Reviews

Adventurous successor to garage star's Mercury-winning debut

Second album of dark Americana from Illinois trio

Two-CD, 26-track memento of Cali punk-funkers' London summer shows

Stunning all-star tribute to country music's first dynasty, produced by John Carter Cash As musical legacies go, the Carter Family takes some topping. From an obscure 100,000-watt Mexican radio station, the truly seminal recordings of Alvin Pleasant Carter, wife Sara and cousin Maybelle took country to a whole new coast-to-coast American audience in the '30s. As vocal-harmony innovators, they were as vital to the development of bluegrass as Bill Monroe.

Epic Scots find fresh focus for fifth LP

Fourth album from leading UK Americana exponents

Very odd Korean comedy sci-fi horror

Suburban horror comedy from the creators of warped sitcom Spaced. When a mysterious plague strikes London, Shaun (Simon Pegg) has to battle hordes of blood-crazed zombies to rescue his mum and girlfriend. The zombie sequences pastiche the genre, adding genuinely witty slapstick, and the script is as good as Spaced or better. A delight.

Though Ween spent over a decade growing into one of America's biggest cult bands, renowned for a live show of bad taste and dizzying chaos, this is a curiously tame, professional fair. Brothers Dean and Gene blow through a lengthy 26-song set with flawless musicianship, but with the passion of a band who know they are knocking on and that the juvenile japes are wearing thin. One for Ween devotees.

The simmering sexuality. The blood lust. The savaging of bourgeois restraint. The horse flagellation. Ken Russell and DH Lawrence were made for each other. The nude wrestling scene is the one that everyone remembers, but the satire bites best in the form of Hermione, Eleanor Bron's caricature of avant-garde pretence. Made in 1969, this is probably the last time Russell showed restraint before he hurtled into kitsch overkill.