Christopher O'Connor

Air makes great softcore-porn music. At least seven of the ten songs on the new album Talkie Walkie could back the drawn-out, slow-motion sex scenes to those old, dubbed-in-English Emmanuelle skin flicks and, in some of those instances, actually improve the aesthetic. The tunes really are that evocative of the...

In 1988, Metallica made an album called ...And Justice for All, and it was extraordinary, filled with layered lead-guitar harmonies, whipsaw chord changes, near-orchestral structures, and focused ferocity. It was quite simply one of the greatest metal albums ever made. The songs, ambition, and talent could not be obscured. St...

AFI, an unusual hard-rock band, recruited veteran producers Butch Vig and Jerry Finn -- an unusual duo -- to produce its major- label debut, Sing the Sorrow. Vig made his name producing Nirvana's Nevermind and built on his heavy-but-dreamy style with Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage (for whom Vig drums). Conversely,...

Chan Marshall, known to the rock 'n' roll world as Cat Power, is a painfully shy woman with a lot to say. You Are Free, her new album and first since 2001's bleak The Covers Record, is the least self-assured-sounding self-assured record in ages. "Don't be in love with the...

Nas runs on two themes: loss and the reclamation of former glory. With God's Son, the Queens rapper, plagued for years by a lack of focus, makes those themes indistinguishable, finally meeting the challenge of Illmatic, his 1994 masterpiece -- and albatross -- as he struggled through subsequent mediocrity. The...