Black & Blue finds the Boys traveling all-too-familiar prefab-pop terrain (production-wise, it's the sonic twin of teen queen Britney's most recent effort), with overwhelmingly forgettable results.

Slim's Halfway only reaches heaven twice (Macy Gray's two star turns), and otherwise trolls, not in a gutter, but in what feels like interminable traffic. Most of Halfway's songs extend past the five minute mark, and like a movie that hasn't felt the firming up of a good editor's hands, they feel way too long. If guest vocalist Macy Gray hadn't shown up for Fatboy's party, Halfway might be the year's biggest letdown.

The bottom-line is that while All is a good album, it isn't a great one.... All largely rides somewhere in the '80s, hitting a few heights (the ruminative "New York"), while occasionally missing the target altogether ("Peace on Earth").

Sun's production is disappointingly safe, walking down a very predictable, somewhat dated road, instead of machete-chopping a path of its own.... [Its] most dazzling moments are its most straightforward -- the ones where Mullins strips away his affectations and flashes naked emotion.

They have a saying around recording studios: you can't polish a turd. Well, thanks to producer Terry Date, Starfish just might be one of the shiniest pieces of pooh in the world of waste.

Vapor Transmission, the follow-up to Orgy's 1998 debut, Candyass, is as sci-fi, inorganic and over-produced as the title implies. Sometimes the stainless steel robotics work, and sometimes they don't.

Rule's sandblasted voice is as memorable as ever. But his unmistakable vocal presence is wasted on joints that fall way short of the impact made by his breakthrough hit ["Holla, Holla"].

At first, it may sound void of the instantly accessible pile of hits from Dookie and the handful more from Insomniac, but the album's social conscience and cunning lyrics make it a Warning to be heeded.

On his new album, You're the One, the singer's lyrics are masterful as ever, but their emotional punch is compromised considerably by syrupy melodies and uninspired production.

Does the world really need another mediocre pop-rock album rife with trite lyrics, aimless melodies and bloated production?

It plays like an enjoyable variety show, since, as opposed to star turns, Willie's company puts in guest appearances, creating a strange mixture of not enough or a little too much (save for Willie's solo turns).

Unfortunately seems to lack that goofiness that had previously made them one of rock-and-roll's coolest nerd bands.

Though the album finds Osborne a blues-belting, soul-sizzling, R&B vocalist... most of the songs just don't work in spite of the fact that all of Osborne's ducks (lyrics, music, arrangements and production) are lined up nicely.... Osborne's musical diversity and experimentation are brave actions in the face of the smothering homogeneity that continues to invade the art form, but even the most excellent elements will fall to certain ruination if miscombined.

It's Like This finds Jones and her top-notch team of instrumentalists doing justice to the brilliant material she's selected, creating a musical wonderland where timeless songs meet spirited, lovely performances.

The real genius of Almost Famous, however, is the inclusion of the exquisite and infuriatingly overlooked Led Zeppelin ode "That's the Way," as well as David Bowie's rare (but not impossible to acquire) live cover of Lou Reed's "I'm Waiting for the Man." And herein lies Crowe's smoking gun with which he shoots himself in the foot. If these songs are worth having (and they absolutely are) and are the best that Almost Famous has to offer (ditto), so too are the entire albums from whence they come, Led Zeppelin III and Santa Monica '72.

the album shows that the group has the power to whip audiences into a frenzy with beats and loops that feel remarkably organic and spontaneous.... Everything should be required listening for those who question the validity of electronic in a live format.

At the Drive-In (from El Paso, Texas) picks up where Jane's Addiction leaves off, emitting that thin, distinctive Perry Farrell upper register vocal amid a post-punk apocalyptic guitar/bass/drums detonation. Good for the Addiction, not so good for the Drive-In.

His latest release pops to life with the Beatlesque piano beat of "Humble Bee" and maintains a buoyant atmosphere throughout.

Packed to the brim with all sorts of surprising twists and turns, Jean's Ecleftic plays like a cheeky earful of the multi-culti future of hip-hop.

Though G.O.A.T.'s songs are all new, they do bear more than a whiff of the familiar, with the rapper looking back in time to invoke the tried-and-true formulas which have brought him chart-topping success throughout his storied career.

The group spiffs up their sound and takes it cruising in a modern direction -- proving that there's plenty of life left in them yet.... The caveat? In updating their grooves to sound like everybody else's, the band has succeeded in -- well, sounding like everybody else.

Being that the band's name is derivative, so are many of these Thirteen Tales they tell.

Fast, furious and full of wicked good fun...

This is true hepcat music -- shaken rockabilly, stirred swing, chilled Big Band and it's finger-snappin' upbeat all the way through.

Sometimes reminiscent of classic English prog-rockers the Moody Blues and the correlating Electric Light Orchestra (as in "Rescue" and "Girl Eyes"), Eve 6 mostly sounds like a safer version of their numeric brethren Third Eye Blind, Blink 182 and even matchbox twenty

"Learning How to Smile" has compelling subject matter in its reminiscence of love among the white trash ruins, but its climactic strings and cheery chords feel like a theme song to the latest WB teen-sex drama.

Alone With Everybody is a good album with great moments.

Brown has mixed the best elements of '60s British flower power rock, a la the Moody Blues, with a new century's technology to create a potent, dream-inducing electronica brew.