New releases last eight weeks: All genres

Review: Robert Smith has always treated remixing less like revision, more like ritual i a habit that's followed him since his days in Crawley, West Sussex and then surfacing officially on the first Cure remix album, 1990's Mixed Up. This triple-disc release of reworkings from the band's latest LP Songs of a Lost World feels assembled with obsessive care, mapping out every possible mood lurking beneath the surface. There are club-ready flips, yes i Sally C, Danny Briottet and Gregor Tresher all push the rhythm forward i but they sit beside glacial pieces that feel more like haunted sketches than reworks. Mura Masa's take on 'All I Ever Am' is disintegrated almost beyond recognition, its vocal a flickering memory. Mogwai's 'Endsong' feels like the end of the world in slow motion. Even Chino Moreno turns in something striking i 'WarSong' morphs into a sludgy howl with heat-warped edges. But it's the sequencing that surprises: these aren't bolted together, but grouped in arcs, as though Smith were arranging the bones of an old idea into something still alive. Four Tet's version of 'Alone' is a high point i deeply textured but featherlight. Like all The Cure's output, what really matters is the feeling of being drawn somewhere, and Smith's hand never letting go.

Review: More than four decades after he first appeared in smudged eyeliner and a mop of jet-black hair, Robert Smith is still finding new ways to pull his music apart and stitch it back together. This new remix collection i assembled and curated by Smith himself i feels less like a victory lap and more like a restless dissection of a legacy he's still actively shaping. The collaborators here are hardly incidental: Four Tet, Orbital, Ame, Chino Moreno, Mura Masa, Trentemoller, Mogwai. It reads like a list built by someone still hungrily tuned into the present, not stuck in the past. And true to form, the results are all over the place i a feature, not a flaw. Some tracks lean into grandeur: Paul Oakenfold's take on 'I Can Never Say Goodbye' opens with all the sweeping melodrama you'd expect, while Daybreakers stretch 'WarSong' into widescreen synthwork. Elsewhere, Shanti Celeste and Ex-Easter Island Head bring a strange intimacy to 'Alone', teasing out its ache with a different kind of spaciousness. At times, you wonder if Smith enjoys seeing how far his work can be bent before it breaks. But it never does i even filtered through others' hands, his sense of tension, drama and deep emotional unease holds everything together.

Review: Following 2020's acclaimed Women In Music Pt. III, which earned GRAMMY and BRIT nods, the LA-based American rock trio and sisters HAIM return with their bold fourth studio album on Polydor. Produced by Danielle Haim and Rostam Batmanglij, 15-tracker I Quit leans confidently into their noted classic rock influences while introducing fresh textures, including warped samples and stripped-back ballads. It's a record made for the stage as it is raw, dynamic and deeply rooted in their chemistry as live performers. The record reaffirms HAIM's place as modern rock trailblazers and is familiar yet evolving, so it will appeal to old fans and new ears with its fine balance of swagger and soul.