Cee-Lo Green is a soulman for the twenty-first century. During the Nineties, the egg-shaped singer and rapper helped the crunkadelic rap quartet Goodie Mob become the second-greatest Southern hip-hop group of all time. His high-pitched, gritty voice is a thoroughly unique instrument that can switch between lightning-speed rhymes and sweet serenades. Goodie Mob records such as Soul Food and Still Standing were gospel-tinged evocations of the South as both a depressed hood and a party-hearty playground. On his 2002 solo debut, Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections, he got both earthier and more out there: He paid homage to his Seventies R&B forebears and played up his let-it-all-hang-out freakiness, declaring himself a "bad mutha" one moment and giving his baby boy a message of hope the next. And he showed lots of folks who'd slept on Goodie Mob that for street-wise, countrypolitan creativity, his only competition was Dre of OutKast.

Cee-Lo turns up the heat even further on Cee-Lo Green Is the Soul Machine. The album overflows with horns, P-Funk choruses, pricey beats and enough interlocking harmonies to fill a Bach cantata; at the same time, he's cuddly enough to keen an Al Green-style ballad where he asks his girl to "make it a Blockbuster night."

The big improvement is in the songwriting: This time around, Cee-Lo works a memorable tune into almost every one of these eighteen overstuffed tracks. Sometimes he favors simple vocal hooks, as on the awesomely funky first single, "I'll Be Around," on which Cee-Lo and Timbaland trade stutter-step rhymes over African percussion. Other times, Cee-Lo drops intricate melodies and harmony-laden choruses, most deftly on "The Art of Noise" and "My Kind of People," which steals its tune from the 1982 reggae hit "Pass the Dutchie." Usually, the point is just for you to dig it: "The day-to-day experience is the data that I download," he rhymes on "Soul Machine," "and then remaster into a rapture." There are all-star producers on Soul Machine -- Timbaland, the Neptunes, Organized Noize -- but this doesn't feel like a pricey, radio-ready hodgepodge; Cee-Lo's personality is too strong for that.

Soul Machine falters on a series of slow jams ("Glockapella," "I Am Selling Soul") that sound more like vocal exercises than fully realized songs. But even on the most plodding songs, Cee-Lo shows a joyful zeal that's hard to resist. "Different cultures congregate and can't wait," he tells the faithful on "The Art of Noise," "'cause they came to see Dr. Green tell them the good news." What's the good news? There's something out there besides ready-made radio soul. (CHRISTIAN HOARD)

The Get Up Kids Guilt Show (Vagrant)

The Get Up Kids know from heartbreak. On the emo kingpins' previous album, 2002's On a Wire, they managed to communicate real anguish with their quiet tunefulness, especially on "Campfire Kansas" and the meditative "Overdue." Guilt Show is a retreat to the group's punkier past. On "How Long Is Too Long" and "Martyr Me," singer Matt Pryor pleads and sneers as the band builds crisp, charged grooves behind him. It's all a bit scattered, though; the Get Up Kids channel Blink-182 one minute ("Man of Conviction") and Billy Joel the next ("In Your Sea"). And lyrically, despite a few gems ("Never Be Alone"), on tracks such as "Martyr Me," Pryor delivers wounded-boy bromides that are so shopworn, they sound indifferent. (JON CARAMANICA)

The Living End Modern ARTillery (Reprise)

Somewhere along the line, punk rock spun from fiery political anthems to hooky joke songs. Rather than giving in to the flavor of the day, Australia's the Living End stayed true to vintage punk rock anti-establishment themes while tossing in the occasional brokenhearted ditty. Three years and a new drummer after Roll On, their most commercially accessible offering was released, the trio returns with a riveting collection of songs that blends their signature rockabilly punk sounds with singer Chris Cheney's passionate lyrical and vocal approach. The assortment of fourteen songs kicks off with the rev 'em up ode to attraction "What Would You Do", spins into the catchy "One Said to the Other" and then runs into the potential campaign credo "Who's Gonna Save Us" that sounds more Clash-like than anything the band has done before. Proving they're not a one-trick, four-chord pony, TLE stretch with "So What" and "The Room," a pair of songs that stand out for their sonic diversity. Taken as a rollicking whole, Modern Artillery is a stunning return to proper punk rock form that shouldn't be overlooked. (DAVID JOHN FARINELLA)

The Lot Six Major Fables (Tarantulas)

The Lot Six are punks with the jumbo box of crayons. The Boston troupe's fourth album is defined by Dave Vicini's fiery vocals and urgent riffing by Will Kerr and Julian Cassanetti, but the album's embellishments are bountiful and bursting with color. Playful piano vamps tinker with tempo on "I Was You" and "Go to Sleep," with the latter flashing a smart dash of reggae. Meanwhile "My Baby's Gone" puts the brakes on the rail-teetering proceedings, shuffling into a drunken honky-tonk singalong, but only for a moment before being jarred into hangover by the hardcore rant "Die Polize." The viciously varied sounds are part of a larger no-rules garage ethic on Major Fables that reaches a classic boil on the howling rave-up "X Rayted." There are also glimmers of the Eighties underground throughout (Vicini's conversational bark sometimes recalls a crankier D. Boon), but the Lot Six are too driven with forward momentum to fuss with too much yesterday. (ANDREW DANSBY)

Just Jack The Outer Marker (TVT)

You would be doing Just Jack a disservice if you were to approach his debut full-length, The Outer Marker, thinking of him as the next chapter in the book started by the Streets. Just Jack's Jack Allsop and the Streets' Mike Skinner are both white guys from the U.K. who chat observationally about life in a frisky accent. But that's all they have in common. Allsop draws from soul sources and singer-songwriter vibes far more than he does from minimalist hip-hop beats. The Outer Marker is modest in its tight, bedroom-style production, which plays host to emotional, soul-baring confessions from Allsop delivered in an unassuming and non-confrontational fashion. He politely discusses what's been going on in his day(s) with the listener, his flow falling into rhythmic "rapping" during the choruses, simply but effectively speaking the truth. (LILY MOAYERI)

Van Hunt Van Hunt (Capitol)

On his self-titled R&B debut, Atlanta's Van Hunt grinds through twelve love tales that are more Seventies soul than today's jams. Absent are the manufactured beats and sampled hooks helping out his contemporaries. Instead Hunt's singing is reserved, and his songs funk and jazz, as horns, strings and guitars dance around the deliciously heavy groove beneath. However, Hunt's old-school vibe is also a curse, and his steadfast earnestness and lyrical clich?s quickly sound silly. Whether he's wailing for "seconds of pleasure," avoiding "the morning after" or reassuring that "you have no worries tonight," it's hard not smirk. On "Who Will Love Me in the Winter," Hunt admits: "Spaceship crashed against the wall/Neighbor's grass ain't so green after all/I wouldn't have a second thought about the fall/I'm wondering who will love me in winter." Though Hunt's anachronisms are undeniably smooth, they're also unintentionally comical -- not exactly "the taste of lemon drop" he was hoping for. (BENJAMIN FRIEDLAND)

Mahjongg Machinegong (Cold Crush)

The voices on Mahjongg's Machinegong are a bit muted, but the music cries out like a politician on the campaign trail. This quintet blends a bevy of instruments that are not overdone, overplayed or even very obvious. When fused together, however, they project a distinctive take on late Seventies funk that slinks along aimlessly in parts, jumps into a pop song here and there, and otherwise goes wherever it wants. Some sections are drenched in fuzzy, spacey synthesizers, others with noodling guitars that follow more than they lead, all of it held together by a rhythm section which falls more in line with Latin percussion than it does rock, giving these tracks a loose shape with a dub feel. (LANCE WALKER)

(March 1, 2004)