Reviews

As producer, Ridley Scott—clearly in a good mood—leads us on a pointless trawl through the dusty dirt roads of comedy thriller territory as confused country boy Clay (a smouldering Joaquin Phoenix) gets duped into hanging loose with fast-talking rhinestone cowboy Lester Long (Vince Vaughn). Quite where we fit into this generic nonsense is something else altogether.

After the early patronage of Howe Gelb, Oregon's Matt Ward dished up 2001's End Of Amnesia, one of the most breathtaking albums of recent years. Transfiguration...is another masterclass in deft guitar picking, smudged with piano, harmonica and a voice like honey drizzled onto a dry creekbed. The behind-a-screen-door quality of production adds to the strangeness, while the likes of "Undertaker" often stop, start, scuff around then veer off at a tangent. Somewhere between a Gelb bothering to finish off songs and The Band at their most bucolic.

Frequently awesome country-spacerock from Washington DC

Jazz-tinged folk from prolific, political US singer-songwriter

Left-field concept album from arthouse diva

First since 2001's Returning Jesus from durable duo

Vintage blues and then some from revered bluesman

Re-releases for undeservedly forgotten post-punk Mancunians

Lifting the lid on LAPD brutality and corruption

A double header, featuring two of David Lean's finest directorial efforts. Hobson's Choice (1954) sees Charles Laughton's magnificently overbearing Lancastrian patriarch butt heads with his equally stubborn daughter Brenda de Banzie, while John Mills is splendid as her husband, the worm who turns. The Sound Barrier (1952), in which Ralph Richardson attempts to devise the first faster-than-sound plane, sees stiff upper lips wobble as his efforts come to grief. It's also notable for some fine aerial sequences. Bravo, chaps!