Good to see RAN ramping up production, lately :

• Graham on Peter Gabriel's Up : I've been a marginal PG fan in my earlier existence, but all the same, I haven't rushed out to buy this one yet. I nearly bought the remaster of his 3rd album (the melty face one) instead, today, but maybe I oughta go back and listen to it first - it's probably my favourite of them all - a bit more edgy, a bit more guitar, not quite so...overwrought ? The bit I heard of Up in a shop today seemed a bit more like the PG of old than I expected - vocally, anyway - but I s'pose it's hard to hear all the lush production work when it's coming over shop speakers. I did spot it second-hand already, so I might give in, soon.

• acb on the New Order Back to Mine thing. I've been meaning to investigate this further (along with the Orbital one), when/if I get around to it. I never really thought the Back to Mine series was for people like me, but I'm willing to be surprised.

Elsewhere, PopMatters deal with a new release from the Waco Brothers (will Jon Langford ever stop ?). Splendid, who've been doing a great job looking at some local Melbourne releases over the past week or two, review the new Meat Beat Manifesto album, which I'll just have to buy despite the apparent lack of variety from previous releases (I found this year's solo Jack Dangers release guilty of the same un-adventurousness).