John and Frank Navin, the brotherly core of Chicago's Aluminum Group, produce impeccably tailored bachelor-pad pop with a cynical bite -- like a less restrained Sea & Cake or a more Anglicized Stereolab.... More post-consumer than post-rock, the Aluminum Group's environmentally conscious sounds will make your ears feel as comfortable and cultured as fine quality furnishings.

Lacking Pierce's unifying vision, The Carnivorous Lunar Activities Of ... tries hard to make a virtue out of stylistic schizophrenia, and only partly succeeds.

This album shows a band eager to expand its creative range. One wonders, sadly, what might have come next.

Despite their retro stylings, this Orange County, California band has served up a sixth album that is better (by leaps and bounds) than the punk-by-numbers that dominated their first two albums, 1989's Offspring and '93's Ignition. Further, Conspiracy has more well-written, hook-laden songs than anything found on their fluke indie hit, '94's fittingly titled Smash, or their too-boring-to-be-a-sell-out 1997 major label debut, Ixnay on the Hombre.

On the plus side, the album sounds really nice.... The problem is, things get a little too lazy and hazy; Reveal's 12 tracks all move with almost the exact same dreamy, midtempo lope.

Much of the album has the odd, rehashed sound of a Blur record produced by the Automator, but the diverse guests keep at least every other song fresh and new.

It's an uneven mix that frustrates by offering just samples of what Pearl Jam increasingly does best, namely, provide clear and, yes, quiet stories about the travails of everyday life.

Just as Stewart's last major hit wisely spoke directly to his generation, Human unwisely seeks to plug him into the present one.

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

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

The problem is, as the album drags on, young Master Mathers wastes his considerable wit and opts to grouse in the guise of a rampaging reactionary. Song after song finds Eminem viciously baiting real and imagined enemies, as if that's all he knows how to do.

Twisted Tenderness hits its turning point on the title track (RealAudio excerpt), a solitary, surefire progressive-house hit that recalls the Pet Shop Boys' 1999 album, Nightlife. From that point the album's energy improves considerably -- so there's the twist: It's not new, but it's improved.

Unfortunately, the heavy-handed folk-pop production... doesn't serve Williams well here.... In general, the overwrought keyboards and Steve Holley's percussion... could use a good slapdown.

Kid A represents the first time in Radiohead's short history where their desire to do something different has outrun their ability to give their experiments a personal imprint. The problem with the album isn't that it's introspective, or obscure, or even that it's derivative (alternately conjuring Eno, Aphex Twin, Pink Floyd and so forth), but rather that the striking group personality so well defined on the last two collections has seemed to evaporate.

Wildly uneven -

On this excursion into the noodle-prone mind of Mr. Lee. True, all the lyrics are his and his alone, but after all this time, plenty of Peart has rubbed off on him, resulting in much impenetrable mumbo jumbo about the universe and its "secrets" ("The Angels Share") and the workings of the mind...

For the most part, Malpractice unfortunately matches Redman's pro forma boasts and refreshing modesty with pro forma music and not-so-refreshing beats.

Devils Night is nothing special, and it's only saved from the slush pile by Eminem's inventive, cutting-edge raps and Dr. Dre's so-funky-it's-evil production.

Date of Birth is packed with hard-driving, repetitive beats that are equal parts Wu-Tang Clan and Gang Starr, yet the music lacks either of those groups' charms.

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.

Unfortunately, this newest attempt at expanding the group's musical horizons is more a lateral move than a vertical one, and the same problems that have plagued Better Than Ezra since Deluxe -- mawkish, derivative material -- undermine this effort as well.

The problem isn't so much that this album sounds dated (not surprising, as it was recorded back when Lil Bow Wow was in pre-K), but rather that the songs are so poorly mixed and produced...

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.

A mostly disappointing misfire that seems too eager for commercial pop success.

She lets [the songs] drift off into the kind of embalmed chamber music respectability often synonymous with the Nonesuch label.

Communicate's energy level lags in places, trying to make up for in quantity what it lacks in consistent quality.

Unfortunately, they've simply traded one constrictive, predictable format for another.

On Bridge, they're still traveling down the long and winding improvisational road, with most of the tracks averaging around five minutes in length (as is true with most of their studio albums). This time out, though, the songs feel like they're twice that.