Here is one of the most delicious thrills that rock & roll has delivered this year: thirteen songs of love, heartbreak and erotic ambition set to cavernous guitar feedback and drums that throb like Ronnie Spector's hips.

The Raveonettes are two Danish troublemakers -- Sun Rose Wagner on guitar and Sharin Foo on bass -- obsessed with pre-Beatles America: Phil Spector, Buddy Holly, B-movie biker flicks, girls in push-up bras waving on teen-boy drag racers. On the surface, their music is all innocence, repression and hand claps that sound like lip smacks. Underneath, the guitars and bass execute dance steps learned from Danish pornography and old Blondie records.

On "Little Animal," Wagner sings about how his girl always wants to fuck, while the guitars drip distortion and the drums make a break for the nearest symphony hall. If he was doomy instead of horny, you'd swear you were listening to the sexiest Jesus and Mary Chain record ever made. In fact, you are. Last year, the Raveonettes announced their love of black leather and garage rock with the eight songs of Whip It On, all of which were droning three-chord rompers in the same minor key, a concept that wore thin on repeated listens. Chain Gang of Love is brighter and better in every way. It is full of delicacy and chaos, and it goes for heart-wrenching grandeur without ever giving in to despair. As the Shangri-Las used to say, this is good bad, not evil. (JOE LEVY)

Thrice The Artist in the Ambulance (Island)

The Artist in the Ambulance keeps up the noisy punk and black hopelessness that singer-guitarist Dustin Kensrue dutifully chronicled on the Thrice's indie releases, Identity Crisis and Illusion of Safety. "One day the dreamers died within us/When all our answers never came," Kensrue sings on "All That's Left," the band's first single from its debut big-label release. Guitarist Teppei Teranishi, bassist Ed Breckenridge and his brother Riley on drums ably create a close facsimile of existential rage, but Kensrue's lyrics -- sharp, sometime political ("Hoods on Peregrine") and even allegorical ("The Melting Point of Wax") -- often get lost in the screams. Missing as well is Thrice's search for answers to their many questions. Where are the possibilities of this generation? You won't find them on Artist in the Ambulance. But the siren is loud and clear. Heed the warning and thrash away. (MARIE ELSIE ST. LEGER)

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Take Them On, On Your Own (Virgin)

When their debut album came out three years ago, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club were in obvious debt to a particular Eighties Brit-rock band, earning them the unfortunate nickname Black Rebel Mary Chain. The L.A. trio sticks with Jesus and Mary Chain-style swirly, fuzz-drenched rock on Take Them On, On Your Own but puts its own imprint onto the sound. Like the standout tracks on their previous CD, the opening number here, "Stop," declares its presence with a wet, sexy bass line, which serves as the song's melodic anchor as Peter Hayes' guitar bathes in its own feedback. Other numbers ("Six Barrel Shotgun") rev hard and fast, exactly like Detroit garage rock would sound to three California Anglophiles. On "Ha Ha High," they indulge their psychedelic tendencies with an impenetrable tangle of noise that loops and loops and loops all the way out to space while Hayes pants, "You're ha ha high baby/You can't keep it on the ground." Original it's not. But it still sounds awfully good while it's happening. (JENNY ELISCU)

Beth Orton The Other Side of Daybreak (Astralwerks)

Beth Orton's new album is more than just a remix disc; it's also a de-mix album. She hands four songs from last year's Daybreaker to outside producers who wrap the brooding midtempo tunes in chattering drum machines and ghostly dub. But she also breaks down that album's lead single, "Concrete Sky," into a solo-acoustic live performance, and she adds mostly acoustic versions of the Five Stairsteps' 1970 Chicago-soul hit "Ooh Child" and of "Ali's Waltz" -- an unused companion piece to Daybreaker's "Ted's Waltz" and one of her loveliest ballads. You can mess with Orton's music however you want -- add layers of electronica or strip them away to reveal the folkie within -- and the songs will still work, because her melodies are that strong and her voice that compelling. (GEOFFREY HIMES)

Various Artists Underworld Music From the Motion Picture (Lakeshore Records)

Underworld . . . is the ideal industrial rock soundtrack to a vampire/werewolf film . . . of the Nineties. Produced by Nine Inch Nail's Danny Lohner (who provides spooky score pieces as Renholder), the nineteen-track album collects new, mostly turgid songs about the undead and/or dying from old school acts Skinny Puppy, Johnette Napolitano (Concrete Blonde), and Helmet's Page Hamilton, whose "Throwing Punches" confirms that his new-metal followers still pale by comparison. Supergroup Awakening debuts with "The Damning Well," a by-the-numbers soft/hard metal song barely notable above the sum of its parts: a surprisingly tuneful Richard Patrick of Filter, former Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland, Lohner and A Perfect Circle drummer Josh Freese. Tool's Maynard Keenan gets sacrilegious with the industrial trip-hop debut of his side project, Puscifer, while actress/model/singer Milla Jovovich is predictably inscrutable on the pulsing torch song "Rocket Collecting." A dim light in the midst of the darkness is a remix of David Bowie's "Bring Me the Disco King." Stripped to its spooky leanest from the piano lounge original, the vampirish club-kid fable is energized by Keenan's eerie backing vocals and Red Hot Chili Pepper John Frusciante's tasteful, jazzy guitar. That, and a few APC remixes almost make this Underworld worth visiting. (GIL KAUFMAN)

Various Artists Light of Day: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen (Schoolhouse)

This isn't the first CD tribute to the Boss, but it's the most expansive, with thirty-seven artists, from Dion to Pete Yorn to unknowns, and a benefit album to boot -- money goes to fight Parkinson's disease and sarcoma. Some versions are faithful, like Joe Ely's "Working on the Highway" and Dan Bern's raw, acoustic "Thunder Road." Others are recast, not always for the better: witness the Clarks' upbeat "The River," Joe D'Urso's ska-flavored "Badlands" and Billy Bragg's "Mansion on the Hill," which sounds more like "Blueberry Hill." Still, many tracks shine, from Elvis Costello's country-resonant "Brilliant Disguise" and Joe Grushecky's rootsy glide through the title track to close-to-earth solo readings by Patty Griffin, Willie Nile and Rosie Flores. E Street guitarist Nils Lofgren even adds a to-the-heart "Man at the Top." But hearing Crazysloth and Cowboy Mouth rock through "Candy's Room" and "Born to Run" mostly make one yearn for the original. (PAUL ROBICHEAU)

Jeff Buckley Live at Sin-e: Legacy Edition (Columbia)

Buckley fans got a tease of this 1993 gig on his debut EP, the original Live at Sin-e. Although its four songs were meant to showcase Buckley's vocal versatility, this highly beefed up reissue drives the point home. Performing solo and accompanying himself on electric guitar, the acrobatic singer apes Dylan, parodies Jim Morrison, and mimics Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan so convincingly that it might as well be the late Qawwali singer you're hearing. In addition to prime material from his 1994 debut, Grace ("Last Goodbye", "Mojo Pin"), Sin-e boasts over a dozen masterful covers. Buckley tackles Billie Holliday, Ray Charles, and Van Morrison with equal skill and sensitivity. "Drown in My Own Tears" and "If You See Her Say, Hello" are shot with the same ethereal beauty as the covers of "Hallelujah" and "Lilac Wine" found on Grace. They're the kind of songs you'll put on mix tapes for years to come. (EVAN SCHLANSKY)

Centro-Matic Love You Just The Same (Misra)

Denton, Texas, singer-songwriter Will Johnson again delves into his seemingly inexhaustible reserve of pop melodies and surrealistic lyrics on Centro-Matic's seventh release, Love You Just the Same. In a voice scored by yearning, Johnson's obtuse poetry introduces listeners to "halcyon afternoons turned into darkest night" and "spiraling sideways." Johnson makes you work as hard to decipher his cryptic messages as his band works at the dramatic arrangements that surround and constantly threaten to swallow them. Feedback soars out of a stunningly melodic chorus on "The Mighty Midshipman," a string section swells from a thick wall of guitars on "Strahan Has Corralled the Freaks," and the thunderous, deliberate rhythms of drummer Matt Pence trail off into a chorus of "ahhhs" on "Picking Up Too Fast." Drinking from the same Lone Star State weirdness as Roky Erickson and the twisted heartland wail of the Flaming Lips, Centro-Matic shifts effortlessly between raging rock and quiet, moody beauty. (MEREDITH OCHS)

Stars Heart (Arts & Crafts)

Stars long for escape. Just as the quartet fled New York City for the imagined romance of French-speaking Montreal, its music nostalgically recalls a rose-colored past. They wrap this longing for a better world (or at least better love-life) in a pseudo-Eighties mix of weightless, skipping beats, cheesy keyboards and inspired melodies -- think Prefab Sprout without the conceptual grandeur. Reality never gets them down; the string-enhanced album closer, "Don't Be Afraid to Sing," remains hopeful as it slowly unravels. The Stars add little orchestrated touches throughout that make it seem like they're scoring an imagined indie film. But it's the sympathetic duets from Torquil Campbell (who as an actor has appeared on Law and Order and Sex and the City) and Amy Millan that trick you into believing that enduring love can be as fresh as first sight. (ROB O'CONNOR)

The Innocence Mission Befriended (Badman)

As with their 1995 breakthrough, Glow, the Innocence Mission's Befriended is an album of small gifts rendered with a craftsman's touch. Karen Peris has an endearing and pure voice, her refined intonations glide over the music like a brave bird singing on an cold autumn morning. She and guitarist (and husband) Don and bassist Mike Bitts, works in ethereal atmospheres on such songs as "Sweep Down Early" and "Tomorrow on the Runway." These songs revolve around past lives, families, and reminiscences -- sort of an emotional scrapbook of music and memories. (KEN MICALLEF)

(September 2, 2003)