Late Night Alumni - Empty Streets (Mp3 Download)

Track Lists
01. Seemingly Sleep
02. Rainy Day
03. Empty Streets
04. The Rest Of You
05. Sunrise Comes Too Soon
06. Eros
07. Keep Up With Me
08. Heaven
09. Beautiful
10. Meant To Be
11. All For Nothing
12. Nothing Left To Say

The Clash - London Calling (Mp3 Download)

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine @ allmusic.com

Give 'Em Enough Rope, for all of its many attributes, was essentially a holding pattern for the Clash, but the double-album London Calling is a remarkable leap forward, incorporating the punk aesthetic into rock & roll mythology and roots music. Before, the Clash had experimented with reggae, but that was no preparation for the dizzying array of styles on London Calling. There's punk and reggae, but there's also rockabilly, ska, New Orleans R&B, pop, lounge jazz, and hard rock; and while the record isn't tied together by a specific theme, its eclecticism and anthemic punk function as a rallying call. While many of the songs -- particularly "London Calling," "Spanish Bombs," and "The Guns of Brixton" -- are explicitly political, by acknowledging no boundaries the music itself is political and revolutionary. But it is also invigorating, rocking harder and with more purpose than most albums, let alone double albums. Over the course of the record, Joe Strummer and Mick Jones (and Paul Simonon, who wrote "The Guns of Brixton") explore their familiar themes of working-class rebellion and antiestablishment rants, but they also tie them in to old rock & roll traditions and myths, whether it's rockabilly greasers or "Stagger Lee," as well as mavericks like doomed actor Montgomery Clift. The result is a stunning statement of purpose and one of the greatest rock & roll albums ever recorded. [In 2000 Columbia/Legacy reissued and remastered London Calling.]

Track Lists
01. London Calling
02. Brand New Cadillac
03. Jimmy Jazz
04. Hateful
05. Rudie Can't Fail
06. Spanish Bombs
07. The Right Profile
08. Lost In The Supermarket
09. Clampdown
10. The Guns Of Brixton
11. Wrong 'Em Boyo
12. Death Or Glory
13. Koka Kola
14. The Card Cheat
15. Lover's Rock
16. Four Horsemen
17. I'm Not Down
18. Revolution Rock
19. Train In Vain

Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother (Mp3 Download)

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine @ allmusic.com

Appearing after the sprawling, unfocused double-album set Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother may boast more focus, even a concept, yet that doesn't mean it's more accessible. If anything, this is the most impenetrable album Pink Floyd released while on Harvest, which also makes it one of the most interesting of the era. Still, it may be an acquired taste even for fans, especially since it kicks off with a side-long, 23-minute extended orchestral piece that may not seem to head anywhere, but is often intriguing, more in what it suggests than what it achieves. Then, on the second side, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and Rick Wright have a song apiece, winding up with the group composition "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" wrapping it up. Of these, Waters begins developing the voice that made him the group's lead songwriter during their classic era with "If," while Wright has an appealingly mannered, very English psychedelic fantasia on "Summer 68," and Gilmour's "Fat Old Sun" meanders quietly before ending with a guitar workout that leaves no impression. "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast," the 12-minute opus that ends the album, does the same thing, floating for several minutes before ending on a drawn-out jam that finally gets the piece moving. So, there are interesting moments scattered throughout the record, and the work that initially seems so impenetrable winds up being Atom Heart Mother's strongest moment. That it lasts an entire side illustrates that Pink Floyd was getting better with the larger picture instead of the details, since the second side just winds up falling off the tracks, no matter how many good moments there are. This lack of focus means Atom Heart Mother will largely be for cultists, but its unevenness means there's also a lot to cherish here.

Track Lists
01. Atom Heart Mother
02. If
03. Summer '68
04. Fat Old Sun
05. Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast

Rickie Lee Jones - Rickie Lee Jones (Mp3 Download)

Review by William Ruhlmann @ allmusic.com

One of the most impressive debuts for a singer/songwriter ever, this infectious mixture of styles not only features a strong collection of original songs (the hits are "Chuck E's in Love" and "Young Blood, " but "Danny's All-Star Joint" and "Coolsville" are just as good) but also a singer with a savvy, distinctive voice that can be streetwise, childlike, and sophisticated, sometimes all in the same song.

Track Lists
01. Chuck E's In Love
02. On Saturday Afternoons In 1963
03. Night Train
04. Young Blood
05. Easy Money
06. The Last Chance Texaco
07. Danny's All-Star Joint
08. Coolsville
09. Weasel And The White Boys Cool
10. Company
11. After Hours (Twelve Bars Past Goodnight)

Pink Martini - Hang On Little Tomato (Mp3 Download)

Review by Heather Phares @ allmusic.com

It would be easy to liken Pink Martini's music to the lounge and swing revivals of the '90s. However, the 12-piece mini-orchestra's mix of jazz, classical, Latin, and vocal pop sounds more organic than the work of, say, Combustible Edison. Like the Squirrel Nut Zippers -- who were always more than just a straightforward swing revival band -- Pink Martini do more than just rehash their influences; by dabbling in different sounds that they love, they've come up with their own. And even on the most theatrical moments of their second album, Hang On Little Tomato, such as the Yma Sumac-meets-chamber jazz of "U Plavu Zoru" or the smoky Italian ambience of "Una Notte a Napoli," a lot of genuine sentiment shines through. Though most of Hang On Little Tomato -- named after a vintage Hunt's Ketchup ad -- consists of originals, a few well-chosen covers stake out Pink Martini's sonic territory: the festive "Anna (El Negro Zumbon)"; Villa-Lobos' "Song of the Black Swan"; a downright swellegant version of "Let's Never Stop Falling in Love"; and "Kikuchiyo to Moshimasu," which features Hiroshi Wada, the slide guitarist who played on the original recording of the song. Amid all the multiculturalism, Hang On Little Tomato emphasizes the French and Cuban elements of Pink Martini's sound, with "Dansez-Vous" and the lovely "Autrefois" nodding to the former, and the ever-so-slightly mischievous ballad "Lilly" tipping its hat to the latter. The album's moods are almost as wide-ranging as its sounds, spanning the innocence of the title track's '30s pop and the Bacharach-esque sweetness of "Clementine" to the world-weary "Veronique" to the smoky romance of "Aspettami." A more full-fledged album than the band's debut Sympathique, Hang On Little Tomato offers a charmingly populist approach to music.

Track Lists
01. Let's Never Stop Falling In Love
02. Anna (El Negro Zumbon)
03. Hang On Little Tomato
04. The Gardens Of Sampson & Beasley
05. Veronique
06. Dansez-Vouz
07. Lilly
08. Autrefois
09. U Plave Zoru
10. Clementine
11. Una Notte a Napoli
12. Kikuchiyo to Mohshimasu
13. Aspettami
14. Song Of The Black Swan
15. [Bonus Track]

Finch - What It Is To Burn (Mp3 Download)

Review by Jason D. Taylor @ allmusic.com

Finch's full-length debut is a phenomenal account of a band riding the thin line between hardcore and pop-punk while retaining a trademark sound that stands out from the crowd. Incredibly catchy while retaining a shred of independent integrity, Finch brings with them a familiar sound that speaks of years of finely tuned development and maturity, yet in all reality the group has only been together for a few short years. This young group builds on the style they introduced on 2001's Falling Into Place EP, further establishing Finch as one of the most promising bands inhabiting the scene in 2002. "Letters to You" and "Perfection Through Silence" also find their way onto this album from the band's earlier EP, allowing old favorites to feel right at home with the new material. Nate Barcalow's vocals ooze with passion and drip with the expected punk angst, yet where other groups fail at making an emotional connection with the listener, Finch excels at it. Barcalow's prominent melodies woven between the harmonic guitars bores holes in the heart. Glassjaw's Daryl Palumbo lends his recognizable screams on two separate songs, "Grey Matter" and "Project Mayhem," where he and Barcalow play off one another to make each song a must-hear track. Palumbo even sounds vaguely similar to Bad Brains' H.R. when singing on "Grey Matter." "Project Mayhem" lives up to its name, as it's a powerhouse of a song with irate screams and piercing guitar squeals tearing through spastic programming courtesy of Mark Trombino. Finch ventures into emo territory on the sappy "Without You Here," yet the band uses this mellow side sparingly and allows the song to be a refreshing mid-album relaxant. The lyrical poignancy prevents the song from feeling too generic, and it actually allows the listener to feel genuine melancholy, rather shocking for just another pop-punk band. That is just it, though -- Finch isn't just another pop-punk band, as for every "Stay With Me" or "Three Simple Words" that adheres to the typical emo/punk stereotype, there are songs such as the album's opener, "New Beginnings," or the despondent "Ender," which is a momentous opus of programming bliss. What It Is to Burn is an album that exemplifies everything that is right in the punk scene, from the dejected sadness of emo to the agonizing fury of hardcore, and most importantly in Finch's case, the uplifting tones of pop-punk. Finch has exceeded any possible expectations with their debut full-length and, as with their Falling Into Place EP, leaves you craving more.

Track Lists
01. New Beginnings
02. Letters To You
03. Post Script
04. Grey Matter
05. Perfection Through Silence
06. Awake
07. Without You Here
08. Stay With Me
09. Project Mayhem
10. [Untitled]
11. Three Simple Words
12. Ender
13. What It Is To Burn

The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan (Mp3 Download)

Review by Heather Phares @ allmusic.com

According to Jack White, Get Behind Me Satan deals with "characters and the ideal of truth," but in truth, the album is just as much about what people expect from the White Stripes and what they themselves want to deliver. Advance publicity for the album stated that it was written on piano, marimba, and acoustic guitar, suggesting that it was going to be a quiet retreat to the band's little room after the big sound, and bigger success, of Elephant. Then "Blue Orchid," Get Behind Me Satan's lead single, arrived. A devilish slice of disco-metal with heavily processed, nearly robotic riffs, the song was thrilling, but also oddly perfunctory; it felt almost like a caricature of their stripped-down but hard-hitting rock. As the opening track for Get Behind Me Satan, "Blue Orchid" is more than a little perverse, as though the White Stripes are giving their audience the required rock single before getting back to that little room, locking the door behind them, and doing whatever the hell they want. Even Jack White's work on the Cold Mountain soundtrack and Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose isn't adequate preparation for how far-flung this album is: Get Behind Me Satan is a weird, compelling collection that touches on several albums' worth of sounds, and its first four songs are so different from most of the White Stripes' previous music -- as well as from each other -- that, at first, they're downright disorienting. As if the red herring that is "Blue Orchid" isn't enough warning that Get Behind Me Satan is designed to defy expectations, "The Nurse"'s ironically perky marimbas and off-kilter stabs of drums and guitar -- not to mention lyrics like "the nurse should not be the one who puts salt in your wounds" -- make its domestic skulduggery one of the most perplexing and eerie songs the White Stripes have ever recorded (although Meg's brief cameo, "Passive Manipulation," which boasts the refrain "you need to know the difference between a father and a lover," rivals it). "My Doorbell," on the other hand, is almost ridiculously immediate and catchy, and with its skipping beat and brightly bashed pianos, surprisingly funky. Meanwhile, "Forever for Her (Is Over for Me)" turns cleverly structured wordplay and those fluttering marimbas into a summery, affecting ballad.

But despite Get Behind Me Satan's hairpin turns, its inspired imagery and complicated feelings about love hold it together. Though "the ideal of truth" sounds cut-and-dried, the album is filled with ambiguities; even its title, which shortens the biblical phrase "get thee behind me Satan," has a murky meaning -- is it support, or deliverance, from Lucifer that the Stripes are asking for? There are pleading rockers, like the alternately begging and accusatory "Red Rain," and defiant ballads, like "I'm Lonely (But I'm Not That Lonely Yet)," which has a stubborn undercurrent despite its archetypal, tear-in-my-beer country melody. Even Get Behind Me Satan's happiest-sounding song, the joyfully backwoods "Little Ghost," is haunted by loving someone who might not have been there in the first place. The ghostly presence of Rita Hayworth also plays a significant part on the album, on "White Moon" and the excellent "Take, Take, Take," a sharply drawn vignette about greed and celebrity: over the course of the song, the main character goes from just being happy to hanging out with his friends in a seedy bar to demanding a lock of hair from the screen siren. As eclectic as Get Behind Me Satan is, it isn't perfect: the energy dips a little in the middle, and it's notable that "Instinct Blues," one of the more traditionally Stripes-sounding songs, is also one of the least engaging. Though Jack and Meg still find fresh, arty reinterpretations of their classic inspirations, this time the results are exciting in a different way than their usual fare; and while the album was made in just two weeks, it takes awhile to unravel and appreciate. Get Behind Me Satan may confuse and even push away some White Stripes fans, but the more the band pushes itself, the better.

Track Lists
01. Blue Orchid
02. The Nurse
03. My Doorbell
04. Forever For Her (Is Over For Me)
05. Little Ghost
06. The Denial Twist
07. White Moon
08. Instinct Blues
09. Passive Manipulation
10. Take, Take, Take
11. As Ugly As I Seem
12. Red Rain
13. I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)

Transplants - Transplants (Mp3 Download)

Review by Adam Bregman @ allmusic.com

An inspired side project, Transplants features Tim Armstrong of Rancid, Armstrong's buddy Rob Aston rapping, blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, and a host of pals dropping in. They don't really sound much like Rancid, though at times one does hear the Clash in these tunes. A bit more rock & roll than punk rock, Transplants spare listeners any ska tunes. However, there is plenty of hip-hop courtesy of Aston, who raps in a macho and at times grating style with no shortage of borrowed gangsta clichés. In fact, Transplants sound best when he's not shouting about gats and hos. Every time Armstrong's gutter punk-accented, mushmouth voice appears, Transplants sound more soulful than rap-rock. Armstrong hasn't written hook-filled songs like these since And Out Come the Wolves. "Down in Oakland," the one song he wrote without Aston, is among the album's catchiest. Check out Armstrong's slick and reverby surf guitar on this one. Aside from singing like a punk rock Marvin Gaye and playing snazzy guitar leads, Armstrong is also responsible for the blues piano loops that anchor "Diamonds and Guns" and "California Babylon," songs that sound a good deal better than their titles. Perhaps the album's best number is the downbeat "Weigh on My Mind," featuring the throaty, understated background vocals of Brody Armstrong of the Distillers, who sings the chorus "I've got so many problems and they weigh on my mind" with her husband, Armstrong. When are they going to make a record together? Among the other key contributors is Vic Ruggiero of the Slackers, who lays down some cool piano and organ grooves throughout. And there's a not half-bad rap tune called "D.R.E.A.M.," which bites an overused Method Man refrain from the Wu-Tang Clan song "C.R.E.A.M.," but sports a beat that's as G-funk as punk gets.

Track Lists
01. Romper Stomper
02. Tall Cans In The Air
03. D.J. D.J.
04. Diamonds And Guns
05. Quick Death
06. Sad But True
07. Weigh On My Mind
08. On Point
09. California Babylon
10. We Trusted You
11. D.R.E.A.M.
12. Down In Oakland

My Chemical Romance - I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love (Mp3 Download)

Review by Alex Henderson @ allmusic.com

If you're searching for a dose of party music or feel-good escapism, you won't find it on I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. Lyrically, this debut album by My Chemical Romance is definitely on the dark side; lyrics like "The amount of pills I'm taking counteracts the booze I'm drinking" (from "Honey, This Mirror Isn't Big Enough for the Two of Us") and "I think I'll love to die alone" (from "Cubicles") are typical of the New Jersey band's less than rosy outlook. But like so many angst-ridden alternative pop/rock and punk-pop artists who have emerged in the early 2000s, My Chemical Romance know how to be exuberant and introspective at the same time -- musically, they tend to be aggressive and hard rocking, but lyrically, they're all about introspection. And that combination certainly isn't unique; from Nirvana to blink-182 to Creed -- from post-grunge to emo -- plenty of alterna-rockers have demonstrated that a band can rock aggressively and be introspective at the same time. But if My Chemical Romance are less than groundbreaking, they're good at what they do. Produced by Thursday's lead singer, Geoff Rickly, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love is a generally decent effort -- one that deals with a lot of negative emotions and does so in a very candid way. Some will find the lyrics depressing, but then, rock music isn't obligated to press the smile button 24 hours a day. Sadness, pessimism, anger, disillusionment -- none of which are difficult to find on this album -- are, like happiness, pleasure, and optimism, valid areas of rock expression. I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love falls short of exceptional, but it's a noteworthy, generally respectable debut for the New Jersey combo.

Track Lists
01. Romance
02. Honey, This Mirror Isn't Big Enough For The Two Of Us
03. Vampires Will Never Hurt You
04. Drowning Lessons
05. Our Lady Of Sorrows
06. Headfirst Of Halos
07. Skylines And Turnstiles
08. Early Sunsets Over Monroeville
09. This Is The Best Day Ever
10. Cubicles
11. Demolition Lovers

Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand (Mp3 Download)

Review by Heather Phares @ allmusic.com
While the Darts of Pleasure EP proved that Franz Ferdinand had a way with equally sharp lyrics and hooks, and the "Take Me Out" single took their sound to dramatic new heights, their self-titled debut album offers the most expansive version of their music yet. From the first track, "Jacqueline," which begins with a brooding acoustic prelude before jumping into a violently vibrant celebration of hedonism, Franz Ferdinand is darker and more diverse than the band's previous work suggested. "Auf Ausche" has an unsettling aggression underneath its romantic yearning, its cheap synth strings and pianos underscoring its low-rent moodiness and ruined glamour. And even in the album's context, "Take Me Out" remains unmatched for sheer drama; with its relentless stomp and lyrics like "I'm just a cross hair/I'm just a shot away from you," it's deliciously unclear whether it's about meeting a date or a firing squad. The wonderfully dry wit the band employed on Darts of Pleasure's "Shopping for Blood" and "Van Tango" is used more subtly: the oddly radiant "Matinee" captures romantic escapism via dizzying wordplay. "Michael," meanwhile, is a post-post-punk "John, I'm Only Dancing," by equal turns macho and fey; when Alex Kapranos proclaims "This is what I am/I am a man/So come and dance with me, Michael," it's erotic as well as homoerotic. Love and lust make up a far greater portion of Franz Ferdinand than any of the band's other work; previously, Franz Ferdinand's strong suit was witty aggressiveness, and the shift in focus has mixed results. There's something a little too manic and unsettled about Franz Ferdinand to make them completely convincing romantics, but "Come On Home" has swooning, anthemic choruses guaranteed to melt even those who hate swooning, anthemic choruses. Fortunately, the album includes enough of their louder, crazier songs to please fans of their EPs. "Darts of Pleasure" remains one of the best expressions of Franz Ferdinand's shabby glamour, campy humor, and sugar-buzz energy, and "Tell Her Tonight," which debuted on the Darts of Pleasure EP, returns in a full-fledged version that's even more slinky, menacing, and danceable than the demo hinted it might be. And if Franz Ferdinand's aim has always been to get people dancing, then "Cheating on You"'s churned-up art punk and close, Merseybeat-like harmonies suggest some combination of slam dancing and the twist that could sweep dancefloors. Despite its slight unevenness, Franz Ferdinand ends up being rewarding in different ways than the band's previous work was, and it's apparent that they're one of the more exciting groups to come out of the garage rock/post-punk revival.

Track Lists
01. Jacqueline
02. Tell Her Tonight
03. Take Me Out
04. Dark Of The Matinee
05. Auf Achse
06. Cheating On You
07. This Fire
08. Dart Of Pleasure
09. Michael
10. Come On Home
11. 40'

Hatebreed - Satisfaction Is the Death of Desire (Mp3 Download)

Review by Adam Bregman @ allmusic.com

With Sepultura-like vocals and ferocious, Slayer-style guitar riffs, these scary-looking, tattooed dudes from Connecticut have successfully crossed over from the hardcore scene to the metal scene, touring both with Ozzfest and Sepultura. Lyrically, they are definitely an East Coast hardcore band, with song titles like "Empty Promises" and "Betrayed By Life." Aside from being straight-edged, betrayal is the singular theme, for whatever reason, in East Coast hardcore and among all the zillions of bands that have copied that style. But Hatebreed's music is more influenced by death metal, or at least the bands that are more accomplished within that genre, because these guys can play their instruments. The drums, bass, and guitars all sound like a well-oiled machine churning out a massive sound. The vocals also have a more menacing, metal-like quailty. The result is one furious album, heavier than anything Slayer has done in a decade.

Track Lists
01. Empty Promises
02. Burn The Lies
03. Before Dishonor
04. Puritan
05. Conceive Through An Act Of Violence
06. Afflicted Past
07. Prepare For War
08. Not One Truth
09. Betrayed By Life
10. Mark My Words
11. Last Breath
12. Burial For The Living
13. Worlds Apart
14. Driven By Suffering

Nine Inch Nails - With Teeth (Mp3 Download)

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine @ allmusic.com

Trent Reznor always was a perfectionist, laboring over his final mixes with a fine-tooth comb, a belabored process that inevitably led to long gaps between albums. About five years a piece, actually, a wait that was sustainable between his 1989 debut, Pretty Hate Machine, and his 1994 breakthrough, The Downward Spiral; a wait, considering the expectations, that was understandable between that record and its 1999 sequel, The Fragile; yet it was a wait that was a little bewildering and frustrating between that record and its long-gestating follow-up, With Teeth. The Fragile was a grandiose, indulgent double album, dense enough to alienate fairweather fans while making advocates of those with enough time, patience, and fanaticism to listen to it repeatedly until it all made sense. It may not have pleased everybody, but it seemed like a record that necessitated half a decade to construct, and arrived with an appropriate sense of drama. That's not the case with With Teeth, which appeared in the spring of 2005 with the requisite deluge of press but without the sense of breathless anticipation that greeted The Fragile. Part of that was changing times -- fans who were 25 in 1999 were now 30 and weren't following pop music as closely -- but it's also true that the double-disc set whittled his audience down to its core, diminishing Nine Inch Nails' stature somewhat. They still had their cult and still won accolades from those convinced that artists who were important in 1995 were still important in 2005, but NIN seems not only out of step but diminished in 2005. Sure, Rick Rubin had Johnny Cash sing "Hurt," but Reznor's recordings seemed to have less impact on modern music than ever. His soundalikes vanished, his long-abandoned protégé Marilyn Manson turned the corner from self-parody to college lecturer, his romanticized goth morphed into Hot Topic stores and Evanescence. Not that any of this mattered one bit to Reznor. Instead of grabbing the gold ring when he had a chance in 1995, he squirreled himself away in his New Orleans house, recording obsessively, and according to some interviews conducted around the release of With Teeth, succumbing to alcohol addiction. He consciously turned away from stardom, along with anything happening in contemporary pop, so he could tinker in the studio. That lead to the obsessive, insular The Fragile, and that same impulse drives the sleek, streamlined, diamond-hard With Teeth.

Quite frankly, this is the record that NIN should have released if Reznor had wanted to capitalize on the success of The Downward Spiral. It's loud and angry, doesn't skimp on hooks, and is heavy on both sexy robotic dance beats and crashing rock rhythms (some supplied by everybody's favorite drummer, Dave Grohl, but not that you'd know it from reading the CD; the chintzy packaging not only has no credits, it has no booklet) -- all things that made "Closer" an alt-rock classic. But for all the surface similarities to his past albums, there is a palpable difference in tone and approach on With Teeth. This is the work of a craftsman, a musician who meticulously assembles his work by layering details so densely, there's never a moment on the record where something isn't roiling under the surface, where something isn't added to the mix. He's good at this, though. With Teeth is an impressive achievement technically and the music is generally strong, yet there's a nagging problem -- namely, there's nothing new here. It's not that Reznor is recycling himself -- he's far too compulsive a craftsman for that -- but he's not pushing himself, either, preferring to work within the box he created himself ten years ago. Consequently, the music sounds as if it comfortably could have been released in 1996, the time when Reznor's style of music was at its popular peak. There's nothing wrong with that -- plenty of rock and pop musicians are craftsmen, working the same sound and finding interesting variations within it -- but there's something awkward about an industrial craftsman, or at least as how it's practiced by Reznor. His biggest problem is that while he shows considerable skill, even subtlety, in his music, the tortured sentiments of his lyrics are frozen in amber. They're eternally adolescent and they sound juvenile, even embarrassing, coming from a man on the verge of his 40th birthday. These words work when sung by a young man, when they're sung with a sense of urgency, but "urgency" is not a word that can be associated with NIN, even on a record like this that takes great pains to sound visceral and alive. Reznor is too insulated, too shut out from the outside world, too unconcerned with pleasing anybody but himself to make anything close to urgent. Without that sense of hunger, his music doesn't have mass appeal, leaving it to the hardcore who appreciate his sense of craft and construction, listeners who are eager to listen to the album enough times to memorize the details. In short, the same listeners who had the patience to learn how to love The Fragile will learn how to love With Teeth.

Track Lists
01. All The Love In The World
02. You Know What You Are
03. The Collector
04. The Hands That Feeds
05. Love Is Not Enough
06. Everyday Is Exactly The Same
07. With Teeth
08. Only
09. Getting Smaller
10. Sunspot
11. The Line Begins To Blur
12. Beside You In Time
13. Right Where It Belong

Trisha Yearwood - Jasper Country (Mp3 Download)

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine @ allmusic.com

Trisha Yearwood took an unprecedented four years between her eighth album, 2001's Inside Out, and its 2005 follow-up, Jasper County. There was a variety of reasons for the extended hiatus -- it was one part creative, one part personal, as Yearwood weathered the storm of going public with her relationship with Garth Brooks (as of the release of Jasper County, the couple was engaged to be married) -- but the long wait proved worthwhile since Jasper County is one of her very best records, an album that stretches further musically than most of her albums while being more cohesive than most of her records as well. Reuniting with longtime producer Garth Fundis, with whom she's done most of her best work (he did not helm Inside Out), Yearwood's picked a set of 11 songs that aren't just uniformly strong, but are quite diverse. While there's a strong bluesy undercurrent here, highlighted by the slow-churning opener "Who Invented the Wheel" and the Bobbie Gentry-styled Southern country-soul of "Sweet Love," this is firmly a country album, with few concessions to pop crossover. The tracks that do have a lush, slick surface do tend to be the big ballads, such as "Standing out in a Crowd," but those do tend to be grounded with acoustic guitars and Yearwood's impassioned delivery. Plus, even those sweeping slow tunes are offset by such excellent ballads as the heartbroken "Trying to Love You" and the epic "Georgia Rain," which are pure country and lend the overall album a sweet, reflective quality. Even if the album does tend toward relaxed, meditative tunes, Jasper County works because instead of maintaining that introspective vibe throughout the album, Yearwood and Fundis bring in not just those bluesy, soulful songs for balance, but they find two rip-roaring Al Anderson songs -- the white-hot "Pistol" and the old-fashioned honky tonk anthem "It's Alright" -- to give this more country grit than has been heard on any Yearwood album in a long time. At a mere 38 minutes, the album moves along briskly, not just because of the short running time, but because the album is paced well, moving gracefully between ballads, blues like "River of You," and rollicking up-tempo tunes. The end result is an album that's not just one of Yearwood's most entertaining albums, but one of her richest records, in both musical and emotional terms as well.

Track Lists
01. Who Invented The Wheel
02. Pistol
03. Trying To Love You
04. River Of You
05. Baby Don't Let You Go
06. Standing Out In A Crowd
07. Georgia Rain
08. Sweet Love
09. Try Me
10. Gimme The Good Stuff
11. It's Alright

AFI - DecemberUnderground (Mp3 Download)

Review by Corey Apar @ allmusic.com

AFI is a band lucky to own fiercely loyal fans who embrace -- and ultimately expect -- the gradual transformation the band has undergone with each album since 1999's Black Sails in the Sunset. Where many bands get called out for signing to a major label or even just maturing their sound over time, AFI fans have chiefly stayed devoted to their ever-evolving goth-punk heroes. With that in mind, Decemberunderground comes as AFI's follow-up to their ambitious major-label smash Sing the Sorrow. Due to the clever production tricks employed on that album, fans might expect even more intricate arrangements, sound effects, and sonic landscapes to emerge from the wintry packaging of Decemberunderground. To an extent this is true, but it's more that the cloudy gloom permeating their career thus far has lifted, allowing a relatively tighter and lighter overall album to emerge. Take the band's traditional prelude for instance: this time it's infused with stirring strings and an uplifting dance-pop beat that is a far cry from the dark and eerie call-to-arms chants of previous albums. And though "Kill Caustic" (and later "Affliction") brings AFI's earlier hardcore punch, if you thought "Girl's Not Grey" was poppy, check out this record's lead single, "Miss Murder." Despite a slightly ominous undertone, the glam-tinged song is damn near playful and sunny amid bouncy rhythms, vaguely industrial beats, background "hey!"s (courtesy of AFI's fan brotherhood, the Despair Faction), and a bassline that could have been swiped from Green Day. The band further dips its hand into new wave exploits ("37mm"), truly stirring choruses ("Summer Shudder"), stark electro vibrations ("Love Like Winter"), and the customary ballad ("Endlessly, She Said"). AFI even comes as close as they probably ever will to sounding like U2 in "The Missing Frame." Somehow, the guys have managed to combine hardcore instincts with dark emo-coated lyrics, synth shimmies, gothic aesthetics, and electronic beats into a sound that still remains wholly AFI. So maybe that's why fans have stuck by the band over all these years. Even as the guys stretch and flex their songwriting muscles, they never fail to remember where they came from, instead using their past work as the foundation to their essential growth. Decemberunderground may have more fully realized doses of pop and electronic music present, but the core of AFI's sound never strays too far from what listeners have grown to love about them in the first place.

Track Lists
01. Prelude 12/21
02. Kill Caustic
03. Miss Murder
04. Summer Shudder
05. The Interview
06. Love Like Winter
07. Affliction
08. The Missing Frame
09. Kiss And Control
10. The Killing Lights
11. 37mm
12. Endlessly She Said

Angels And Airwaves - We Don't Need To Whisper (Mp3 Download)

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine @ allmusic.com

How do you know that former blink-182 leader Tom DeLonge intends for his post-blink project Angels and Airwaves to be taken seriously? Because throughout their debut album, We Don't Need to Whisper, he relies on sounds and textures borrowed from 1988, the era when college rock was filled with atmospheric sonics and earnest politics. Specifically, he layers delayed guitars ripped from U2 over soundscapes equally inspired by the Cure, New Order, Peter Gabriel, and The Unforgettable Fire, all in an attempt to fashion a modern-day protest record. Lord knows it's an admirable break from his juvenile past, but good intentions don't necessarily make for good music, as We Don't Need to Whisper makes abundantly clear. DeLonge's main problem is that by relying on '80s college rock as his template, he's fallen into a lot of traps that have made albums of that era sound hopelessly dated: overlong intros, lasting upward of 90 seconds; formless songs that never seem to peak, only drift; cold keyboards that work a factory preset too heavily; an over-reliance on delay pedals, not just on the guitars (which never once sound like anybody other than the Edge), but on the keyboards, which has the unfortunate side effect of making the somber "Distraction" sound like an homage to Paul McCartney's gleefully moronic "Wonderful Christmas Time." That's not the only unintentional chuckle here -- DeLonge's thin, nasal voice cuts against the moody murk of his band, as if he were a little kid recording over his big brother's music. It also doesn't help that his screeds about war, society, and life are overly written, with words piling on top of each other in free-form song structures that tend to collapse under the weight of his ambition. Since DeLonge was starting to edge toward an interesting fusion of dark post-punk, tuneful pop-punk, and mature concerns on the last blink-182 album, such an over-reach is a disappointment, but it is understandable; it's a classic case of post-breakup indulgence. It may not make for a successful record, but it does make for an interesting one, particularly in how DeLonge's desire to be taken seriously has led him to use the serious music of his adolescence as a signifier that he's serious now, but We Don't Need to Whisper is too doggedly dour and amorphous to be more than a curiosity.

Track Lists
01. Valkyrie Missile
02. Distraction
03. It Hurts
04. Do It For Me Now
05. The Adventure
06. The War
07. A Little's Enough
08. The Gift
09. Good Day
10. Start The Machine

Nick Lachey - What's Left Of Me (Mp3 Download)

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine @ allmusic.com

Gossip hounds hoping that Nick Lachey's first post-divorce album would be laden with songs about his doomed marriage to Jessica Simpson will be pleased -- scratch that, delighted -- with What's Left of Me. If the album title doesn't clue you in to what it's all about, a glance at the song titles tip off its content: "I Can't Hate You Anymore," "On Your Own," "Outside Looking In," "Everywhere But Here," "Ghosts," "You're Not Alone," "Resolution" -- it's a virtual greatest-hits of brokenhearted laments, all sequenced as if it were a concept album about a man coming to terms with a painful divorce. To top it off, the centerfold photo finds Lachey sprawled out on a mattress in a grungy trailer, a stack of worn books, a TV with rabbit ears, and an empty beer bottle within reach, all bearing the unmistakable subtext that this is what the separation from Jessica has left him with (he also offers the following thanks: "most importantly, Miller Brewing...thank you!" -- but don't get ahead of yourself and think that this is a nod of gratitude to the beverages that got him through this difficult time; it's part of an extended thank you to "all of my friends who help to satisfy my sports addiction," which takes up as much space as his business, family, and fans thanks). So, this second album from the former 98° star provides plenty of voyeuristic satisfaction, as each song -- whether it's written by Lachey or not (and chances are, it is, since he has writing credits on eight of the 12 songs) -- plays into the theme, which makes it kind of like the boy band Blood on the Tracks. And while it's hard not to have sympathy for a guy whose sexpot ex allegedly cuckolded him through her affairs with Johnny Knoxville and Bam Margera (it's possible to imagine a more humiliating list of lovers for Lachey, but even if you added anyone from Wilmer Valderhama to Artie Lange to that list, it wouldn't seem as bullying, as violent as that pair; it's practically a Jackass stunt), it's sure hard not to wish What's Left of Me was a whole lot better.

The problem with this record, as with the Backstreet Boys comeback of 2005, is that the boy band sound, particularly the singing style, does not lend itself to maturity. Give Lachey credit for not patterning his record after Jon Secada's early work, which BSB inexplicably did. He tries hard to sound modern, incorporating elements of anything from Ashlee-styled modern pop (ironic, isn't it?) to Coldplay, whose spacey surfaces are heard throughout (most notably on "Beautiful," whose echoing piano riff can't help but recall "Clocks"). This gives What's Left of Me a relatively fresh feel, at least superficially, but the songs slavishly follow the boy band formula for the turn of the century -- which is a setback in itself, but their lack of memorable melody hurts it even more. Then there's the problem of Lachey's breathy, simpering vocals, which may work fairly well when surrounded by other breathy, simpering singers, but when they're pushed out front to stand on their own, they have no presence -- they fade away into the production. And when that's married to melodies without melody, the whole album becomes one long, glossy song. But that doesn't mean What's Left of Me isn't interesting -- Lachey's valiant twin struggles to modernize his sound and get past his impending divorce certainly make this album interesting. It's not good, but it is interesting, and it is memorably odd, and even if it suggests that Lachey may have a rough time growing old with his signature sound, it still is hard not to finish the album and have a twinge of sympathy for the guy. Plus, he'll likely have the last laugh: he and Jessica had no prenup, so half of that marriage is his, so even if What's Left of Me fails to kick-start his career, he's probably not gonna wind up struggling to get by in that trailer.

Track Lists
01. What's Left Of Me
02. I Can't Hate You Anymore
03. On Your Own
04. Outside Looking In
05. Shades Of Blue
06. Beautiful
07. Everywhere But Here
08. I Do It For You
09. Run To me
10. Ghosts
11. You're Not Alone
12. Resolution