Snakefarm Vinyl & CDs

Review: Marty Stuart has certainly earned his stripes as a certified Country Music Hall of Fame, five-time Grammy winner and AMA Lifetime Achievement honouree. Now he's back with his first album in five years, backed up by his band of the past 20 years, The Fabulous Superlatives and he's sounding as vital as ever. Altitude is a widescreen expanse of an album full of the breezy, rolling Americana Stuart has forged his career on since starting out with Johnny Cash et al, but it's not a simple case of repeating the same tricks. There's a genuine hunger for new avenues of expression in these songs, and a sincerity in his voice as much now as when he first went solo back in the 70s.

Review: Hard rockers unite. Or at least they used to. In an age when it often feels like even the last remaining vestiges of whatever subcultures survived MTV and the Millennium are themselves divided, every once in a while a record comes along that acts like a rousing call for unilateral response. The Satanic Rites Of is exactly that album. Reading reviews is smile-inducing, if for no other reason than the references to frontman Ginger as a 'godfather' of the British heavy-hard guitar scene. It's hard to deny, except if in your mind he still invokes images of a sprightly enfant terrible. In all honestly, the latest is both - an outfit that have lost none of their high energy snarl and commitment to doing interesting, ferocious things, but have years of wisdom on their side to achieve them.