The Soundtrack of our Lives Behind the Music (Warner)
Sweden’s SOOL offer up a potent third album with a unique, nearly timeless quality, a rare feat in rock’s major-label wasteland. Playing the retro card via Stones and Kinks influences, SOOL nevertheless remain diverse and contemporary throughout these 15 tracks, subtly incorporating groovy psychedelia, poppy folk, full-on stompers and dreamy ballads into their rock mosaic. Sparing keys and strings support the (electric and acoustic) guitar-dominated sound which, efficient and unassuming as it is, presents a refreshing change from irony, pretentiousness and indie-rock sameness. 8.5/10 (Lorraine Carpenter)

The Breeders
Title TK (4AD/Select)
No, really. New Breeders album. Both Deal sisters. Steve Albini producing. Some young punks from L.A.’s Fear filling out the band. But, nine years later, it sounds just like a Breeders album, its pop foundation filtered through lazy, lo-fi indie rock, and recorded with the back-to-basics technique Kim Deal has dubbed “All Wave” (“no ProTools!”). With its sparse instrumentation and sprinkling of oddball stoner numbers, this is more Pod than Last Splash, so those hoping for a “Cannonball” may be a touch disappointed. Flawed? Sure. But fun, rockin’ and keeping the Pixies spirit alive? Yeah. 7.5/10 (Lorraine Carpenter)

The Makers Strangest Parade
(Sub Pop/Warner)
The Makers have always been a guessing game. Starting off as a ’60s-style garage band, they later became kings of fuzzed-out punk before delving into glam for the last record, Rock Star God. Strangest Parade takes the baton from that one and does up a glam panorama à la Ziggy Stardust. In fact, Bowie and Mott the Hoople are all over this, right down to the Mick Ronson riffs, while singer Michael Machine exchanges his Jagger swagger for ol’ Davey Jones’s Aladdin Sane. This is a balls-out opus all the way down to B3s, acoustics, strings, mellotron and piano, rocking furiously on songs like “Addicted to Dying.” Former fans will be left in the dust but the Makers continue to pander to nobody. 8.5/10 (Johnson Cummins)

Trans Am TA
(Thrill Jockey)
Washington’s precision tech-rockers (think OMD vs. Rush…) return with their vision of a party album. The clinical abstractions they’re known for go out the window, along with the all-instrumental format—all but two tracks have vocals, vocodered or otherwise. However, sterile e-pop, robotic drum crunch and sweaty riffage à la roque classique still duke it out in a goofy three-way. Krauts and computers get the usual nods (“Bonn,” “Infinite Wavelength”), and this time so does this hard-assed Brazilian booty-tech style called funk carioca (“Basta”). Of course, when they start to sound a little too much like Foreigner (“You Will Be There”), the party’s over. 8/10 (Rupert Bottenberg)

Various FUBAR the Album: Turn Up the Good, Turn Down the Suck (Aquarius)

Holy shit, eh? Fifteen cockrocking, all-Canadian stallions here—the perfect soundtrack for a summer night of roasting wienies and shotgunning a six-pack, right? Fuck, yeah! Inspired by FUBAR, by far this country’s best-ever metal mockumentary, Sum 41 salutes Helix with a blistering “Rock You,” Chixdiggit pay tribute to Loverboy with a sweetass take on “The Kid Is Hot Tonight,” Montreal reprazenters GrimSkunk “Raise a Little Hell” for Trooper, and many more of today’s guitarslingers serenade their elders. Good’s way up, suck’s way down. Wicked. 8/10 (Penny G)

Tram A Kind of Closure (Jetset)
If the U.K.’s Tram were a stage tragedy, the spotlight would stick to singer-songwriter-guitarist Paul Anderson, whose understated yet emotive voice is the centrepiece of each song, save the one, vaguely discordant instrumental interlude. Piano and trumpet play the loyal best friends, while a mystery vixen appears now and then for backup. The strings remain in the orchestra pit, sometimes supplying an atmospheric base, sometimes dominating the scene with their bang and clatter. I won’t give away the ending, but this is a tragedy, remember. 7.5/10 (Lorraine Carpenter)

Naughty by Nature iicons
(TVT/Universal)
Oh, how the years roll by. It wasn’t too long ago that the entire place was swaying side to side, singing along with “Hip Hop Hooray.” Funny thing is, I remember the moment that I realized I could no longer sway and sing along with Treach and Vinnie. After 10 years in the game, fittingly commemorated with this release, it’s time for the boys to employ the old party-record approach. Call up Redman and Meth, Pink, Carl Thomas, the Beatminerz, Bumpy Knuckles, Queen Latifah and of course 3LW to make sure it’s a little bit crazy. And then, you just have your fun. Naughty probably never broke the way they wanted to, and never will, but at least they’re still here after 10 years in hip hop, and that must count for something, right? 7/10 (Scott C)

Hawke Heatstroke (Six Degrees/Outside)
San Francisco’s electro scene is where rigidly defined genres go to die, something strongly evident in the sounds of Frisco’s Hawke, aka Gavin Hardkiss. Originally from Johannesburg and part of a fraternal order that includes other Hardkisses like Scott and Robbie, Gavin crafts tunes that straddle the fences of techno’s global village. Heatstroke is the much awaited follow-up to his influential LP Namaquadisco and is a real category-buster. A flurry of high-BPMers are peppered with breaks, exotic Afro/Asian instrumentation and consciousness-raising lyrics that are not too preachy. “Party People: We’re Gonna Change the World” was shipped out on July 4 of last year for 20 DJs to play simultaneously in an intriguing tour-de-force known as IndepenDance Day. Cool stuff from someone who’ll possibly reach the Moby level. 8/10 (Peter Lightburn)

Murcof Martes (Static/Fusion III)
Based out of Tijiuana, Static Records (in conjunction with the U.K.’s Leaf label) has just released the first full-length from Mexican artist Murcof. Part of the new wave of Mexican techno producers, Murcof’s Martes is slightly reminiscent of native Montrealer Tim Hecker’s excellent Haunt Me release on Substractif. Comprised of eight minimal, ambient soundscapes, digitally processed and sourced from snapshots of classical music, the result is nothing short of breathtaking. At once dense and moving, the organic collides with digital in an Avro-Part-meets-Thomas-Brinkmann stylee. Great listening. 9/10 (Raf Katigbak) At SAT, Sun., June 2 as part of Mutek

Various Music & Movement One: Compiled by Nik Weston (Climate/Fusion III)
It always escapes me how these great compilations always seem to come out just when the songs included have become a touch redundant. Weston’s impressive two-CD set is a nu-jazz, broken beat and bossa primer that includes numerous heavies like Marcos Valle, Atjazz, Domu, Osunlade, Modaji, Kaidi Tatham and Yukihiro Fukutomi, but in some cases the songs included have been eclipsed by newer works from these same artists. If I hear Nathan Haines and Verna Francis do “Earth Is the Place” one more time I’m gonna do myself in, but overall, it’s a winner with loads more butters than bummers. 8.5/10 (Scott C)

Various Gainsbourg Made in Japan
(New mantra/Fusion III)
Ol’ Serge woulda just loved this. Standouts from his catalogue get covered by assorted Tokyo types, though the frenetic, eclectic Shibuya style is played down to palatability. In a couple of cases, infantile, china-doll idoru vocals over bland, tinny travelogue pop amount to little more than karaoke krap. On the other hand, there’s Kahimi Karie’s Brazilliant “En Melody,” produced by her ex, there, Cornelius. Better yet is Fumie Hosokawa’s energized synth-rock charge through “Poupée de cire poupée de son,” once a hit for Gainsbourg’s, uh, protegée, France Gall. Topping the list is the soft, mesmerizing, narco-reggae take on “Sea Sex & Sun,” sung by Mari Natsuki and overseen by Konishi Yasuharu of Pizzicato 5. 7.5/10 (Rupert Bottenberg)

Various WOW Gospel 2002 (Verity)
This double disc features some of last year’s best, a stellar line-up featuring the cream of the crop. All the big guns are here—Kirk Franklin, Hezekiah Walker, Yolanda Adams, Fred Hammond, Richard Smallwood, Donald Lawrence, CeCe Winans and brother BeBe—but it’s the contributions by some lesser-known artists that are the real treasure here. Tracks by LeJeune Thompson (“Born Again”), Deitrick Haddon (“Home”), Darwin Hobbs (“Deeper”) and Beverly Crawford’s powerful “Run to the Water” are among several that make this one a must-have. 8.5/10 (Gerard Dee)

Dizzy Gillespie Afro
(Norgran/Universal)
Woody Herman Herman–1963 (Philips/Universal)
Gerry Mulligan Concert Band at the Village Vanguard (Verve/Universal)
Three large ensemble items in the Universal series of reissues, featuring the original albums with cover art and liner notes. All three are historically important documents. The Gillespie has Chico O’Farrill’s four-part look at “Manteca” and an added bonus in the tenor solos of the great Lucky Thompson. The Herman is the initial release by his great band of the ’60s, the one with people like Phil Wilson, Sal Nistico, Paul Fontaine, Gordon Brisker and Bill Chase. The Mulligan Concert Band is captured live at NYC’s famed Village Vanguard with soloists like Clark Terry, Bob Brookmeyer and the leader heard in arrangements by Mulligan, Brookmeyer and Al Cohn (his “Lady Chatterley’s Mother”). All will bring musically rewarding listening! All 9.5/10 (Len Dobbin)

Various Blues Roots (Tomato/Fusion III)
There are a lot of early blues collections going around today and most of them fall short by stuffing in the big names. This double-CD collection is culled from field recordings made by collector Chris Strachwitz and is on par with blues archivist Alan Lomax’s legendary collection. All of these recordings are from the ’60s and document a pre-electric, and then virtual unknown, R.L. Burnside, as well as killer sides recorded by legends like Lightnin’ Hopkins, Bukka White, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Earl Hooker, Guitar Slim and Big Mama Thornton. Most of this roster is no longer with us and sadly, every holler and bottleneck slide ring out with a sense of urgency that has yet to be replicated in blues today. Ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby. 9/10 (Johnson Cummins)