“The clock is ticking,” reads the bio. “Soon The A♦Teens will leave their teen years behind.” The sentence is intended to imply that Pop ’Til You Drop (Universal), the million-selling co-ed quartet’s third album, represents a natural and much needed maturation. But like the new Lemon Coke, which looks like a good idea on the surface but tastes like Lemon Pledge, the seasoned yet still easy-on-the-eyes A♦Teens fail to deliver the goods. First, it’s debatable how much independence the Stockholm-based vocal group have actually been granted. The A♦Teens’ names do appear occasionally in the album’s songwriting and arranging credits, but they’re tacked onto some of the most powerful songwriting/production teams in the business, including Think Production’s Grizzly and Tysper, Maratone’s Mark Hammond and Chris Nelson, and Red One. Second, despite their attempts to cash in on the connection, they’re not ABBA. Awash in technology, tracks such as “Floorfiller” and the hip-hopped cover of Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling in Love”—from the Disney hit Lilo and Stitch—are safe and unimaginative. Claims of sophistication notwithstanding, these Teens are just more fodder for the monoculture—no more distinctive than a Target store, and as disconnected and soul-free as the latest episode of elimiDATE.

—Paul Griffith

When the Doves released their debut Lost Souls in 2000, their music was unapologetically adrift, lush and maudlin. The Manchester trio were also noticeably in debt to fellow North England supergroups Stone Roses, Charlatans UK and The Verve, employing a similar toolkit of dreamy space-rock and druggy, clamorous grooves. On The Last Broadcast (Capitol), however, homage has given way to something grander—sophisticated, original and decidedly upbeat music.

The rousing effect is at times breathtaking, especially when heard in light of the band’s dire, if resigned, debut. There’s no resignation here, though, as the hypnotic euphoria of the opening tracks “Words” and “There Goes the Fear” pummel with heavily treated guitars, well-timed drum drop-ins and the suddenly ecstatic vocals of bassist/frontman Jimi Goodwin. “The Pounding” is similarly insistent, recalling the best moments of Trash Can Sinatras (a much closer antecedent than the more common Radiohead comparisons) while walloping the listener with a sucker-punch of a hook and an almost overwhelming (on first listen) textured wash. The song falls ninth, and it’s well placed: Following mid-album tracks like the playful and raucous waltz “N.Y.,” the silky near-gospel of “Satellites” and the exquisitely arranged (courtesy of The High Llamas’ Sean O’Hagan) “Friday’s Dust,” “The Pounding” restates the positive themes of the lyrics and music more simply. “The Pounding” also sets up the finale, “Caught by the River,” which bulges again into an oddly tranquil, open-armed and loud epiphany, one that’s as stylish and epic as The Last Broadcast itself.

—Jonathan Flax

The Bay Area has maybe the most interesting collection of electronic musicians anywhere—artists who mess with the form in inventive ways, whether by using surgical recordings (Matmos), indulging in seriously whacked scatology (Blectum From Blechdom) or taking the piss out of modern pop music (Kid 606). Lesser fits perfectly with this company; not only has he shared stages and recordings with these folks, his sensibility is every bit as keen, provocative and, in the end, engaging. LS-MP3CD-R_1990-2000, issued by Kid 606’s Tigerbeat 6 label, collects in MP3 form all of Lesser’s output from a 10-year period—totaling more than 12 hours of music, playable on any computer with a CD drive.

That may sound like overkill, but it’s the perfect way to delve into Lesser’s gloriously messy approach. Sure, some of the earlier recordings sound like juvenilia, but they’re in keeping with the body of Lesser’s work, which plays around with squeals, scrapes, bleats, rumbles and beats, all in the interest of trying something, anything to see what works (or, hell, what doesn’t). Even on last year’s Gearhound, his most recent “proper” release, the music often cracked, crumbled and split up before coalescing into something that resembled a song.

But therein lies much of Lesser’s appeal: He’s drawn to electronic music because of its limitless possibilities for making both mayhem and tweaked beauty. Just as key to Lesser’s artistic persona, though, is his sense of humor, which can render playful what otherwise might sound frightening. In the end, he may want nothing more than to undermine the seriousness and self-consciousness which plague so much electronic music—witness such song titles as “Markus Popp Can Kiss My Redneck Ass” and “One Ambient Motherfucker”—and that’s a worthy goal.

—Jonathan Marx

In brief

A children’s album from They Might Be Giants might seem redundant, but despite the band’s general sensibility of boyish glee and insane catchiness, TMBG often exploit the tension between their wide-eyed tone and the creepy surreality of their lyrics. On the kid-friendly NO! (Rounder), the edge is off, and the songs lean toward happy-making musings like “Where Do They Make Balloons?” and the rollicking “Bed Bed Bed” (about why it’s time to go there). The CD comes with CD-ROM-accessible animations, which are almost a necessity to understand more esoteric tracks like “Violin.” For the most part, though, the simplicity and cleverness of NO! should delight parents and offspring alike. Who else but TMBG would write songs about the ghosts that haunt The Edison Museum, or from the perspective of a grocery bag?... I never would’ve expected to derive any pleasure from a Blink 182 side project, but drummer Travis Barker and guitarist/vocalist Thomas Delonge’s band Box Car Racer mix brat-punk whine and art-punk exploration with big-budget production values and arena-rock polish. The songs on their eponymous MCA debut aren’t always up to the sound, but when the hooks and solos fall together, the result is like Fugazi meets Van Halen.... Momentarily free of major label connections or Big Rock Album ambitions, Robert Pollard’s classic-rock-meets-indie-expressionism vehicle Guided By Voices have returned to their methodology of fragmented tunesmithery on Universal Truths and Cycles (Matador). While the atmosphere is agreeably casual, Pollard has gained some chops during his flirtation with the big time, which gives assembled-from-scraps songs like “Christian Animation Torch Carriers” estimable force. It’s GBV-as-usual in many ways, but with a fullness that more closely approximates the rock gods that Pollard has long sought, drunkenly, to emulate.... Fellow native Ohioans Pere Ubu have been carrying the banner of experimental rock since the mid ’70s and have yet to let that flag flag. Their latest album, St. Arkansas (SpinArt), is about traveling cross-country, and bandleader Dave Thomas’ puckish humor as he takes on the persona of a road-weary businessman provides a respite from the propulsive, hypnotic drone and inexorable slow roll of rhythm (broken up also by the odd rocker, as on the fevered “Phone Home Jonah”). The heart of the LP beats in its closer, the nearly 10-minute “Dark,” which has Thomas muttering, “And the radio / AM radio / oh the radio will set you free” like a creepy mantra. St. Arkansas is one of the best albums of Pere Ubu’s career and one of the best of 2002, displaying the kind of intelligence and imagination that gives the avant-garde a good name.

—Noel Murray