AIR

Talkie Walkie

(Source/Virgin)

****
For fans of this French duo's meltingly cool pop songs (that veer toward the sweetly psychedelic), Air's Talkie Walkie is a merciful return to the band's heavenly engaging sound introduced on the stunning 1998 debut Moon Safari. An equally mesmerizing soundtrack for Sofia Coppola's directorial debut, The Virgin Suicides, proved the band could take the lush, somber romanticism of Moon Safari to even greater heights of riveting tranquility. Then came 10,000 Hz Legend in 2001, and a legion of disillusioned Air fans hung their heads in utter despondence and feared the magic had all but disappeared. Talkie Walkie, though, is perhaps Air's best album yet--not quite as caressingly sexy as Moon Safari, but still containing standout songs like "Run" (which at its most sublime moments calls to mind 10cc's "I'm Not in Love"), the celestial "Cherry Blossom Girl," and a whistle-along pop song resplendently accompanied by plucky banjo. A DVD is included, which features 35 minutes of the band in concert. KATHLEEN WILSON

COURTNEY LOVE

America's Sweetheart

(Virgin)

*1/2
Let's face it: Courtney Love's personal life has always been a helluva lot more interesting than her music. Correspondingly, her first solo outing is ripe with four-letter words and sexual innuendo, but when Love croons about "her coochie" over a watered-down radio rock riff, it's still about as threatening as Finding Nemo. America's Sweetheart's blazing opener, "Mono," wouldn't sound out of place on Hole's Celebrity Skin, but Love's tired brand of mid-tempo power-pop quickly becomes monotonous, with sappy Skid Row-esque ballads like "Almost Golden" the only thing disrupting the three-chord fare. Love's cigarette-stained voice is still captivating, but manufactured music and revelatory lyrics like "everybody dies" ultimately overshadow what little substance exists here. In fact, America's Sweetheart's only moment of real honesty is when Love sings, "I'm overrated, desecrated. Somehow illuminated." True, but as her deceased husband, Kurt Cobain, wrote in his infamous suicide note (quoting Neil Young), "It's better to burn out than to fade away"--and Love's tabloid-snatching antics won't keep her ablaze forever. JONAH BAYER

Z-MAN

Dope or Dog Food

(Hieroglyphics)

***
"Fuck a Source/My shit is five mics on the street," asserts Z-Man. He comes from 99th Demention, but his solo joints are more like dementia--as in "drunk." Dope or Dog Food (from the Big Daddy Kane line, "Is it dope or is it dog food?") explores the pitfalls of the (vegan) inebriate's lifestyle, including a "Slang Dictionary" that defines as many names for booze and drugs as the Inuit have for snow. In narrative, clear, basic/tight storytelling-style congruous with dorkier West Coast brethren like Murs and Humpty Hump, Z gets absurdist on the downstroke, sneering, "I spit in your little boy's food/and left a hickey on your momma neck/it's picture day, too," and the laugh-out-loud, grotesque dis, "I ATE OUT YOUR GIRL WHILE SHE WAS PREGNANT." Z gets the Gingerbread Man to guest; his helium-swigged raps make Magoo sound like Luther Vandross. But while Z-Man likes to clown, he still writes rhymes that cut to the liver, speaking out against everything from "beefin' over weak shit" to racism to irresponsible dads to cancer-causing foods to the inaccessibility of AIDS drugs. And Bill O'Reilly. JULIANNE SHEPHERD

THE MOUNTAIN GOATS

We Shall All Be Healed

(4AD)

***
The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle is something of a folk purist, a poet-cum-preacher whose songs follow in the musical tradition of the Vietnam-era protest singers. But instead of railing against abhorrent foreign politics, the 13 tracks on We Shall All Be Healed stand as a tribute to life's more subtle wars: desperation, poverty, addiction, etc. The songs, all loosely based on the lives of real people, ache with a sort of bitter, despairing beauty. Darnielle spouts half-sung rants over acoustic-guitar-heavy, occasionally string- and piano-accompanied tracks, channeling the musical spirit of Phil Ochs in both delivery and timbre. Forsaking his usual lo-fi home-recording aesthetic, Darnielle offers us a polished, quietly exceptional album, a worthy follow-up to last year's acclaimed Tallahassee. Recorded by John Vanderslice, We Shall All Be Healed is both grievous and gorgeous, an aptly-titled ode to urban bleakness that, despite all its pathos, is oddly hopeful. NICK KOCH

ZAO

Legendary: The Best of Zao 1997-2003

(Tooth and Nail)

****
When I first heard Zao's previous album, I was involved in an animalistic, premarital sexual encounter that I remember in disturbing detail every time I hear their music. This makes me pretty goddamn happy, considering the band members are a bunch of pro-life Christians who play clenched, growling hardcore that, unfortunately for my politics, I can't help but love. I like making their music dirty just like they like making their music clean with incomprehensible lyrics about salvation. Legendary includes songs from the band's previous albums, like the particularly cathartic and metal-heavy "Suspend Suspension," and the cheesy but righteous "Free the Three"--a song complete with Metallica-sharp guitar solos and dramatic voice-overs detailing the plight of the West Memphis Three. If you were ever going to spend money on a Christian hardcore album, this would be the one, because it's got all of Zao's greatest music on one disc, and they are the shit--not just as far as Christian hardcore goes, but as far as hardcore goes, period. KATIE SHIMER

THE NOTWIST

Different Cars and Trains EP

(Domino)

**1/2
Different Cars gives songs from the Notwist's pervasive sixth album a paint job, with remixes from Four Tet, Manitoba, Loopspool, and Console (AKA Martin Gretschmann of the Notwist). While it doesn't evoke the painful isolation that made the stunning poptronica hybrid Neon Golden cross over to indie rock holy graildom, from a house music perspective, Gretschmann's mixes straddle warm minimalism and dance-floor shivers, polishing bass with fingersnap pulsing and choppy keyboards. Loopspool takes it even smaller, with a taut, dubby bass line commanding an army of micro clicks and clorks. A new track, "Red Room," resurrects the chilly, lonely beauty consummated by computers and recorders swaying together like reeds in a glitchy wind. Then, Four Tet and Manitoba chop it up, loop it, and rub it down, morphing "This Room" into a life-affirming, shockingly funky minute of exuberance. And it's like drinking a glass of milk after four days of hot water with lemon. JULIANNE SHEPHERD

ONEIDA

Secret Wars

(Jagjaguwar)

***
Like pre-major-label Monster Magnet, Oneida make psychedelic rock that leaves bruises. On their sixth album, the Brooklyn trio don't flaunt the kind of anarchic energy that catalyzed 2002's Each One Teach One, but it's still as bracing as the battle scenes in Fight Club. Oneida continue to sound like they're trying to shatter your skull and rearrange the fragments into prettier new shapes, but now they do so with ways other than brute force. "Caesar's Column" and "The Last Act, Every Time" venture into ethno-rock territory with gongs and ukulele, respectively, while "Treasure Plane" nods to the chimed fuzziness of former indie rock heroes Chavez and Polvo. The melodic grunge ballad "Wild Horses" gets obliterated by the bullet-train chugging of "$50 Tea" and "Winter Shaker," an homage to maniacal guitar-army composer Glenn Branca. Oneida aren't stars, but their music will make you see them. DAVE SEGAL

DUB B

SeaReality

(SeaReal Records)

**1/2
Seattle ain't Inglewood. So it's kind of a joke for Dub B to be repping the Emerald City so hard on his debut disc, SeaReality. However, for those willing to ignore the cheesy cover art and intro, Dub B is the real deal. He spits fast and true with a pop-friendly slant, especially on such dance-floor bangers as "Yippy Ky Yo," "For My," and "Ain't No Saying No." He drops smooth G-romance on "Reminisce" and "Love." And if Dub has any weakness, he's at least smart enough to get backup from a powerful crew--including Kae One, Luciano, SLS, and Young Coley--who step up to provide the grit. It may not be hard, but frankly I'm sick as shit of constantly getting the screwface. Dub B and the gang are smooth brothas who can still move the dance floor without clogging up your grill. WM. â„¢ STEVEN HUMPHREY

KELIS

Tasty

(Arista)

***
The Neptunes' grind plus the catchy jump-rope mantra of Kelis Rogers' "Milkshake" makes for a yummy dance-floor bump, but like its namesake, it's unsatisfying as a meal. Tasty, Kelis' third album, is a luscious candied slice of soul, flavored with Steely Dan and a patent leather, R&B sheen. Like her producers (the Neptunes, Andre 3000, Raphael Saadiq), Kelis is firmly planted in the black-futurist method of fusing soul, hiphop, and punk--so futurist, in fact, that her unadventurous then-label, Virgin, kept her second record from U.S. release. Kelis finds easy comfort in the cold nestles of handclapped echoes and holodeck melodies, best in the dreamy buzz of "Millionaire" and "Glow." You'll welcome that after "In Public," her duet with fiancé Nas--an exhibitionist number that transgresses "nasty" straight into creep mode. (The normally amazing Nas actually raps the word "erection." Dude: Is this an operating room?) Tasty flirts with playful charm; you may be gun-shy at first, but you'll commit eventually. JULIANNE SHEPHERD

**** Driving the skin bus *** Fishing for zipper trout ** Doing the hand-cooter * Yanking the Yanni