Reviews

Second from rapidly rising NY stars

Ten years in, Colorado five-piece deliver career-defining album

In something of an audacious coals-to-Newcastle move, this formerly London-based quartet upped sticks and headed west to become the darlings of the California alt.country/alt.folk scene, and can currently be found working a second job as Pete Yorn's backing band On Fly The Radar, their second full-length CD release since relocating, they continue to explore loneliness, love and loss, wrapping the sentiments up in unforgettable, harmony-drenched melody.

West African star finally escapes the French pop scene

Cosmic Yorkshiremen return to earth

Debut from raw Lincoln leather lads, seemingly in production since 1938

Loach tackles love across the religious divide

Definitively 'zany' '60s farce, written by Woody Allen, with Peter O'Toole as a Paris fashion editor inundated with willing, eager ladies. This sends him to mad shrink Peter Sellers, who's jealous. Meanwhile, Allen longs for O'Toole's fiancée. Basically an excuse for thousands of hit-and-miss jokes, strippers, much daft over-acting and Ursula Andress. Fantastic.

Recorded in March, this is the same stylish stage show that Sparks brought to London earlier this year. Built around the Li'l Beethoven set, you also get a big helping of bonus tracks from that beguiling back catalogue, including the scarily prescient "The Calm Before The Storm". The motorik medley of "The Number One Song In Heaven" and "Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth" takes some beating.

This dark treasure from 1945 was Robert Bresson's second feature. Scripted by Cocteau, it's erotic longing and revenge, as spurned spider woman Maria Casares seeks the downfall of her ex and his lover. In contrast with the grey, static textures of Bresson's celebrated work, there's near-noirish lustre, but the intriguing, deceptive narrative bareness, the sense of forces moving beneath the surface, are his alone.