The Breeders were the indie band that was going to save music after the implosion of grunge, but they couldn't even keep themselves minimally healthy. In the mid-Nineties, Kim Deal's post-Pixies group collapsed under the combined stress of her purported studio obsessiveness and her twin sister Kelley's dependencies. The Deal sisters -- aided by members of the venerable Los Angeles punk band Fear -- had to fight their way out of a lot to make Title TK (publishing-speak for "name to come"), and you can hear it. This is hot, scratchy, burdened un-rock, and one horribly sad album. The drums in "Sinister Fox" could be knocking to get in, or aping gunshots, or maybe it's just Kim hitting her head against the wall again. Despite the frequent jokes in the lyrics, Title TK is almost painfully intimate. Kim's girlish (or is it boyish?) voice grinds sweetly, weariedly, sloppily inside your brain: "Better I, better I stayed up," she repeats throughout "Put on a Side," while a single bass-guitar note thrums and bends. The songs break themselves apart and regroup uncomfortably. A spare grunge call-and-response leads "Little Fury" into a chugging Martian approximation of a rock song; the light pop verses of "Forced to Drive" dim under the gloom of a twisty, malignant chorus. "Off You" is as direct and heartbreaking as an eighty-five-year-old blues recording, and Kim, her voice clear and full of hope, can't help sounding like a young woman who's lived ten awful lifetimes. Title TK is absolutely beautiful, but only a fiend would find it merely so. (ARION BERGER)

Marc Anthony Mended (Columbia)

When Marc Anthony conquered America at the height of 1999's so-called Latin explosion, his hit "I Need to Know" outdid previous achievements by Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez by delivering instant-gratification hooks that still sounded authentically Latin. Unfortunately, corny ballads soon followed. After returning to salsa with last year's Libre, Anthony is now back with a new batch of English-language tunes designed to recapture lost pop momentum. His angst-stricken tenor aches with so much ardor that he requires material that operates on the same level of intensity. Mended addresses the slow-song glut of his breakthrough album by keeping a groove going throughout most of its thirteen tracks. But the melodies are as minimal as they are forgettable, and inane lyrics make matters worse, particularly when "Do You Believe in Loneliness" dares to rhyme with "onlyness." It's a shame when expressive singers waste surreal amounts of emotion on songs so lacking in substance. (BARRY WALTERS)

Heather Nova South (V2)

Bermuda-born Heather Nova feels sand, waves and breezes where other singers and songwriters know only concrete and buildings. Such grounding makes for a seductive vibe, but on South, Nova's fourth album, she and her producers do not rely on atmosphere alone. Instead -- modernizing a great pop-soul-rock recording style that only Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" has gotten right in the last fifteen years -- they nail songs with unshakable melodies, choruses, bridges and harmonics; the technique, as on the great soul records, uses structural certainty to access emotional mysteries. The songs sing, from the nuevo-Eighties "Heaven Sent," wound up by Swedish producers Peter Kvint and Simon Nordberg, to the delicate and tough "When Somebody Turns You On." And "Welcome," a song rich with vocals and co-written by Dido, is an instant classic. Holding everything together is Nova's seaside soprano, full of as much poise, grit, fireworks and sweetness as the South itself. (JAMES HUNTER)

Flatlanders Now Again (New West)

Fans have called the Flatlanders "more a legend than a band" -- a Lubbock, Texas, group that captured a perfect moment in Seventies country. But Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock have never taken the epitaph very seriously, and on Now Again, their first album together in thirty years, they have a hell of a good time tearing it down. The ghosts of their hauntingly beautiful 1972 debut, The Flatlanders, remain -- old-timers will have a flashback hearing the mournful dobro echoing Gilmore's aching vocal on "Going Away." But the emphasis this time around is fun. The songs crackle with sly 'n' dry wit ("Yesterday was Judgment Day -- how'd you do?"), and even the Flatlanders' trademark instrument, the musical saw, seems used here with tongue-in-cheek self-awareness. Hancock and Gilmore hog all the best songs -- Hancock's "Julia" is the real standout -- but Ely's production packs all the spirited punch of his live shows. The result is a profoundly Texan take on the Traveling Wilburys; as legendary statements go, Now Again barely registers, but as a devil-may-care hoot, it's one for the ages. (RICHARD SKANSE)

Tommy Lee Never a Dull Moment (MCA)

Between last year's Motley Crue tell-all, his lengthy rap sheet and that infamous home video, we know more than we should about Tommy Lee. The follow-up to 1999's guest-heavy Methods of Mayhem offers smaller insights. Who knew that he liked David Bowie? Yet on his rap-metal homage to the icon, "Fame-02," Lee freestyles an expletive-riddled rhyme that suggests the original song's moral eludes him. Fame: "Do what the fuck that you want to do." That motto seemingly guides Never a Dull Moment. Throughout, Lee sings and plays most of the tracks himself and experiments with a bipolar range of songs, from string-laden ballads such as "Ashamed" to ragers like "Face to Face," on which he threatens to "bitch slap" a former friend (Kid Rock?). But just because one can doesn't mean one should. Sounding alternately like a drill sergeant and Keanu Reeves crooning in a faux-British accent, Lee lacks the musical identity to unify these disparate and, yes, frequently dull moments. (ROBERT CHERRY)

Mary Timony The Golden Dove (Matador)

Mary Timony is one of the more oddball acts on the Matador roster -- which is no small feat considering the New York indie also hosts precocious, er, talent like Stephen Malkmus, Cat Power and Belle and Sebastian. But even by those lofty standards, this second solo album by the moon-faced Helium singer is weird. There are songs about serpents who fly, cats with medical degrees and fairies who do all sorts of bad things. The effect is heightened by the music, produced in part by Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous, which is a nausea-inducing mix of prog-rock and mediaeval folk. On "The Mirror" malnourished guitar chords give way to a spiraling chorus and gong-like rhythms, while "The Owl's Escape" glides by on a murky stream of ghostly sound effects and reform school piano loops. "14 Horses," meanwhile, sounds like an old castle hymn reshaped by Faust, and features the less than savory line, "The crystal ship of your mind/The wile horse of space and time." It's like the pop equivalent to the 692-page fantasy epic, only it makes less sense. (AIDIN VAZIRI)

Ugly Casanova Sharpen Your Teeth (Sub Pop)

If Isaac Brock's side project is less cerebral than the bulk of his Modest Mouse output, it still boasts enough appeal to dazzle his loyal indie rock clientele. Sharpen Your Teeth, a one-off album for Sub Pop recorded as Ugly Casanova and realized with the aid of Red Red Meat and Black Heart Procession members, also possesses some of Brock's most direct material. Hopping from trippy, melodic, lo-fi rock ("Barnacles") to bluesy, Beck-like strums ("Spilled Milk Factory"), these players execute their sound with an easy, under-thought approach. Brock's lyrics are as winningly twisted as ever on "Parasites," when his cracked pipes -- atop yard-sale percussion and synthesized horns -- eek out lines like, "The parasites are excited when you're dead/Eyes bulging, entering your head." Amid a number of other standout tracks, including the recklessly upbeat "Things I Don't Remember," just one intolerable rock experiment can be found, called "Diamonds on the Face of Evil." Wrapping the record with the galactic and gorgeously teary "So Long to the Holidays," Brock and friends affirm that ugly can also be alluring. (JOHN D. LUERSSEN)

Neil Finn One All (Nettwerk)

New Zealand singer-songwriter Neil Finn emerged from the shadow of his talented brother, Split Enz frontman Tim Finn, to cast his own considerable shadow as the driving force behind Crowded House. In his current solo state, Finn has become one of the most respected songwriters in music, as evidenced by his recent live album, When Worlds Collide, which featured multiple duets with Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder. On his latest effort, One All, Finn wastes little time in showing his considerable prowess. The opening track, "The Climber," is vintage Finn, a superbly crafted mid-tempo pop tune with a sing-song melody. Like any master of his craft, Finn makes songwriting seem effortless, whether it be on the engaging hooks of "Wherever You Are," the gentle beauty of the opening to "Turn and Run," or the melodious harmonies of "Last to Know." One All is a must for any music fan. (STEVE BALTIN)

Dave Seaman Global Underground 22: Melbourne/Boxed (Studio K7)

It's hard to imagine that any city in Australia -- a country that's enriched the world with thousands of exotic spiders, the Outback, the Great Barrier reef, boomerangs, kangaroos and Kylie Minogue -- is really this boring. British label Global Underground made its name by taking its favorite house, progressive house and trance DJs to far off locales around the globe -- this time, Melbourne -- to capture the spirit in a studio recorded mix. DJ Dave Seaman's languid, taxing intro mulls its way through most of the first disc, despite spun-in production numbers from usually dependable geezers like Orbital, Cass and Slide, and the prodigious James Holden. Disc Two strives for last-minute salvation, using the delicious vocal coos of Louise Rhodes of Lamb on "What Sound." It's pleasant enough for a lazy afternoon, but it won't have you jumping. (JOLIE LASH)

Home Town Hero Home Town Hero (Maverick)

From the land of Incubus -- that's Calabasas, California, for you future Rock & Roll Jeopardy contestants -- comes Home Town Hero, a standard-issue, two-guitar, bass and drums quartet that attempts to pull new tricks out of the same old hat. Singer Aaron Bruno isn't a distinctive stylist; he sounds like a less concerned Paul Westerberg, raspy but not as capable of heart tugging. His band, however, funnels punk rock through a pop filter that's harder than the Goo Goo Dolls without sacrificing the pop potential, as the band's first single "Questions" clearly indicates. Tracks such as "Who's to Say" and "Bed of Dreams" are clearly anthems for the Dawson's Creek generation. Home Town Hero are clearly competent at the music they've grown up with, but it may be time to branch out to the new world surrounding them. (ROB O'CONNOR)

DJ Spooky Modern Mantra (Shadow Records)

Ill-bient O.G./theoretician DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid mixes, scratches and edits twenty-eight selections from the NYC-based label Shadow/Instinct's catalog of drum-and-bass, hip-hop, techno, dub and ambient dreamscapes. DJ Krush, Cujo (a.k.a. Amon Tobin), Russell Mills, Aesop Rock, a vintage Moby and others are on the guest list, as the set flows and crests and eventually comes to rest. Ethereal, often wordless female vocals, filtered snippets of conversations, instructional records, spy-movie soundtrack samples, jazzy sax/flute solos, watery eclectic pianos, sliced-n-diced hooks, squiggly guitar figures, white noise and voices that scream and holler and sometimes talk in foreign tongues all ascend to a percolating crescendo in this seventy-four-minute mix tape that tests positive for beat-matches in a high desert laboratory. (DON WALLER)

(May 20, 2002)