Kelly Osbourne, Lou Reed, Def Leppard . . .
And the return of Billy Corgan in Zwan

A whole pile of new CDs reviewed this update: The Detroit Cobras' Seven Easy Pieces, Machine Head's Hellalive, Kelly Osbourne's Shut Up, Lou Reed's The Raven, Together, The Best Of . . . Reef, Sex Sells from Stiffed, Stylophonic's Man Music Technology, Thunder's Shooting At The Sun and . . . Zwan's Mary Star Of The Sea. For desert? Hollywood horror remake The Ring, and Def Leppard with The Darkness live in Manchester!
    counterculture's been on the blag again, and we're giving away three Star Wars graphic novels from those lovely folk at Titan Books and Dark Horse Comics in our exclusive Star Wars: A Long Time Ago . . . competition. Check out our review of the third volume, Resurrection Of Evil, here.

Animals and exorcists
Daredevils and Crows

Punk's the order of the day with new CDs from The Arrivals, The Stitches, Useless ID and the Go-Kart vs The Corporate Giant 3 compilation. We've also got new discs from classic rock behemoths Toto and the W.A.S.P.-related Animal.
    Our first interview in a while comes from supernatural crime writer Phil Rickman, whose sixth Merrily Watkins novel, The Lamp Of The Wicked, is out this April. And there's a review of Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again.
    Movies this time around are Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, Ben Affleck as Marvel's Daredevil and the offbeat Sandler romance, Punch-Drunk Love.
    Finally, we get back to the music with a review of Counting Crows live in Manchester.

Get up, and get your grandma outta here
3 Doors Down, Audioslave, Shakira . . .

Flagging under the weight of new contributors, counterculture proudly goes live with Audioslave at London's Astoria and Shakira at Wembley Arena.
    Pieces of the past are explored in Kiss: Alive Forever - The Complete Touring History and Star Wars: A Long Time Ago . . . - Resurrection Of Evil.
    Looking to the present we've got new discs from 3 Doors Down, Common, Covenant, Good Charlotte and The Moonlighters, and we get all cinematic with About Schmidt and Ghost Ship.