Unified Theory play melodramatic art rock (with a capital AOR) in a Meatloaf-meets-Jane's Addiction kind of way. Their music plods along with all the grace of a Pinto sans muffler, substituting grandiosity for grace and thus failing to achieve the dramatically transcendent sounds that Roy Orbison and Jeff Buckley once made.

It's hard to imagine The Golden D as having much of an impact.

The resonant and smooth singing takes some getting used to if you're familiar with earlier, craggier, quirkier recordings, but by the gallant train-wreck tragedy of "Engine 143", I found myself singing along.

This time around, the group eschews player-hating specificity but hits equally hard (albeit with subtler blows) against the commercially dominated empire of gangsta and hoochie rap.

He's responsible for some of the most classic (and controversial) jams in the history of hip-hop.

The spy-music fetish and dubbed-out paranoia of the band's first two albums are traded in for earthy Stax soul and sprightly disco funk, along with plenty of turntable wobbles, wah-wah scratches and analog squiggles...

They may not always transcend their influences, but even when they don't, they make wallowing in them a helluva lot of fun.

In an age of "been there, done that" cynicism, Rancid come across like true believers...

The results are unfortunately as atrocious as they are blasphemous, setting a tone that keeps Vavoom! mostly falling flat on its straining-to-jump-jive-an'-wail face.

If you fish around a bit, you'll find several good ideas here, some of which may have worked better in different hands.

Featuring vocal contributions from Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie, punk-blues aficionado Jon Spencer and ex-Tricky collaborator Martina Toppley-Bird, Bow Down to the Exit Sign is a dark, soul-wrenching trip through an even darker world.

It's ironic that for all of his intelligence, passion and obvious talent, Canibus chose to stoop to the caveman mentality so apparent on this release.

While love- and life-torn Alexakis might lyrically be working familiar terrain here, he has the smarts to place his odes to abuse and regret into an intriguing assortment of different contexts, making this album well worth listening to

Would this band be getting so much attention if Keanu Reeves wasn't the bass player? Of course not. Do they stink? No. Are they any good? Maybe.

The result is entertaining but so bound by the requirements of Jamaican and American clichés that there's not much room left for his own personality to come through.

Imagine Charles Bukowski or Irvine Welsh reading poetry with musical accompaniment provided by Joy Division, and you've got the general idea.

There's almost no drama to be found on Alone With Everybody... [t]he songs don't turn corners, and they fail to elicit any real emotional response.

Horns, keyboards and acoustic guitars dominate the 10 tracks here, with an overall live sound that steers clear of the studio effects the band embraced with their last release, Guerrilla.

A strong rebound that finds lang supported by the sleek, techno-lite production of Damian leGassick?

On this latest offering there's hardly any indication that the band was ever the product of post-grunge Seattle.... But this refined sound is also where The Rising Tide starts to sink.

When you can make out their lyrics... you realize that these guys are really the artier, more nuanced and textured cousins of Korn.

The resulting sonic model represents a giant step in the evolution of sound sculpture

Even though O'Connor adopts a penitent tone on Faith and Courage, this album is no concession to anyone or anything. O'Connor is still O'Connor: strident, contradictory, motherly, seductive.

Isaac Brock's goofy, hyperactive child voice, capable of earnest whine and arch speed-rap, peels the lid off his inability (refusal?) to come across as cool.

Although Sound of Water, Saint Etienne's fifth album, may not be as overtly clever as 1991's Foxbase Alpha or as thematically consistent as 1998's Good Humor, it is as subtle as an Antonio Carlos Jobim tune and as mysteriously satisfying as a lazy summer night.

Why is Quality Control -- an album no doubt many will love simply because of its hip- hop politics -- so damn bland? For all their good intentions, J5's results are so monochromatic, of such a singular focus on staying true to a specific kind of hip-hop blueprint, that even the inclusion of grinning left-field randomness... lacks the fun it means to inject.

With Movement in Still Life however, BT (born Brian Transeau) offers something many of his peers have failed to deliver: an album that accurately and convincingly reflects dance music's present state and, possibly, its future.