Reviews

Tweedy & co prove handy recruits to the R.E.M. spin-off

Magickal creation theory in latest music-backed spoken words from comics king

Double album of new songs plus remixes of old stuff from Sugababes' sugar daddy

Playful electronica from Japanese DJ

Esteemed wacky Welsh group's early years plus Ankst two-CD retrospective

Fairytale concept album from 1970 that evolved into first feature-length, made-for-TV animated musical

Posthumous live and studio collection from legendary Texan troubadour

Three female big-hitters go on an Oscar hunt

Set in and around a half-built rubble-strewn suburb of nowhere Vienna, pounded by summer sunstroke, and featuring brutal scenes of rape and battery, Dog Days is a bracing blast of arthouse nihilism from Austrian auteur Ulrich Seidl. And like a bleak psychotropic Short Cuts, the success of this multi-character piece depends on how the viewer responds to Seidl's remarkable yet savagely pessimistic world view.

Sandra Bullock got little credit for branching out as a gum-chewing, neurotic hardcase in this clever Barbet Schroeder cop thriller. Two Dostoyevsky students commit the perfect murder as an intellectual challenge; it's up to boozy Bullock and sidekick Ben Chaplin to rattle their smugness. Schroeder ensures it has a dark heart.