published a superbly researched history of the blues. Now bearing the same name comes an unmissable visual companion to the book. The commentary is instructive, and Wyman's knowledge and passion for his subject is palpable. But the real thrill lies in the archive footage. There's Leadbelly and Bessie Smith, John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson and Jimmy Reed and lots of evocative footage of the Delta.