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.

Though many of the songs here are associated with male artists, James usually succeeds in injecting her own womanly strength and style into her renditions, making the tunes indisputably her own.

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.

There are more flashes of the old White Light/White Heat Reed than the old crank has provided even diehard loyalists in years.

Ivy specialize in nebulously oriented dream-pop: too ethereal for straight pop fans, too structured for the 4AD crowd. The result is rather like Swing Out Sister playing with all the rock and roll abandon of, say, the Sundays.

A fresh, if unfocused, work saturated with zany personality.

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.

Like a cross between Fatboy's cheekiness and the Chems' psychedelia, Super Sound is certainly slick, but it also confirms suspicions that big beat has hit a creative dead end.

Ween are at their best when they either dive headlong into ridiculousness or play it totally straight (admittedly, they don't do the latter very often). Here, however, they walk a rickety platform between those extremes and frequently fall into the ironizer's pit.

While the album stays true to the group's legacy of alcohol-themed, head-nodding party anthems, it falls short by schematically aping other artists' music.

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.

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.

It's too lightweight and silly to appeal to those looking for musical innovation, and the songs aren't focused or fully developed enough to grab new fans. Mostly, it's just a really annoying album.

Fizzy but numbingly predictable.... The delightful element of surprise occasioned by Martin's breakthrough English-language debut has been replaced by a formula-milking attempt to replicate its track record. This is particularly disappointing, since in concert Martin stirs things up by doing more than nodding to his roots.

Wildly uneven -

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.

Traditionalist rock fans have got to be cheered by Fastball, a group plucky enough to take on teenage pop bands and rap-rock sensations with perky harmonies and piles of guitars. But in the end, songs like these shine brightest outside of the album context, as stand-alone songs coming out of the dashboard radio.

While Beyoncé is credited with co-writing and co-producing the entire album, merging the Destiny's Child camp with a stronger guiding hand (say, the Rodney Jerkins tribe) might've helped weed out the weaker material -- and kept the flame going throughout this uneven album.

My World, My Way, despite its flaws, may be the New Orleans label's most heroic effort yet, as Silkk parlays a strong message -- about hardcore rap, and real life, and the relationship between the two.

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.

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.

Inevitably, all the shifts in tempo, mood and lyrical slant ultimately hurt Morning View more than they help.

The most memorable tracks on Pieces in a Modern Style feel like high-brow Puff Daddy songs...

Tweekend isn't a giant leap forward for the Crystal Method, but it certainly doesn't keep them trapped in the past.

Van Helden continues to battle being pigeonholed by throwing disparate musical elements into the mix; unfortunately, the resulting musical tapestry is uneven.

Filled with the sort of aggressive, testosterone-fueled rage that has helped make DMX the Henry Rollins of hardcore hip-hop.

The dearth of memorable melodies ruins the once-successful formula.