kiss-off (“You’re 18 / And you’re dumb”) is buried under deceptively lovely guitar lines on the acidic relationship song “You Brought This on Yourself”; meanwhile, the mini epic “Song for the Fields” opens with an acoustic shuffle and ends with a Doctor Who–creepy keyboard incline. Winter is an easy album to enjoy, but a difficult one to trust. BRIAN RAFTERY

Sage Francis Human the Death Dance ½ ITUNES MYSPACE Hyper MC who’s much too inspired by “Me, Myself and I”

“This is hip-hop for the people,” says Sage Francis early on his fourth album. “Stop calling it emo.” Stop bellyaching and maybe we will. Francis’ relentless self-examination can strike real sparks—he’s a clear-eyed lyricist and his unorthodox flow is plenty energetic—but he falls into mawkishness far too often (“All they ask is why I wear these glasses / And all I can tell them is, hell, it’s good fashion”). Still, this is more mature than 2005’s A Healthy Distrust, boasting straightforwardly soulful production and smarter punch lines (“If you ain’t dead / You ain’t a suicide girl”). MICHAELANGELO MATOS

This multimedia assault, though high on concept, is the most successful representation yet of Gang Gang Dance’s kaleidoscopic, neo-primitive, post-punk clamor. Keyboardist and visual artist Brian DeGraw assembled the 24-minute CD and half-hour DVD from shows, soundchecks, practice tapes, field recordings, live video, tour footage, and newly shot abstract vignettes. As the title suggests, there’s more than a bit of synesthesia in play: the pulsing, alien sounds on the CD (throbbing, as in gristle) suggest the style of the visuals, while the film’s lulling edits merge with the music. J. NIIMI

Black clad, blue tinted,
and on a mission
But Seriously
Rap-rock superstars make their bid for significance

JAMES MINCHIN/COUR TES Y WARNER BROS.

Funeral for a Friend Tales Don’t Tell Themselves ITUNES MYSPACE In screamo, the trouble starts when the yelling stops

Though they’re superstars at home, this Welsh screamo quintet have yet to conquer the U.S., despite arriving here in 2003 with a thunderously melodic sound and a barge full of press clippings. For their third album, FFAF blatantly move beyond the aggressive scene that spawned them and focus on slicker ballads that hint at ’80s heartland-rock melodrama. At its best (“Great Wide Open”), Tales recalls Foo Fighters’ wimpier singles, but for the most part, it’s just a reminder of why even Dave Grohl turns up the screaming now and then. AARON BURGESS

The Horrors Strange House ½ ITUNES MYSPACE

Spooky U.K. sensations need to sharpen their shtick If the Horrors had crafted an album’s worth of creepy goth-garage tracks that matched the vampish ferocity of single “Gloves” and riotous crowd-pleaser “Sheena Is a Parasite,” these young Brits really could’ve blown the cobwebs off the Cramps’ handbook. But Faris Rotter’s vocals lack the charisma to give the group a true campy flamboyance, and the insistent, haunted-basement organ riffs scarcely vary. Lyrics about bloodthirsty lovers and serial killers are ghoulish diversions, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ guitarist Nick Zinner drops by, but the Horrors are too shackled by kitsch to scare life into such creaky punk posturing. JENNIFER MAERZ

Linkin Park
Minutes to Midnight
½
ITUNES MYSPACE

way he and his bandmates feel about their place in the music scene: Though they’re heroes to a nation of Hot Topic tweens, Linkin Park are desperate for the sort of respect showered on brainy indie faves like Arcade Fire.

Gang Gang Dance
Retina Riddim ½
MYSPACE
Weird films, weirder sounds
from New York art-rock crew

The Ike Reilly Assassination We Belong to the Staggering Evening ½ ITUNES MYSPACE Barroom bard’s songs still aren’t equal to his words This Chicago quintet’s tipsy, Southern-tinged rock serves solely as a backdrop for singer/songwriter Reilly’s easy rasp and quirky lyrics, which are packed with droll one-liners and the kind of deceptively specific inanity that T.S. Eliot might’ve enjoyed. But their bar-band charm wilts midway and the meek instrumentation drags like a hangover, at one point even nicking the melody of Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” (“I Hear the Train”). Still, in “Fish Plant

“I’m sick of being treated like
I have before,” Mike Shinoda
announces in “Hands Held
High,” one of the few tracks on
the new Linkin Park album that
features the rapper/producer’s
rhymes. Laden with somber
references to “bombs on
the buses” and Mao’s “Little
Red Book,” “Hands” is the
multiplatinum outfit’s big
antiwar anthem. But Shinoda’s
line also seems to reflect the

They’re desperate for
the respect showered
on brainy indie faves.

So on Minutes to Midnight, they give their sound a dramatic makeover with help from producer Rick Rubin, that bearded Pez dispenser of serious-artist cred. Per his rep, Rubin convinced the

band to go organic: “Given Up” and “Bleed It Out” have ragged guitars, handclaps, and random background noise—a deliberate move away from crafty, studio-sweetened hits like “Numb” and “One Step Closer.” And in the more densely layered cuts—such as “The Little Things Give You Away,” on which singer Chester Bennington describes a scene of post-Katrina desolation— the music privileges texture over catchiness. The arena-emo hooks are still there, of course, as lead single “What I’ve Done” proves. But this time they feel more like a means to an end. MIKAEL WOOD

Uprising,” Reilly dares to ask what CNN won’t: “Who says you can’t toss a fish at a president?” STACEY K. ANDERSON

KRS-One
Hip-Hop Lives

ITUNES MYSPACE

Searching for new magic with
his legendary ’80s rival

Twenty years after the South Bronx/Queensbridge throwdown, KRS-One and Marley Marl have squashed their beef; but the results are cause for only quiet celebration. The fortysomething MC still has his fast-ball—both the title track and “Nothin’ New” showcase provocative lyrics, original flows, and uninhibited

enthusiasm. The production is another story: Marley Marl provides mostly gloomy backdrops hampered by lackadaisical crate-digging (or flat-out biting). For example, “All School” knocks, but it’s only been three years since Ghostface’s “Run,” which used the same frantic beat to much more dramatic effect. THOMAS GOLIANOPOULOS