The new-old Nirvana music is hitting stores, Pearl Jam have a new album, and the early-Nineties revival seems to be close to achieving critical mass. Enter Audioslave, a supergroup fusion of Rage Against the Machine with Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell. On first listen to this blend of rap, rock and roil, the alt-rock gene seems to have won the day. One key track is "Exploder," where stinging, whiplash riffs betray a link between Soundgarden and Rage that nobody noticed: They both thought Led Zeppelin were a funk band. If angst-shattering catharsis is what you're after, "Light My Way," which ricochets and recoils like a ball-peen-hammer party in your parents' bedroom, will do the trick. There's even something for the ladies: "I Am the Highway" is a genuine pretty power ballad -- this isn't the return of alt-rock, it's the last revenge of testicle-grabbing, limo-ridin', Gibson-guitar-hero hair metal. It's a pretty tune, but also pretty hard to take seriously after listening to such words as "I am not your autumn moon/I am the night." Elsewhere, guitarist Tom Morello's outer-space feedback histrionics threaten to steal the show -- his most astonishing effect is the satellite wail and whoop he makes on "Like a Stone." Do Audioslave rock? Sure. Is that enough? Well, no. In their past lives, the members of this band were enraged. Now, fierce as they might sound, Audioslave just seem sorta engorged. (PAT BLASHILL)

George Harrison Brainwashed (Capitol)

George Harrison was the youngest and quietest Beatle. He was also the first to write a song about what a drag it was to be a Beatle: "Don't Bother Me," for the 1963 British LP With the Beatles. He never stopped writing about it. Harrison's best music -- "Within You Without You" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" with the Beatles; his 1970 solo masterpiece All Things Must Pass; the 1987 comeback Cloud Nine -- was a running account of his war for inner peace, a lifelong struggle to reconcile the mixed blessings of worldly fame with his consuming desire to reach a higher, purer state of grace.

When Harrison died of cancer on November 29th, 2001, he still did not have all the answers. "I'm a living proof of all life's contradictions," Harrison admits with a dash of mirth in his low, sandy voice in "Pisces Fish," one of the eleven original songs on Brainwashed, his final studio album. "Lord, we got to fight/With the thoughts in the head, with the dark and the light," he sings on the first track, "Any Road," with zero irony. But as a songwriter and guitarist, Harrison never lost his gently intoxicating way of posing big questions about guilt and transcendence. If the lavishly orchestrated hymns on All Things Must Pass ("My Sweet Lord," "What Is Life") were Harrison's idealization of life beyond material form, Brainwashed is a warm, frank goodbye, a remarkably poised record about the reality of dying, by a man on the verge. Fear and acceptance run together in these songs, anger as well as serenity. Most importantly, there are lots of guitars.

Harrison died before he could finish Brainwashed. But his co-producers -- his son Dhani and ELO's Jeff Lynne -- have completed the album with impressive sensitivity, to the point that Harrison feels immensely present: strong and centered in his singing over the lazy rivers of strum, uncrowded by excess reverb or overstuffed choruses. Vocally, Harrison actually sounds younger and more engaged than he did in middle age on half-hearted LPs such as Dark Horse (1974) and Gone Troppo (1982). He puts real spring into the Zen lesson of "Any Road" -- "If you don't know where you're going/Any road'll take you there" -- along with long, gleaming curls of slide guitar. And there is a plaintive wrench to his hindsight in "Looking for My Life" -- "Oh, boys, you've no idea what I've been through" -- especially when the background harmonies pull out and Harrison is alone and close to the mike.

It is fitting that one of the best songs on Brainwashed is an instrumental, "Marwa Blues." Harrison's first recorded composition was "Cry for a Shadow," a basic, magnetic guitar showcase co-written with John Lennon and cut by the Beatles in Hamburg in 1961. "Marwa Blues" is in that tradition: a cleansing waterfall of slide guitars. As the Beatles' lead guitarist, Harrison made each note count for something, and it is true for all that he plays here, from the overlapping rings of electric guitar in "Run So Far" to the hula-blues dobro snaking through "Rocking Chair in Hawaii." It is hard to tell what Harrison did not play on the album: Dhani and Lynne also play guitars. But the quivering tremolo in "Pisces Fish" and the stair-step jangle in "Any Road" reflect Harrison's class and touch, regardless of who did the honors.

The luxuriant sound and reflective tone make it easy to mistake Brainwashed for mere homily, a recycling of sermons from mid-Seventies Harrison LPs such as Living in the Material World. In fact, he makes pointed allusion to his cancer and his sealed fate with both humor -- the dry reference to "my concrete tuxedo" in "Last Saturday Night (P2 Vatican Blues)" -- and, in "Looking for My Life," candid shock: "Had no idea that I was heading/To a state of emergency." Harrison had a streak of the preacher in him, too. "Brainwashed" ends the album on a hectoring note, a laundry list of social ills (Wall Street, the press, etc.) softened only by an old tape of Harrison performing an Indian chant with the later double-tracked voice of his son, a welcome coda of deliverance.

Brainwashed doesn't tell us if Harrison ever got over being a Beatle. But there is little bitterness or regret in this music -- mostly acceptance, anticipation and big twang. It is a fine, enchanting epitaph for a man who, to the end of life, believed rock & roll was heaven on earth. (DAVID FRICKE)

Matchbox Twenty More Than You Think You Are (Melisma/Atlantic)

Practically every radio-rock band that's not metal-rap or punk sounds like a louder version of Matchbox Twenty. So it's to be expected that the real thing would crank up its guitars. Surprisingly, Rob Thomas and cohorts have managed to improve upon and diversify their familiar blend of classic rock and alterna-rock-lite on More Than You Think You Are. Having proven on their last album -- 2000's quadruple-platinum Mad Season -- that their monster 1996 debut Yourself or Someone Like You wasn't a fluke, the quintet no longer come across desperately commercial nor deadly earnest. Co-written by Mick Jagger, the disco-rock romp "Disease" evokes vintage INXS, while more typical tracks like "Soul" possess a finesse that the band's previous power ballads lacked. Matchbox Twenty now seem almost dignified, a fact that is as much a tribute to their advancing abilities as it is to how shamelessly their sellout successors suck. (BARRY WALTERS)

Joni Mitchell Travelogue (Warner Bros.)

This bizarre two-disc recording finds the loftiest of singer-songwriters collaborating with a seventy-piece orchestra, revisiting her past work. The arrangements treat Mitchell's tunes as precious artifacts, making little attempt to seduce the listener; only on "The Circle Game," for example, do the strings provide the kind of romantic sonic brocades associated with great orchestral rock. Mitchell -- in strong, ultraconfident voice -- proceeds with her famous jazz inflections, delineating characters such as "Cherokee Louise," who lives under a tunnel. But, the occasional sax flourish notwithstanding, the music does not swing or get loose. Sometimes the album sounds wrongly monumental, as on "Woodstock"; other times, it misses the boat, as on "The Last Time I Saw Richard," which ignores the song's thrilling harmonics. Travelogue translates Joni Mitchell as a scrupulously constructed puzzle. (JAMES HUNTER)

Talib Kweli Quality (Rawkus)

"I wanna write the songs that right the wrong," Talib Kweli raps on "Stand to the Side." Usually that's more of a threat than a promise -- Public Enemy and Dead Prez notwithstanding, revolution on wax is usually a dowdy affair. But on his first proper solo album (following album-length collaborations with Mos Def and producer Hi-Tek), Kweli smoothly bridges the physical and the political. Producers Kanye West and J Dilla mix a rich palette of summer-morning horns, somber strings and crisp, chattering snares to give their host's lessons added sonic urgency. As ever, Kweli's rhymes are astute and sometimes vicious: "Guerilla Monsoon" is a fierce battle track, which also features Pharoahe Monch and Black Thought. Kweli delivers "Joy," and ode to his two young children, with the same amount of passion. On the magisterial "Rush," Kweli brags, "I'm known to roll up my sleeves and put my hands in the dirt." How else is a thinking man going to make the people move? (JON CARAMANICA)

Susan Tedeschi Wait for Me (Tone-Cool/Artemis)

Four years is a long wait for this follow-up to Susan Tedeschi's Just Won't Burn, which launched the young, Boston-bred blueswoman into the Grammys' Best New Artist sweepstakes alongside Britney, Christina and Kid Rock. But while that disc never matched her onstage verve, Tedeschi fulfills her promise on this mature, varied outing, which was co-produced by Tom Dowd (Allman Brothers, Aretha Franklin), and warrants her move to scrap previous sessions. The smooth, smoldering opener "Alone" (by Tommy Sims, who co-wrote Eric Clapton's "Change the World") and the Otis Redding-styled title track mark Tedeschi's shift into both soul and pop potential as a singer, much like hero Bonnie Raitt. Guitarist-husband Derek Trucks' band fuels the swinging Paul Pena romp "Gonna Move," while old friends Paul Rishell and Annie Raines lend their guitar and harp to the back-porch acoustic "Blues on a Holiday." But Tedeschi mostly spreads her wings like never before. (PAUL ROBICHEAU)

Billy Joe Shaver, Freedom's Child (Compadre)

When Billy Joe Shaver sings "What I'd give for a slice of yesterday!," you better believe he means it. But as much as Shaver might like to go back to the days of his small town Texas childhood for another taste of his grandma's apple pie, as fondly remembered in "Corsicana Daily Sun," or even just back to more recent times before he lost his grown son, wife and mother (all three passed away in the last two years), Freedom's Child is more about moving on than looking back. Though it lacks the roadhouse-shaking, rock & roll fire of the albums he recorded with his guitar hero son Eddy (like last year's epic The Earth Rolls On), Freedom's Child is full of life, spirit, hope and humor, not to mention some of the most moving songs this veteran honky-tonk poet has ever written. The beautiful, reflective opener "Hold On to Yours (And I'll Hold On to Mine)" is the obvious standout, but the similarly themed "We," the galloping title track (a poetic hymn to an unknown solider) and the rousing, fiddle-fried country romp "Wild Cow Gravy" are all worthy additions to the canon of one of America's best, albeit woefully under-recognized, songwriters. (RICHARD SKANSE)

FC/Kahuna Machine Says Yes (Nettwerk America)

On Machine Says Yes, Big Beatniks Dan Ormondroyd and Jon Nowell offer a clutch of futurist floor-shakers. The titles of "Bleep Freak" and "Fear of Guitars" say all that needs to be said about their approach: Electro-influenced tracks like "Nothing is Wrong" and "Microcuts" honk, squawk and squelch like an arcade full of video games on "tilt." The duo juxtaposes these nightclub-ready tracks with chilly, space-age symphonies. "Hayling," with vocals from Gus Gus singer Hafdis Huld, could be an outtake from Air's Moon Safari, and alt-country singer Eileen Rose's sultry vocals on "North Pole Transmission" sound like she's adrift in some starry void. But FC/Kahuna never let their zeal for experimentation slow the pulse of the music. Machine Says Yes throbs like vintage acid house, but they've given it a cosmetic makeover for the millennium. (MICHAEL ANSALDO)

Hem Rabbit Songs (Bar/None)

Rabbit Songs is sophisticated, sexy and gorgeous -- a gentle mix of country and folk music that makes for exquisite acoustic pop. Dan Messe's soft compositions feature eight pieces -- which on some songs grows to sixteen -- interweaving piano, mandolin, pedal steel and violin without sounding cluttered. In fact, one of Rabbit Songs' major achievements lies in its inspired, understated arrangements. But, make no mistake, this New York City band's most attractive feature is lead singer Sally Ellyson, whose voice combines the tradition of American roots music with the pipes and delicacy of a lounge singer. Instead of sounding stale singing someone else's lyrics, Ellyson enlivens Messe's lovesick songs. "But someday when my heart exhales/I'll tell you everything/These sweet words spilling all about us/I'll say please, please be with me," she sings on the addictive "Stupid Mouth Shut." As for the other fifteen, the tracks range from sad lullabies ("When I Was Drinking") to upbeat bluegrass ("The Cuckoo") to quiet anthems ("Night Like a River"). Rabbit Songs typifies musical elegance, a passionate and beautiful folk-pop record. (BENJAMIN FRIEDLAND)

Various Artists Now That's What I Call Music! 11 (Universal)

Now 11 illustrates the current quality gap between rhythmic pop and Top Forty rock. On the one hand, you've got inventive Neptunes productions of Nelly and N.O.R.E., disco delights from Dirty Vegas and Kylie, and dancehall reggae by Beenie Man and No Doubt. On the other, there's Creed, Hoobastank and members of Nickelback and Saliva: rock too formulaic to roll. (BARRY WALTERS)

(November 18, 2002)