Pitching in on Road Rock are such longstanding Young cohorts as Spooner Oldham (keyboards), Jim Keltner (drums), and Ben Keith (guitars), but such is the CD's murky sound that the contributions of all are rendered a bit flat. Moreover, although the collection clocks in at 65 minutes, the performance feels truncated and lacks thematic unity.

What is meant to sound languid and trippy instead comes across as overwrought and pretentious?

OCS is quite simply straight-up and ultra-refreshing, expert in crafting great pop songs and equally adept at letting the music do its talking.

An album awash in old new wave sonics, borrowed Ziggy-isms, and facile science fiction claptrap. As you'd expect with an album called Vapor Transmission, it suffers from quite a bit of gas.

There's not much fat here, but there's not much meat and bone, either. If the Offspring, still the most successful of all the latter-day Southern California punkers, once had interest in teasing and amusing its fans, it has largely hidden those qualities this time around.

His impressively relentless battle raps offer a barrage of metaphorical violence delivered with a vehement rat-a-tat-tat.

Not only do many of the tunes have a similar feel, but Monahan, whose dusty vocals put the band on the map with the hit single "Meet Virginia" in 1999, is regularly drowned out by the soaring guitars and effects.

From the start, Because We Hate You presents itself as a rawer, more blustery affair.

On the group's first live album --a two-CD set recorded during triumphant return shows at London's Wembley Arena this summer -- however, the maturity that has started to pervade their personal lives, and Noel's music, is evident.

The surprise is how extraordinarily well it all fits together, songs and guest vocalists pulled from all over the landscape, all blues and all inescapably Willie.

She's older, wiser, and more steadied in her approach across the 11 songs that make up the album, but had this disc come out in 1997 or 1998, it would've been seen as a somewhat less-impressive follow-up to Relish.

They've offered us more inventive, more substantial work in the past...

The only significant problem with Kidman and McGregor's numbers, which constitute half of this 15-track set, is that they don't work as well without the accompanying visuals.

Maroon is BNL's grown-up album, still full of clever wordplay and winking couplets, but also dealing with dark and sometimes disarming matters of adulthood.

Since Headache doesn't go for any of Rush's extended instrumental outings or skewed dynamics, the onus is on Lee and Mink's melodies, which are generally strong and taut, building on familiar elements but adding a bit more sheen and smoothly executed changes to the mix.

Like far too many bands whose members bring strong musical pedigrees to the project, Unified Theory's sum is less than its parts -- despite, or perhaps because of, an abundance of adventurous spirit and experimental zeal.

The band has introduced cleanser and furniture polish into the summer cleaning, sweeping away the rough edges and brightening up the melodies, which results in the group's best-sounding album to date.

Stewart is surely a fine singer, but not quite at that level of being able to make the phone book sound like a masterpiece. He needs the songs, and on Human, he's only as good as the material that others provide.

P's best effort yet, a 70-minute affair with not quite as much filler as he's weighed in with on past projects.

Matchbox Twenty never claimed to be original or challenging or anything more than a lightweight and entertaining pop band. Which is why Mad Season, with its rather casual and jammy feel, is so surprising, so substantial, and much more satisfying than expected.

The lack of quality material here isn't the only problem with Revelation; the entire production lags as well.

She still suffers under the Whitney-Mariah delusion that Volume equals Passion, which proves to be her greatest undoing on this 11-song set.

This is as base as it gets, friends, a frantic, frenetic, and unapologetically adolescent orgy of sexual and scatological tomfoolery.

The members of Blues Traveler, new and old, still play better than they write songs, but there's no denying that the group's indefatigable spirit remains engaging.

Unfortunately, Rule 3:36, which does feature a few worthwhile moments, doesn't string enough strong tracks together to be a cohesive, effective listen.

Too often Coxon's sketches-in-song come off as coy experiments -- fascinating to himself, perhaps, but holding little interest for those of us outside the lab.

Soul Daddy offers the real spirit of the Daddies, a blend of styles that rocks as much as it swings, taking side trips into soul reggae and smoky lounge blues along the way. The combination makes for a much more potent recording.

Bereft of the spectacle that is Pink Floyd these days, it's hard to work up much enthusiasm for still another round of new versions of old classics.