"john Clear"

As in his previous solo album, The Thunderthief makes it very clear exactly what John Paul Jones brought to Led Zeppelin: driving bass, epic compositions, and impeccable musicianship. It's also very clear what he wasn't doing for Zeppelin: writing the lyrics. The tracks with words on the album are awkward and occasionally laughable, particularly the title track, which sounds suspiciously like a jab at Robert Plant, and "Angry Angry," a presumably mock punk song. Both detract from what is otherwise a very impressive album. Jones plays nearly every instrument on the record and mixes sounds from seemingly every continent and era he could think of.

BUYSOUNDTRAX Records present HIGH ROAD TO CHINA, featuring music composed and conducted by John Barry for the 1983 action adventure film directed by Brian G. Hutton (SOL MADRID, WHERE EAGLES DARE, KELLY’S HEROES), based on a book by Jon Cleary, starring Tom Selleck, Bess Armstrong, Jack Weston, Wilford Brimley, Robert Morley, Cassandra Gava and the great Brian Blessed as the Suleman Khan.

The superbly consistent quality of the Third Book of songs by John Dowland suggests that the earlier issues, First Book and Second Book also recorded by Anthony Rooley and the Consort of Musicke, were no mere flashes in the pan, but set the tone for the whole series.

Sanctuary's mammoth triple-disc Pentangle overview poses a bit of a dilemma. First of all, it's called Pentangling, which is already the name of a 1973 compilation, and secondly, while not deliberately misleading, it focuses more attention on the solo careers of John Renbourn and Bert Jansch than it does on the entity that supplies the collection's title. Despite these petty gripes, Pentangling is filled to the brim with some of the finest recordings the British folk movement had to offer, and hearing the group as a whole, followed by an entire disc – one apiece – of two of the genre's most gifted guitarists, is rewarding in more ways than one: both men, as well as the band, released material well into the 21st century, but Pentangling focuses only on their treasured late-'60s/early-'70s output. Listeners looking for a more comprehensive take on Pentangle would be better off with Castle's excellent Light Flight: The Anthology, and Renbourn and Jansch both have lovingly packaged retrospectives that fare better than the ones offered here, but as far as entry points go, Pentangling does more than skim the surface.