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.

Fred Durst may grab the headlines, but Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water really shows that all the power Limp Bizkit are known for comes from their bandmembers who, you know, actually play instruments. Durst's lyrics are wack when he raps and bad high school poetry when he sings.... Of course, there aren't many people looking for deep thoughts from Durst and Co. -- just lots of big, dumb, angry fun. And on that count, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water delivers.

There's the sense that, in trying to be a Tribe-meets-Portishead hybrid, the Manchester, England, production duo of Mark Rae and Steve Christian have missed the target, as if true brilliance lies just around the corners they didn't turn.

Wishville is seamless, expansive and full of go-nowhere moments.

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

Play is a modest, charming little record built on a few simple ideas, and a winner on its own low-key terms: Moby has made the first electronic blues album.

When System's at their best, the Los Angeles four-piece evokes most vividly punk politicos the Dead Kennedys.... Yet the band sputters out when the lyrics are awash in vagueness.

Rule's scattered third album mixes love and war with uneven results, as his simple lyrics and unimaginative storytelling outweigh the stellar musical moments on this 16-cut collection.

With its superslick production and Mariah Carey-esque vocal histrionics, the "Latin" elements in Mi Reflejo are more sanitized than Santana-ized...

Between the songs sung by the cast and those by famous popsters, Music From Baz Luhrmann's Film "Moulin Rouge" has a split personality, but this purposefully assembled collection is more cohesive than you'd think -- and that's something that can't really be said for most modern film albums.

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.

None of these songs are as ear-catching as the first album's "Gotta Man." And to play up Swizz Beatz's contributions is to point out how frequently Eve gets lots in the beats when they're slamming, and how she never enhances them when they're not.

Tipsy's second album, Uh-Oh!, doesn't just rehash the mid-'90s martini-music comeback, it recasts it, ushering the exotica percussion, soaring strings, tinny organs and surf guitars of Combustible Edison and Esquivel into a brave new world of looped breakbeats and laptop trickery.

Looks and charm can only do so much, and without a distinctive sound or banging tracks, Tyrese tends to get lost in the shuffle...

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

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.

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

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

Lions has got style to spare, but ends up light on meaty hooks.

On the surface, Callahan sounds like he's getting out more.

It opens with a nine-minute song. It's a concept album. Worse still, it's a science fiction concept album. With songs about robots. But here's the thing: Every time I listen to it, I don't hate it.... The combination of prog-rock ambition, scrappy sounds and the odd hip reference almost make it feel like Pink Floyd growing up and making a disc in the post-Beck era.

All told, eight producers (including Nicks) were involved in the production of Trouble in Shangri-La, and not everybody is up to the challenge.

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

Rather than an abdication, In the Mode is a defiant and defensive statement.... This bristling new approach pays off well for the most part. As on New Forms, some of the best moments come when the crew mixes some soul and R&B stylings into the proceedings... At times the determination to keep the beats pounding hard and heavy leads to a slightly generic feel, especially on the instrumental cuts.

Nonetheless, while more ambitious than almost all of today's metal-flaked rock competition, the 19-track Holy Wood is not without its problems. On numbers such as "President Dead" and "Cruci-Fiction in Space," the band seems to be just rehashing old terrain. And, while The Wall may be a worthy role model, Manson and company don't quite have Pink Floyd's lyrical or musical range, adding to the rote feeling that troubles some of this overlong (60+ minutes) disc.

Colvin has a small but honeyed voice, never too sad or too happy, and multi-instrumentalist [producer John] Leventhal has encased it in caressing arrangements, complete with the occasional string quartet. The ensuing pleasures are generally low-key, and while one can appreciate the attentive craftsmanship applied to each song, the cumulative mood is a little snoozy.

Mink Car is all over the map, an ideal piece of entertainment for listeners simultaneously blessed and cursed with high IQs and attention deficit disorder.

On their fourth album, Bedlam Ballroom, the Zippers have concocted another stew of lively dance music. Problem is, with so many people having jumped on the swing revival bandwagon, the group's new material sounds dated. And not in a good way, either -- it merely recalls a fad, rather than evoking the bevy of twentieth-century American music styles the Zippers have long been in love with.

Ron Sexsmith actually rocks, albeit only sort of and irregularly.

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.

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

Fans of new British bands like Gomez or Minibar should find plenty to like.

This collection is a sugar-high set, adrenalized even more than Blink's souped-up studio albums by the waves of Cheap Trick Live at Budokan-like female screams pouring from the audience. And the playing offers plenty of evidence to quiet anyone who thinks these guys are just three-chord wonders.... But young audiences love Blink shows in part for the wiseacre, self-deprecating quips, and this album is full 'em -- and not just between songs, as there are (count 'em) 29 extra tracks of banter lasting over 10 minutes at the album's end.

Call this music "experimental easy-listening" -- neither strident enough to warrant serious commercial attention, nor sufficiently free-form to attract all the independent obsessives.

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.

Green Day's melodies are as delicious as ever, and the band continues to integrate acoustic guitar into its sound without getting all granola on us. But as a songwriter, Armstrong's neither here nor there, unable to fully abandon his goofball roots but not stretching far enough to score the breakaway great album he's always seemed capable of writing.

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

The album never truly develops, as the group prefers to rehash old stuff rather than break new ground.

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.

At once epic, playful and a little bit strange, the duo's latest effort perpetuates the brothers' patented geek-chic, though things come across as more introspective and ambient this time around.... Alternately excellent, kitschy and lackluster...

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.

Unfortunately, the obtrusive vocals mess up the vibe like an unwelcome party crasher. Underworld's experiments with electronica, vocals and rock are dismal failures.

Back-to-church-basement harmonies and familiar pledges of eternal devotion.

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

Unfortunately, A Day Without Rain, Enya's first new studio album in five years, lacks the edge that could pry it loose from the New Age niche. The Irish traditional music Enya performed so skillfully in the early 1980s with Clannad has by now largely disappeared in a mélange of sly, Celtic-flavored pop hooks and muddled mysticism. The only mystery is why it took her so long to come up with something so short (under 35 minutes) -- and, in many spots, so uninspired.

It sounds like she couldn't care less if anyone's listening.

Ultimately, the four-on-the-floor rhythm and riffing quickly become repetitive, blunting Get Ready's impact.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Like a legion of goths before them, singer Jason Miller and Manson have many of the same obsessions: the death of God, suicide, the return of God, the slow descent into hell and icky piles of dirt. In Godhead's case, all of that terrain is covered in just the album's opening track, the NIN-meets-New Order new wave rocker "The Reckoning."

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.

For the most part, the seven new tracks on The First of the Microbe Hunters, which is technically an EP, feel all too similar to last year's Cobra Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night...

Yes, this is their "mature" album, the one where the once effervescent combo that could be counted on for enough hooky innuendoes to excite pre-teen girls and dirty young men alike aspire toward some sort of longer-lasting pop relevance. Which translates here into ballads and a huge dose of R&B-lite. It all sounds very professional, though only a hardcore fan can deny that the bloom is definitely off the rose.

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.

Overall, though, this is one of those odd little albums that the ever-prolific Young comes up with periodically -- dotted with a few flashes of inspiration, ultimately sunk by a lot of by-rote artistic adequacy.