It's been three years since the LA funk-metal heads' last album, One Hot Minute, met with a relatively cool reception, and was all but forgotten after 15 minutes. In the meantime, guitarist Dave Navarro has departed the band, and John Frusciante - who quit after the breakthrough album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik - has returned to the fold. Californication surfs along on Flea's bubbling basslines and Anthony Keidis's rolling, rapping vocals, sometimes crashing noisily on the West Coast wasteland, other times pausing to smell the smog and reflect on Californian dreams gone sour. The Peppers are, as always, afflicted by an overabundance of testosterone, as hard-on rockers such as Get On Top, Purple Stain and I Like Dirt demonstrate, but the gentler melodies of Scar Tissue and Porcelain prove they've still got substance.

Various Artists: Austin Powers The Spy Who Shagged Me (Maverick)

Judging from the heavyweight popstar presence on this soundtrack, the second mission by the Sixties spy with the frilly shirt and bad teeth looks like being a shagtastic success, baby. Madonna opens the proceedings with the superb psychedelic pastiche, Beautiful Stranger, spiked with swirling f/x courtesy of William Orbit, while R.E.M.'s version of Tommy James's Draggin' The Line is pulled along by Peter Buck's flanged guitar and some parping brass. Lenny Kravitz's traditional take on American Woman perfectly suits his new car-ad friendly persona, and Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello's I'll Never Fall In Love Again sees ol' Dec furthering his obsession with becoming the male Dionne Warwick. The real gem here, however, is The Who performing an unreleased version of My Generation, recorded - where else, baby? - at the BBC.