Youssou N'Dour was in London this week to perform with his Super Etoile band at Indig02, and The Independent gives the show four stars. The paper sees Youssou's latest Nonesuch release, Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take), as "the weave of percussion, bass lines and quicksilver guitars with N'Dour's extraordinary voice that stands out. His singing is a rhythmic device as much as an emotional force."

The Magnetic Fields' Distortion tour may have come to a close, but that just means more time for Stephin Merritt to share another of his many talents: DJing. He stopped by the KCRW studios in his newly adopted hometown of Los Angeles this past Sunday to play guest DJ on Gary Calamar's late-night show.

Mandy Patinkin returns to Broadway, the site of his Tony Award-winning musical debut in Evita, his starring role in the original production of Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, and countless other performances, on May 19 for a one-night-only event to benefit the off-Broadway Classic Stage Company. He will be accompanied by his longtime pianist, Paul Ford, in this special solo performance at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.

"Attack & Release may be the postage stamp that finally sends the music of The Black Keys around the world," exclaims the San Francisco Chronicle. Producer Danger Mouse "gives these guys a brilliant sheen, sort of like a pocket-size Zeppelin, and lets the band's brilliance shine through. This is one for year-end Top 10 lists already."

The Brad Mehldau Trio's take on Oasis's "Wonderwall" is NPR's Song of the Day today. The track appears on the Trio's new Live album, on which the musicians "sound unusually lively and exploratory," says NPR. "Live is the finest live recording Mehldau has made. Collected from a series of 2006 concerts, these performances return to what Mehldau and his band do best: conversational improvisation, with idiosyncratic arrangements that rethink the popular songbook."

The Black Keys rocked The Wiltern in Los Angeles last night, celebrating the release of their new album, Attack & Release, with a couple thousand fans. The Associated Press album review struggles to single out one song to recommend above the rest: "There are so many delightful songs here, it's hard to pick one. Let's go with 'Psychotic Girl,' a song so unlike anything the Keys have done it's startling ... a melange of familiar sounds spun into a new flavor of cotton candy we've never tasted before."

"There is no question what DVD you should snatch up this week. It's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," writes Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers. "Directed by Tim Burton and starring his muse, Johnny Depp, the film version of Stephen Sondheim's Broadway classic is a bloody wonder, intimate and epic, horrific and heart-rending. Depp received an Oscar nomination as Best Actor and he deserved to win if Daniel Day-Lewis hadn't blown the category away in There Will Be Blood."

Bill Frisell and Glenn Kotche will be on hand in Cincinnati, Ohio, this week as the third annual MusicNOW festival, organized by native son Bryce Dessner of The National, gets under way at Memorial Hall tonight. Kotche performed in the inaugural MusicNOW in 2006 and returns this Friday to perform with Dessner and Bang on a Can on a double bill with Dirty Projectors. Frisell makes his MusicNOW debut tomorrow night.

Today's the day. April Fool's, yes, but also the day Attack & Release, The Black Keys' latest, hits stores. The New York Sun says "Attack & Release houses the most stylistically diverse set of songs the band has released to date."New York Daily News says "the duo perfectly calibrate richer sounds and fuller melodies with their usual killer riffs and scathing rhythms." Scripps Howard gives the album four stars.

The Tim Burton-directed film version of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, starring Johnny Depp as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Helena Bonham Carter as his cohort in crime, is available now on DVD. The special collector's edition includes an in-depth look at the Sondheim musical, behind-the-scenes footage of the making of the film, and the history of the legend of the Demon Barber, among a number of additional special features.