The growling, choppy guitar sample that opens the first track here, "It's My Life", is a virtual declaration of intent for the first Bon Jovi album in five years, a statement that they're updating the sound without abandoning the traditional virtues that made them one of the biggest bands on the planet. So make way for a hi-tech parade of smooth-but-gutsy rock anthems, almost any one of which will gladden the heart of every AOR radio programmer in the land. Unless the world has changed irredeemably, cuts such as the mid-paced heartbreak chugger "Say It Isn't So" are destined to become Bon Jovi standards, while an outbreak of scarf-waving and lighter-flicking is certain to accompany any live performance of the big weepy, "Thank You For Loving Me". Arguably, everything on Crush is done by the numbers, but with consummate pros like Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora at the helm, these are the kind of numbers you have to take seriously, because by the second time they kick into the chorus of any song it's damn near impossible not to sing along. -Johnny Black.

This is tragicomedy of the highest Loser order. Drunk Enough to Dance, the second album from Texan pop punks Bowling for Soup, rips through the kind of chugging riffs and high-school trauma that no US teen movie should be without. Led by former pet-shop owner Jaret Von Erich, the quartet here deliver 17 speedy doses of wise-cracking brat-pop while Von Erich picks over his hapless love life. As in the top-10 single "Girl All the Bad Guys Want"-a frustration-venting pogo-along about a hot rock-chick with a nose ring-the objects of his affection are invariably out of his league. This prompts a deluge of droll wallowing along the lines of this, in "Don't Wanna Rock": "She makes me want to be a homosexual / maybe then I'd be her best friend and see her naked once in a while. " Even when he does get the girl of his dreams, in true screw-up style there are minor hiccups, as he whines regretfully on the lovelorn belter "Emily": "I got drunk / had sex with all your friends / you told me I should never call your house again. " Self-conscious, self-deprecating, and heavy on the self-pity, with big choruses, killer lines and a persecution complex to match, slacker rock doesn't come much better than this. -Dan Gennoe.

The second in System Of A Down's projected 2005 two-album set picks up where its predecessor Mezmerize left off, melding together bug-eyed political rage, complex prog-metal, and incomprehensible lyrical absurdities and packaging them all together in one of the ugliest sleeves ever seen in Christendom. Mind you, to be aesthetically pleasing is not System's way: "She's On Heroin" and "Stealing Society" are lurid snapshots of society at its most grotesque, schizophrenic canvases of thrash metal and dizzying Cossack rhythms as warped and twisted as the drug addicts and insane dictators they inevitably depict. A bizarre highlight comes in the shape of "Victim Of Obscenity", where frontman Serj Tankian chants "Banana banana banana terracotta/ Banana terracotta pie". As with Mezmerize, Hypnotize finds guitarist Daron Malakian handling many of the vocal duties: he takes the lead on "Kill Rock'n'Roll", declaring "I felt like the biggest asshole/When I killed your rock'n'roll", and again on the uncharacteristically slow, emotive "Lonely Day". If anything, though, this is a heavier, more bewildering work than its predecessor. An album to sort out the men from the boys - Louis Pattison.

No Name Face is an auspicious debut from Lifehouse, a band seemingly made to rule the airwaves. The insinuating melodies that mark their radio-friendly sound are not unlike those of Matchbox Twenty in their softer moments. From the first single, "Hanging by a Moment", to the emotive and uplifting "Quasimodo" and the wonderful "Trying" (think Crowded House at their lilting best), Lifehouse are self-possessed and focused. Young singer-songwriter Jason Wade (the son of two ministers) imbues Lifehouse's vibe with a spiritual quality that's never heavy-handed, delivering the goods with the authority of an experienced troubadour. No Name Face may be a first offering from a young band, but it looks to signal the beginning of an estimable career. -Katherine Turman.

No Name Face is an auspicious debut from Lifehouse, a band seemingly made to rule the airwaves. The insinuating melodies that mark their radio-friendly sound are not unlike those of Matchbox Twenty in their softer moments. From the first single, "Hanging by a Moment", to the emotive and uplifting "Quasimodo" and the wonderful "Trying" (think Crowded House at their lilting best), Lifehouse are self-possessed and focused. Young singer-songwriter Jason Wade (the son of two ministers) imbues Lifehouse's vibe with a spiritual quality that's never heavy-handed, delivering the goods with the authority of an experienced troubadour. No Name Face may be a first offering from a young band, but it looks to signal the beginning of an estimable career. -Katherine Turman.