Roomic Cube
Artist: Takako Minekawa

Based on the concept of a "room" being Takako Minekawa's favorite place for creating music, Roomic Cube finds a place for everything. Co-written and produced with her friends in Buffalo Daughter, the album stretches her sound: while her more usual style of minimal, poignant songwriting shows up on tracks like "Sleep Song" and "Never/More," the... Read More

The Best of R.E.M.
Artist: R.E.M.
Community Score: 6.90
Stunt
Artist: Barenaked Ladies
Community Score: 7.47

By trying to mask their smart-ass humor in a big pop production, the Barenaked Ladies attempt to set themselves up for the big crossover that they nearly achieved with such past singles as "Be My Yoko Ono" and "Brian Wilson." Nothing on Stunt, the group's fourth studio album, is so clearly jokey (although "Alcohol" comes close), but they still... Read More

Fantastic Pirate Satellite
Artist: Liquid Gang
Nothing Feels Good
Artist: The Promise Ring
Community Score: 7.40

The sophomore disc from these young ones finds the band moving further into the poppiness that they only hinted at on Thirty Degrees Everywhere. Some things remain the same -- beautifully odd lyrics, extremely catchy and powerful music, and the overall feeling of sentimentality and imagination that the Promise Ring's music always seems to exude.... Read More

Ye Olde Space Band: Plays Classic Rock Hits
Artist: The Moog Cookbook
Community Score: 7.00

After achieving notoriety with their self-titled album in 1995, the duo known as the Moog Cookbook decided to follow it up with a set of classic rock hits. And the results on Ye Olde Space Bande are just as good as their humorous debut. It's hard to imagine a synthesized makeover of songs by such hard rock/heavy metal artists as Kiss, Van Halen,... Read More

The Action Is Go
Artist: Fu Manchu
Community Score: 10.00

Not that it's unique, yet even with half the band changed from the last time around, the twin-riff action that kicks off "Evil Eye," and The Action Is Go! as a whole, sounds like nobody else but Fu Manchu, somehow. Punk energy, classic rock drive, psychedelic crunch, and heavy-ass grind all at once -- really, is anything more needed? From there... Read More

Be Here Now
Artist: Oasis
Community Score: 7.13
Twenty Percent of My Hand
Artist: 59 Times the Pain
Community Score: 5.00

The second full-length by Sweden's 59 Times the Pain -- the group's first album to see U.S. release -- build on the strengths of 1996's More Out of Today by opening up the stylistic straightjacket of hardcore just a bit to incorporate occasional tempo shifts and some actual pop song approaches. The single "Don't Belong Here" has the pubbed-up... Read More

Hatched
Artist: Inqbator

Psychedelic and oddly jittery, Hatched sports an impressive guest list, including Lenny Kravitz (who delivers an incendiary guitar solo on the single "Electra"), Daniel Lanois (who co-wrote and co-produced "Needles") and Karl Wallinger (who co-authored "Be There"). ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide Read More

Egomania (Love Songs)
Artist: Cobra Verde

Atmospheric, earthy sounds are what Cobra Verde specialize in, and they deliver the goods yet again on Egomania (Love Songs). It's a compilation of new songs, unreleased material, and tracks that have been previously unavailable on CD (from 45s released on the Sub Pop, Scat, Wabana, and Get Hip labels from 1995-96). The band shows off its many... Read More

Blender
Artist: Murmurs
Community Score: 9.33

Blender is an appropriate title for this CD, because it contains a blend of new material and songs that had already been heard on the Murmurs' 1997 release Pristine Smut. The alternative pop-rock duo probably would have been better off recording nothing but new material, but for those who discovered the Murmurs with Blender, it was quite an... Read More