This mix compilation by French DJ Dimitri From Paris of "Sacre Bleu" fame demonstrates the French preference for smoothness and elegance, which is fine when it comes to a twin set but a bit dry as far as dance music is concerned. Dimitri's unwillingness to get down and dirty in his mix denies these grooves by Masters At Work, Stetsasonic and Bah Samba their right to funk. His own remixes of Ashford & Simpson's Found A Cure and Atmosfear's Motivation are equally nice, chic and just a bit flat. The emphasis on sophistication hits its height with the reference to the Playboy Mansion, a fantasy zone of less than real pleasure where cool rules over content and a bloke in his 70s gets laid a lot. If you need a soundtrack to your lava lamps and brown shagpile carpet then here it is. -Jake Barnes.

The declared mission of Alabama 3's Outlaw is to find a way of romanticising Britain's mythic criminals in song in the same way that American country music celebrates its pantheon of gunslingers, gamblers and sundry ne'er-do-wells. In this respect, the two key songs on Outlaw are "Have You Seen Bruce Richard Reynolds?" - a cool, wordy, talking-blues summation of the career of the Great Train Robbery mastermind and serial jailbreaker - and the single, "Hello. I'm Johnny Cash". The latter, set to Cash's trademark boom-chicka-boom beat, acknowledges the late Man In Black as the principal inspiration of Outlaw, and is a fine and funny song in its own right. Musically, Outlaw signals an end to Alabama 3's recent stylistic wanderings, returning from the overt, and occasionally oppressive, techno of Power In The Blood and the acoustic starkness of Last Train To Mashville to the slightly dance-ified country which characterised their first two albums. This is all to the good, as those first two were Alabama 3's best, until now. -Andrew Mueller.

After 1994's Give Out But Don't Give Up, many critics wrote off Primal Scream as a drug-addled nostalgics, retreading lame rock clichés. Vanishing Point, while not a return to the sun-addled acid house fusion of Screamadelica was another voyage into the Scream's expansive mindscape. This time, however, the trip was bad. "Kowalski" heralded the album like a dark portent. Bobby Gillespie whispers bitter nothings over a distorted Krautrock groove that effortlessly melds Primal Scream's melting pot of influences-The Stooges, CanCan and Sun Ra. Vanishing Point seems propelled by demons, with the metallic funk of "If They Move, Kill 'Em" and "Stuka" providing dirty highlights-the latter threatening "If you play with fire, you're gonna get burned / some of my friends are gonna die young". It's not as essential as Screamadelica, but Vanishing Point finds Primal Scream at a terrifying and compelling depth. -Louis Pattison.

As befits the dedicated expectancy of its title, True Love Waits is a belated expression of admiration for the music of Radiohead from the renowned American concert pianist Christopher O'Riley, a man who ordinarily plys his craft performing Rachmaninoff, Chopin and Prokofiev but whose affinity for the anomalous Oxford quintet has inspired him to transpose 15 of their songs into his own interpretive, classical piano recitals. While it's true to say that classical is classical and pop is pop and ne'er the twain shall meet, Christopher O'Riley's True Love Waits sits alongside the Balanescu String Quartet's transcriptions of Kraftwerk compositions and Swedish choristers the Nau Ensemble's variations on Joy Division's Closer as a brilliantly effulgent exception to the rule. Amusingly serious sleevenotes aside (classical music etiquette deems Radiohead songs are actually written by Thomas Yorke, Jonathan Greenwood, Edward O'Brien, etc), O'Riley finds sedative melodic beauty hidden behind the rodent-bashing fancy of "Knives Out" while "Exit Music" and "Airbag" are chillingly distant, seemingly conveyed by invisible fingers from the haunted ballroom at the end of the marble corridor. "Arrest this man… he's like a detuned radio" sang Thom Yorke in 1997. However, thanks to Christopher O'Riley, the hitherto unthinkable concept of Middle-Englanders chinking their afternoon cups and saucers to the strains of "Karma Police" on Classic FM has just become a reality. -Kevin Maidment.

If anyone's suffering from new-year blues, Come With Us will shake them out of their narcolepsy. This fantastic album roars out of the starting blocks like a supercharged dragster, blowing up a heady fume of hip-hop techno flavoured with the Chemical's new found post-rave happiness. Their fourth album shows all the passion of their earlier works coupled with a sophistication beyond the mere wish to knock people's musical heads off. Impressively after over six years of making music and touring they've lost none of their enthusiasm. In fact their longevity seems to inspire them to greater achievement in a field that traditionally feeds off the new, the novel and the young. Best of all, the Brothers have developed the ability to communicate heartfelt emotions, evident on tracks such as the Beth Orton sung "The State We're In", the Pink Floyd-like "Pioneer Skies" and magnificent album closer "The Test". That doesn't mean that there aren't the "traditional" Chemical Brothers' dancefloor killers. The opener and title track "Come With Us" is easily the pulsating equal of "Hey Boy Hey Girl" or 1995's "Block Rockin' Beats". Both already released singles, the bizarre "It Began in Afrika" and the Donna Summer-meets-Kraftwerk blur of "Star Guitar" are included in their original form. They're probably the album's weakest tracks. [+]