Their movement toward non-nooky maturity continues here with tunes like the melodic and soaring "Wish You Were Here" and the dramatic "Warning"--each showing a more reflective and poetic side than before.

A warm serving of elegant late-night ballads that infuse acoustic and pedal-steel guitars with back-porch rhythms and arrangements.

The band sounds strong but derivative of its own best work.

The long-standing ambient-techno pioneer uses everything from heart-attack-paced jungle to classically minded electronic minimalism to remind us why bands like Radiohead cite him as an influence

The lyrics are as trite and cheesy as ever, but age and playing house with No Doubt's Gwen Stefani have mellowed model-esque frontman Rossdale.

Backed by 22-year-old grandson Cedric Burnside on drums and longtime slide-guitar partner Kenny Brown, the trio locks into a groove almost instinctually on tracks like "Skinny Woman" and "Goin' Down South."

Record buyers will find nothing as good on Atomic as the breakout bubblegum slacker-punk of "My Own Worst Enemy."

Mellencamp's crackling, gorgeous Heartland pop resonates more now than ever--even if, at times, he sounds like he's ripping off his best guitar moves.

The best tracks--"Crystal" and "Turn My Way"--sound like they were recorded in 1987.

It's a welcome change to the current hard-rock juggernaut.

10 mediocre new songs.

The treasures in this latest pile of Garbage may not be as apparent as they were in the past, but the goodies are still there.

The hip-hopper's gravelly vocal style benefits greatly from the many collaborations here.

A rather complacent set of radio-ready lite alt-rock.

Per usual, the content is clouded in misery--the kind of soft, sad and touching tracks that'll have Dido fans rediscovering this Greenwich Village adult-alternative pioneer

Shelve this one next to that Adam Sandler CD you haven't listened to in four years.

The electric mood of Adams' sophomore disc definitely reflects his good fortunes and knack for solid songcraft.

Clever? Yes. Stupid? Possibly. Essential? Absolutely.

Musically, the album bounces from a full-on urban polka ("Oblivion") to tracks with plenty of Apollo Showtime-style organs, horns and disco and funk elements that keep the wacky tales from sounding wack.

Ed Kowalczyk and crew burden their sound with angry guitars, pseudoraps and needless swearing torn straight outta the Fred Durst book of lyric writing.

But by not lyrically responding to the originals--like Liz Phair did for Exile in Guyville, for instance--Tori stops short of high concept and more than once slips from being revolutionary to simply pretentious.

[Dylan's] most cohesive work in over a decade...

Casual fans of modern rock may drown here (and probably won't get it), but admirers of like-minded artists such as the Flaming Lips and Built to Spill will certainly get Rev-ved up.

This hand-clapping, disco-ball-driven journey sounds like all the other stuff in [Jay Kay's] catalog.

The Bed-Stuy boy musters up enough of his own charisma, charm and wit to build another solid release.

She throws so much sparkle, shine and, yes, glitter at us that even tracks about her friend's suicide and her recent breakup are as glossy as her latest publicity shot.

Where the debut sometimes resembled a psycho-ward jam session, System serve up some surprising melodies on "Chop Suey!" "Forest" and the haunting "Aerials."

Unlike previous albums, The Altogether doesn't really take the listener on some mind-altering trip. It simply throws together some half-baked novelties, some wasted and underwhelming guest appearances and a bunch of rhythmic ideas that would have sounded infinitely better a decade ago.

Anchored in the surreal goofball art rock, club beats and bubblegum punk that made anomaly hits like 1996's "Pepper" so cool, frontman Gibby Haines and gang sugarcoat their standardized tales of decay and hallucinogens but keep some delicious bitterness intact.

Is a welcoming entrance for new fans as much as it is another fine chapter for the diehards.

Injecting the album with plenty of soul, gospel and throwbacks to that old-school Motown sound, producers like the Neptunes, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and guests like Eve help round out what's possibly the best R&B album this year.

Björk's latest is as delightfully eccentric as her choice in outfits, blending scratchy electronic programming with tinkling music boxes and squeezing her formidable voice into ancient-sounding harmonies or futuristic whispers.

After too many calls for the end of humanity and playing the Satan card a few times, all the yelling becomes little more than a humorless joke.

The odd combination of Coomes' rinky-dink keyboards and Weiss' booming beat is scrappy, stripped-down and still charmingly unlike anything else out there.

Krauss is blessed with one of the most coolly beautiful voices on record, and she's often better than her material, which is once again the case here.

Maxwell's latest finds the steady and seductive soul-provider drawing more from the class of Marvin Gaye than the trash of R. Kelly--with a touch of spirituality thrown in.

But even a busload of heavyweight producers and guests (P. Diddy, Jermaine Dupri, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the Neptunes and more) can't help this Babyface prodigy from playing it too same-y here.

It's still the group's own thumping concoctions--"Ready for Action" and "Blowout," for instance--that ring the loudest.

A less produced, totally honest and much more sparse collection than what fans were dancing to with Omnipop.

'N Sync reminds us why boy bands were put on this earth in the first place: to have a good time.

It's mostly funny, but it also gets kind of same-y as these average Joes embrace their marching-band backgrounds and revel in self-deprecating humor.

His backing band's heavy-metal veering leans toward the generic. Only the Igster's sometimes fierce (but fading) yowl adds enough soul--and insanity--to make them at least momentarily credible.

Oddly enough, he not only makes it work, he makes it a whopping success.

It delivers the ultimate knockout--sticky R&B grooves and a heavenly falsetto that point to greats like Marvin Gaye ("Soul Sista") and Stevie Wonder ("Queen Sanity").

Though not as immediate as some of her past mainstream work, Aaliyah's latest has the smoky temptress slowly working her way through R&B, hip-hop and even slightly techno beats...

The overall psychedelic mood works wonders for any self-respecting fan of the Beach Boys and David Bowie.

Armed with a summer anthem and all ("Lucy Doesn't Love You"), it shouldn't be long before Ivy's popularity grows.

With their intensely layered harmonies, pounding rhythms and Martsch's own nasal drawl, songs like "Alarmed" and "You Are" are sublimely hummable pop gems.

A solid pop-rock album filled with brutally honest lyrics.

The worst part of Tricky's comeback disc is, well, Tricky himself.

Teeters on '80s synth cheese every now and again.

A balanced effort that mainly recalls his smooth soul-man Dru Hill days but doesn't forget the power of rump-shaking party jams.

But once those fleeting, producer-driven thrills die down, the remainder of the album takes a middle-of-the-road, midtempo stance that goes from covering her age issues on "17" to getting downright silly and insipid about looove with "Saturate Me."

This sub-par group's darker efforts to push society's hot buttons and dis others are ultimately more silly than sinister.

Cleverly mixes soft-focus hip-hop, trippy space rock and Ennio Morricone-style melodrama with Albarn's unwavering pop melodies.

And while it might be difficult to swallow yet another dose of hip-hop-lite and poor-me acoustic pop songs from chick-magnet lead singer Mark McGrath and gang, these Southern California boys make the everyman breeziness work for them.

Overflowing with sparkling riffs and rhythms punched up with the kind of self-deprecating, angst-lite lyrics the boys craft so well.

This feather-light affair simply lacks any real memorable tunes.

Fusing R&B, pop, jazz, blues, throwback soul--hell, you name it--Keys delivers grandstand ballads (like the single "Fallin' "), midtempo music, diary-worthy lyrics and feminist funk as if they were all as uncomplicated as scales.

While this sounds mostly like incomplete leftovers, there are a few tasty treats: The lonely guitar of "Knives Out," that dirty beat pulsating under "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" and the hypnotic body-ponging of "I Might Be Wrong."

The best stuff here eschews tradition for sonic rebellion...

The rest of the disc glides along on that same smooth, if lightweight style, with Tyrese serving as little more than a hot conduit for top-notch producers and writers like Babyface, Jermaine Dupree and Diane Warren. Luckily, Tyrese can sing.

Elliott keeps her sharp raps relatively slow-moving over the space-age production and allows room for the long list of guests like Ludacris, Busta Rhymes and Da Brat to shine.

Lateralus takes the L.A. band over the edge with elongated musical movements that simmer under heavy-duty distortion, Middle Eastern percussion and freakish guitar-and-drum time signatures that will make musical mathematicians (i.e., prog-rock dorks) as excited as the kids in the mosh pit.

Set to a backdrop that brings to mind Creed, Pearl Jam and Tool but still uniquely stands on its own, the album tackles subjects of suicide and basic alienation with relative control and directness.

It gets somewhat spotty when naughty numbers like "Bootylicious" and "Nasty Girl" swing against a praise-the-lord melody, and "DC-3" is little more than a self-referential pat on the back to friendship and success.

A packed 73-minute disc with breathy vocals, smooth R&B jams and seductive sentiments.

Deeper Bruce fans will go ga-ga over the dearth of hits on this collection and twists like "Born in the U.S.A." getting a Nebraska-esque treatment and a great version of "Jungleland." Everyone else will simply love it.

These five regular San Francisco joes know a thing or two about the kind of midtempo, acoustic-based rock that makes for a smooth, radio-ready ride.

Los fans--as well as those who just love great, spicy rhythms--will quickly learn that they Canto live without this disc.

More diverse than you might think...

Nearly missing are the charming sax and violin song augmentations. Gone are the tunes that are too long but always find their way back. And gone is some of Matthew's long-faced songwriting personality--now all gussied up in a swirl of quick hits, easy ballads and electric guitar.

She's little more than an ex-Fly Girl with a bunch of studio tricks to help kick off the party.

Beck's best when he's tweaking music he has a genuine interest in, giving new humor and affection to his nasty grooves.

Musically this is more varied and muscular than her debut ... vocally she rocks harder. And though she still ain't exactly perky, she does sound less sullen.

A leader of the old school teams up with an upstart from the new, and the classy result is the way-out antics of Handsome Boy Modeling School.

You either get the concept or you don't, but those who do will feel tingly all the way down to the base of their dance-floor spines.

Having scored a minor hit with a track that appeared on the Kids soundtrack, the group now has a big-label deal and a hip new style--still recognizably moody and tentative, but with enough down-tempo beats and electronic knob-tweaking to drift into trip-hop territory.

There are plenty of throwaway tunes, and the sound quality is decidedly lo-fi, but what's most surprising about this three-CD collection is the number of good songs.

The Jaxx prove they can make this old house music exciting and new.

Combines Beach Boys harmonies, Pink Floyd-influenced orchestral rock and the lonely-heart vocal style of such '70s icons as Big Star and Neil Young.

Unlike so many other cut-and-paste experiments, this actually sounds like music and not a clever science project.

So maybe Black Foliage can be a bit self-indulgent and uneven at times (the short connecting tracks that recur throughout the album, for example), but such missteps go along with a brimming imagination that boldly explores the outer limits of rock's subconscious.

Little gems are overwhelmed by sprawling jam tracks that, well, blur into each other.

Imagine a dance floor where Steve Reich raves, Talking Heads reunite and disco divas shake their booty with pierced punks.