When your post-post-grunge band gets its shot at the big time, is it really in your best interest to include songs on your make-or-break album called "I'm a Fake" and "Sound Effects and Overdramatics"? For Utah's lone entry into alternacrap's game of fools, The Used, truth in song titling goes an awfully long way. On the band's latest, In Love and Death, grating vocals possibly inspired by that last At the Drive-In album lethally combine with 101 fatally overwrought moments culled from all those ghastly Bush songs of yore. The megasucky result? 42 minutes of digitized "angst," and the sinking feeling that it's not going to sound any better the third time around. Bert McCracken's snot-infused, neck-vein-bursting vocals may impress the wallet-chain crowd hanging out down at the local EXXXtreme Frozen Yogurt, but they won't earn The Used plaudits from anyone other than their mothers, girlfriends, and anyone who ever thought to themselves, "Hey, this new Fuel album kicks ass." So if the prospect of a little screamo in your emo sounds exciting and you're impressed by cover artwork that features a noose-locked bleeding heart hanging from a tree branch, then by all means: Get Used and like it. Me, I just want those 84 minutes back.

Sacramento, California's finest postmodern commentators, Cake, return with the fifth installment in their unlikely body of funky, somewhat sleepy beats and country/folk/Tejano-derived numbers. Few songwriters other than Cake principal John McCrea could pen an ode to a coin that reads like a children's rhyme ("I'm a dime / I'm fine / And I shine / I'm freshly minted"), and fewer still could make it catchy enough for you to want to listen to it repeatedly. Cake's strongest songs over the years have rocked in a winking, head-nodding kind of way that sounds like no other band, and just as Pressure Chief still displays the band's party-of-one/kitchen-sink sound, it's a step in a more reserved direction. As on past albums, Xan McCurdy's mechanical, grinding guitar and Vincent Di Fiore's punchy trumpet lines provide counterweight to McCrea's slice-of-life tales, which range from top of the line (the melodica-enhanced, ought-to-be-an-album-closer "End of the Movie") to not quite realized (the well-intentioned "Carbon Monoxide") and back to solid again (the mid-'90s throwback "She'll Hang the Baskets"). We'll stop short of making some sort of lame, baked-goods-related quip about Cake's cover of Bread's "The Guitar Man"--suffice it to say that their sly rendition of the '70s soft-rock hit pretty much rules.

Many don't realize that Minnie Driver was a singer and guitarist in London before she became a film star in the '90s, so it's easy to crack wise about the English actor's recording debut--until you listen to it. Driver's lovely voice recalls Karen Carpenter's in its pristine prime, and her strong songwriting reinforces the notion that Everything I've Got In My Pocket isn't a typical rookie effort. Dreamy, organic atmospherics such as pedal steel guitar and gentle drum brushing accent these mid-tempo-to-slow songs that seem to begin their slow fade-outs before they actually do. Elsewhere, album-credit readers will note that Everything is an all-original affair, with the exception of Driver's bold reinterpretation of Bruce-Springsteen's "Hungry Heart" (imagine Chan Marshall of Cat Power with a handsome recording budget). Opposing viewpoints are bound to lead to the same place when analyzing Everything's merits: Either it's a dewy morning album of lush, adult alternative songs done right, or a full-length pitch to advertising companies looking for background music for that next luxury-car TV ad. Either way, there's no denying Driver's considerable songwriting talent and gorgeous voice.

Whether it's Dave Matthews and Duncan Sheik in the '90s, or John Mayer and Ryan Cabrera in 2004, there never seems to be a shortage of handsome singer-songwriters plying their well-behaved wares. Add Tyler Hilton to the list. The Palm Springs, California, kid--old enough to vote, but not quite ready for a whiskey sour--brings a set of serviceable songs to the table of big-budget production on his debut, The Tracks Of. Hilton's husky voice may be his ticket out of cookie-cutter-ville, but he's shackled by a stable of heavy-handed producers who seem intent on drowning otherwise fine cuts such as "Rolling Home" and "Slide" in a desert of cleanliness: The crank-up-the-dB's choruses of "When It Comes" and "Kiss On" are predictably faux-anthemic practically even before they're heard. (Rumor has it that John Mellencamp is awaiting a royalty kickdown for the latter song.) Nevertheless, you could do worse--with the possible exception of Sheik, The Tracks Of is a distinct cut above the lackluster fare of Matthews, et al.

A year after drummer Bill Berry retired his drumsticks to pursue antiquing full time, R.E.M. debuted as a trio on 1998's fairly reserved Up. It wasn't the band's first foray into muted terrain--1992's elegiac Automatic for the People set a lofty bar--but it charted a new course for R.E.M. in several ways, most notably in the way the Berry-less Buck-Mills-Stipe coalition began embracing somnambulant song tempos more than ever before. And while they weren't on par with the band's best work, at least songs such as "Walk Unafraid" and "Hope" made Up an intriguing first step into R.E.M.'s second life.

So much for the afterlife. This year's Around the Sun sounds like a rewrite of its 2001 predecessor Reveal, which itself was a pulseless way to spend a listening hour. It's clear to anyone who's been paying attention since Berry rode off into the sunset that R.E.M. has chosen to permanently switch off the rock-it launch on its recording console. But the real tragedy is the songwriter's droop that has apparently set in on the veteran band. On Automatic for the People, the band turned down the volume considerably and yet proffered all-timers like the gorgeous "Nightswimming" and the brooding "Drive"; today we get month-old breadsticks like Around the Sun's "Wanderlust" and "Aftermath." Granted, Around the Sun improves with a few listens, and there are a few songs on hand that are a slight cut above the rest: "High Speed Train" carries a bit of drama, as does "Final Straw," which comes off like an acoustic serenade from death row. But it's Around the Sun's unfortunate pacing--or more accurately, its lack thereof--that underscores its dearth of hooks so glaringly. When a mediocre mid-tempo cut leads into another mediocre mid-tempo cut, and then an unmemorable ballad--followed by another mediocre mid-tempo cut--the inevitable aural-wallpaper comparisons can't be far behind. Unfortunately, Around the Sun's is available in only one pattern: disappointing.