SOUNDCHECK

Beyoncé


B'DAY (2.5 stars)

Because she's beautiful, and because she's sold many records (by herself and with Destiny's Child), and because rapper-cum-Def Jam chief Jay-Z is her boo-bear, and because she envisions herself as the modern-day Diana Ross—because of all these things, Beyoncé should be ashamed of B'Day, the CD released September 4, her 25th birthday. The damn thing was supposed to be a cherry atop 2003's excellent Dangerously In Love. Instead, it's a 10-song CD that runs slightly longer than an extended bathroom break. It's so short that I've reviewed every song.

1. "Déjà Vu": How many ways can you say "I'm sprung on this dude?" She's not very convincing and Jay's verse is a throwaway.

2. "Get Me Bodied": Though the title sounds like something from The Sopranos, it's actually about dirty dancing in the club, then heading home for some nookie.

3. "Suga Mama": The "I'm sprung on this dude" sequel. Memorable for this incomprehensible line: "I'm be like a Jolly Rancher that you get from the store." Hmm.

4. "Upgrade U": BJ (hey, it's short for Beyoncé and Jay-Z) see who can out-bling the other on this man's-world-but-it-would-suck-without-women song.

5. "Ring the Alarm": You must watch the video to feel this tune about lost love. B actually looks like she'll go crazy if she loses her man.

6. "Kitty Kat": Because her man would rather hang out with the fellas, she's going to take her, um, well, er, the female part of her anatomy, and hit the road.

7. "Freakum Dress": Every girl's got a dress that, she says, "is an invitation." Whatever happened to playing hard to get? 8. "Green Light": It's not about traffic but about how she's open for business.

9. "Irreplaceable": Finally, a song about her self-worth and not settling for bums.

10. "Resentment": At last, a decent song—heartfelt and soulful with some insightful verses. "I know she was attractive, but I was here first." "I used to be strong, but now you took my soul."

11. "Listen" (bonus track): An almost-soaring tune that falls just short of R. Kelly inspirational.

B'Day plays more like a birthday gift to Beyoncé than to her fans.

THE MARS VOLTA


AMPUTECHTURE (3.5 stars)

"The kiosk in my temporal lobe is shaped like Rosalyn Carter." Seeing the lyric in print, it's hard not to laugh, but just try cracking a smile when it pops up midway through the 17-minute "Tetragrammaton," Track 2 on Amputechture. Jocularity has no place in the sonic realm of The Mars Volta, a dense commotion so intense it feels like it might, at any moment, physically injure the listener.

More than any sound or narrative concept, that brutal weightiness binds the band's third album, threatening to blow off your headphones amid the guitar wars of "Viscera Eyes" or knock your car into a ditch when the hyperactive drumming of "Day of the Baphomets" kicks in. Even relatively restrained stretches—the spookily subdued intro/outro cousins "Vicarious Atonement" and "El Ciervo Vulnerado" or the acoustic guitar-piloted "Asilos Magdalena"—smolder menacingly, as if principals Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala have coiled, snail-like, in some far corner, primed to strike with an abrupt shift in tempo or acute falsetto shriek.

Amid the cramped clash of balls-out heavy rock, Latin texture, psychedelic jamming, spacey electronics, free jazz skronkery and impenetrable bilingual vocals—free-swinging skirmishes waged across proggy song structures and epic track lengths—it's difficult to form any lasting, definitive opinion, save that it's all very odd and undeniably engrossing. Rather than attempt to determine whether it's better or worse than The Mars Volta's previous work, let's just say it's a continuation, of the most disorienting slab of musical mayhem this side of a pre-festival parking lot with car stereos thundering from every open window.

Audioslave


REVELATIONS (3.5 stars)

Supergroups aren't meant to last. The typically volatile teamings of star musicians from top groups tend to sputter out after an album or two, and maybe a tour if fans are lucky. The truth is that what sounds totally awesome on paper is often disappointingly messy in practice. So for Audioslave to release its third album in a five-year career is a feat unto itself. The combination of former Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell and former Rage Against the Machine instrumentalists Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk has become one of the most successful supergroups of all time, and with each release they sound more like a cohesive band than a collision of divergent styles.

That collision shouldn't be discounted, though, and the band's 2002 self-titled debut is still their best album for its striking unexpectedness. On Revelations, Morello continues to tone down his over-the-top guitar theatrics, and the rhythm section of drummer Wilk and bassist Commerford moves to the forefront in a sound that Morello has described as Led Zeppelin meets Earth, Wind and Fire.

It's not quite as funky as that implies, but songs like "Original Fire" and the excellent "Broken City" have a swagger and swing that the band's previous material has lacked. Some of the songs are still too sludgy and generic, a problem that plagued last year's Out of Exile, although the distinctions become more apparent on repeat listens. For musicians who come to the table with so much past baggage, the members of Audioslave are doing their best to open up their sound, and if their musical growth is a little slow, it's still a treat to listen to.

Ben Kweller


BEN KWELLER (4 stars)

Ben Kweller's latest album is classic American songwriting at its best, all sunshine and vanilla ice cream and scorching Texas days and pretty girls. The 26-year-old's graduated from Violent Femmes and Evan Dando territory to the zip codes of John Mellencamp and Tom Petty with songs perfect for driving with the windows down and singing along until you're hoarse. These are the sounds of a kid becoming a man in full.

Even when Kweller's reflective songs remind you of scenes from Garden State, the music bursts and blooms like summer flowers. On "I Don't Know Why," Kweller sings about going nuts and worrying that he's become obsolete. But instead of brooding, he just wants to tell his loved one how much he truly adores her. "Until I Die" starts with Kweller apologizing for being paranoid and continues with him admitting that there's nothing he wants more than to spend his entire life with the gal he loves. This is the sound of settling, and it's gorgeous.

"Penny on the Train Track" is about finding out an old high-school pal is now a cop, but instead of thinking that his friend's trapped in a dead-end existence, the moment inspires Kweller to realize that adulthood is pretty rad and full of infinite possibilities. "I wait," Kweller sings. "I wait—for something good, for something great." Dude, you're already there.

DJ Shadow


THE OUTSIDER (2 stars)

Beats Sounds like DJ Shadow had three or four different records in mind here. There's a risky (and, let's be honest, entirely forgettable) attempt to produce an out-and-out hip-hop album, with various guest rappers on board, including David Banner and E-40. (To be more specific, this sub-genre of hip-hop is known as "hyphy," a kind of goofy-gangsta Bay Area specialty.) There are forays into psychedelia: mopey-sounding boys droning and intoning over chemically-induced beats. And, of course, there's more same-old same-old, or what can now be rightfully called "classic" DJ Shadow music: ambient moodscapes, aural textures stretched into songs, stray objects floating through the air. Call me a curmudgeon, but same-old same-old wins this one hands down. Unfortunately, it comprises about a fifth of the album.

That fifth or so is fairly remarkable, however. "Broken Levee Blues" is little more than a guitar doodle—the sound of a '70s southern rock outfit goofing around as they wait for the engineer to show up for the session—and it's weirdly transfixing. "Triplicate/Something Happened That Day" is even more extreme in its utter anomalousness: quiet, beautiful, foreboding—it's like a handful of other DJ Shadow tracks you've heard and like nothing else you ever will.