While John Cale certainly gave the first couple of Velvet Underground albums a signature sound, his departure enabled Lou Reed to do exactly what he does best: write kick-ass, stripped-down rock songs. On Loaded his talent comes to full fruition. Who can imagine a world without "Sweet Jane" and "Rock & Roll", arguably two of the greatest rock tunes ever penned? The brilliance of those songs is so bright, it's easy to overlook a couple of other Reed masterpieces: the tender, epic discourse of "New Age" (which highlights his assured sense of poetic wordplay: "And when you kissed Robert Mitchum / Gee, but I thought you'd never catch him!", and the extended sweet blues romp of "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'. " On Loaded the Velvet Underground-who before had hit the sonic ceiling experimenting with shattered chords, feedback, screeching violas and what Reed once claimed was "the fastest guitar playing ever"-eschew the dark side of noise for clarity. Check out the ringing chime that begins "Who Loves the Sun" and the sterling (no pun intended) guitar riff that drives "Rock & Roll. " This is not to say that the old ragged punch of the original Velvets is completely gone. Moe Tucker still beats a mean set of skins; there's no stopping Sterling Morrison's train-wreck rhythm guitar on "Train Round the Bend"; and "Head Held High" achieves near- "Sister Ray" moments of madness. -Tod Nelson.

The Who's second album is a mite inconsistent, not least because all four members were encouraged by a business deal to churn out songs. A Quick One nonetheless manages several Who classics, notably "A Quick One While He's Away," Pete Townshend's first longform (10 minutes) piece, and John Entwistle's licensed-to-ill "Whiskey Man" and "Boris the Spider. " The band's sense of humor, however, gives way on rote pop tunes like Roger Daltrey's "See My Way. " But CD bonus tracks like the great "Disguises" (included in a murkier mix than that on the 30 Years of Maximum R&B boxed set) and the Beach Boys tributes "Bucket T" and "Barbara Ann" are a distinct help. -Rickey Wright.

Stone psychedelic freaks Robin Williamson and Mike Heron were two talented multi-instrumentalists who were eventually joined in the Incredible String Band by their earth-goddess lovers, Licorice and Rose. They tapped into the British Isles' centuries-old traditions of myths and folklore, updating the ancient sounds with inspired, multi-layered recordings and a modern twist that helped you envision fair maidens riding unicorns through green and fertile fields while simultaneously advocating better living through chemistry. Hell, the title alone of this, their second album, is more psychedelic than anything the Jefferson Airplane ever did. -Jim Derogatis.

Tommy had the dubious distinction of being the first-ever rock opera; however, it's none the worse for that, Ken Russell's adaptation notwithstanding. Due largely to Pete Townshend's skill as a songwriter and composer, Tommy tells a coherent story and includes quality rock and roll at the same time, an impressive feat by itself. While surprisingly more linear than the later Quadrophenia, Tommy boasts several songs that stand up well on their own, including the classic "Pinball Wizard," "The Acid Queen," "I'm Free," and "Sally Simpson. " Much of the rest doesn't make much sense lyrically unless you listen to the entire album, but you'll probably want to do that anyway, preferably with the lights low and the stereo cranked. -Genevieve Williams.

There were fears that Tyrannosaurus Hives, the major label debut from the Hives could find these Scandinavian punk showmen somewhat compromised. After all, their breakthrough LP, 2002's Your New Favourite Band-a compilation of tracks that date back to 97 and their time on Swedish punk label Burning Heart-worked because it struck exactly the right balance between amphetamine punk snarl and addictive pop gold. Refreshingly though, even under the yoke of a major label, the Hives play their rock & roll like a fuse burning short. "Abra Cadaver" is a two-minute blast of Stooges worship that joyfully confirms the band's pledge to straight-up garage-and intriguingly, it finds lead singer Howlin' Pelle Almqvist sounding more like the Strokes' Julian Casablancas than ever, albeit Casablancas with blood on his shoes and skin under his fingernails. Meanwhile, there's myriad moments where the Hives demonstrate themselves to be far more than a boozy bar-band: "No Pun Intended", which wields a curious complex chord progression you'd perhaps expect from Fugazi, or "Diabolic Scheme" a taut, mid-paced number bedecked with stabbing violin sweeps straight out of a Hammer horror. -Louis Pattison.

The Darkness's Permission to Land is an entertaining and unabashed return to the pomp-rock of a bygone age, when mullet-clad dinosaurs travelled the stadiums of the world-back before Nirvana and their lank-haired ilk swept the world in an unstoppable tide of flannel shirts and overwrought earnestness. So, while their peers were drawing inspiration from the Pixies, Sonic Youth and the Stone Roses, the four guys in the Darkness were busy studying their Queen and Def Leppard albums and learning how to rock. It's this unapologetic rock & roll spirit that makes Permission to Land a stand-out debut album (well, for 2003 at least-sometimes, you've gotta look back in order to move forward). There's no bedsit electronica, acoustic surrealism or garage rock to be found here; instead, this is music as pure entertainment, best suited to a wall of Marshall amps, guitars turned up to 11 and a pyrotechnic display visible from orbit. Singles "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", "Growing on Me" and "Get Your Hands off My Woman" are all typical of what's on offer here: huge guitar riffs, crashing drums and the over-the-top falsetto vocals of singer Justin Hawkins. But they're not the only stand-outs here: "Black Shuck", "Givin' Up" and "Love on the Rocks (with No Ice)" are all anthemic fist-raisers, packed with sing-along choruses and guitarist Dan Hawkins' ultra-infectious hooks. Original? No. Ironic? Maybe. Fun? Oh yes. A lesser band would have approached the spandex-clad rock of Permission to Land with tongues firmly in cheeks, and it's to the Darkness's eternal credit that they manage to inject the whole thing with enough sincerity to carry it off. [+]

Having watched him throw away the prime years of his career on smack and prison, Steve Earle fans were reassured by the singer's 1995 comeback, Train A Comin', where he reclaimed the past in exquisite acoustic arrangements. They were further encouraged by the 1996 follow up, I Feel Alright, which staked out the present with rock & roll defiance. Their patient faith was rewarded with El Corazon, an album that no longer looks back at those lost years but looks forward to the rest of Earle's career. Combining the sheer beauty of Train A Comin' with the bristling energy of I Feel Alright, El Corazon ploughs new ground with Earle's most explicitly political song yet, his furthest leap into another character's voice, a hard-core bluegrass number with the Del McCoury Band, and a hard-core grunge rocker with the Supersuckers. Earle turns the Fairfield Four into the Jordanaires behind his Elvis vocal on "Telephone Road", and he imitates Townes Van Zandt's austere minimalism even as he sings an elegy to his late mentor on "Fort Worth Blues". All in all, these dozen tunes are the best songwriting Earle has produced since his 1986 breakthrough, Guitar Town, and he sings them with the take-it-or-leave-it authority of someone who has nothing left to prove. On the album's first and best song, "Christmas in Washington", he offers a mournful prayer to Woody Guthrie to come back and rescue us from an era of wishy-washy Democrats and ruthless Republicans; Earle sings it as if his prayer had been answered and the Okie troubadour's ghost had found a home in his belly. -Geoffrey Himes.

Released in the summer of 1978 and cruelly denied the Number One spot by the decidedly non-New Wave Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, Black and White-The Stranglers' third studio album-found Guildford's gruesomely confrontational punks persisting brilliantly with their angrified and melodiously intoxicating melange of Hugh Cornwell's scrubby telecaster guitar, Dave Greenfield's burbling psychedelic keyboards and Jean-Jacques Burnel's brutally flatulent bass. That said, the album marked a noticeable departure from the antagonism and political incorrectness of No More Heroes. Deadpan pessimism featured prominently on Side 2 (the "black side" in old vinyl terms) courtesy of the apocalyptically grim "Enough Time" and the Cold War neurosis of "Curfew". Burnel spouted the memorable line "Bring me a piece of my Mummy, she was quite close to me" on "Threatened" and also paid tribute to controversial Japanese poet Yukio Mishima on the almost funky "Death And Night and Blood". Cornwell, in comparision, was relatively jovial, satirising the sterility of Scandinavian life on "Sweden" ("too much time to think too little to do") and penning a memorable joyriding ode in the spirit of "Fun Fun Fun" or Chris Spedding's "Motorbikin'", except this one was called "Tank". Black and White's less morbid moments included the elongated (and probably the best ever version) of Bacharach & David's "Walk On By" (imagine an instrumental, New Wave version of Deep Purple), the biblically-versed punk-reggae of "Nice 'n' Sleazy", the epic "Toiler On The Sea" and the ungainly mesh of punk noise (including Laura Logic's squawky toy sax) that was "Hey! Rise Of The Robots" ("They're gonna want a union soon, oil break that's dead on noon"). A brilliant record, true, but the best was yet to come. Kevin Maidment.

One Hot Minute was the first and only album to feature the talents of guitarist Dave Navarro, formerly of Jane's Addiction. A difficult sixth album, especially after the phenomenal success of Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik; in true form, the band beats a p-funk groove, be it bittersweet ballad or abrasive punk. More progressive than their previous offerings, songs like "One Big Mob" and "Warped" blur the fine line between frenetic power-metal and intense psychedelia. At the quieter end of this infinitely coloured spectrum are the signature ballads for which they are so revered and "My Friends" does the job perfectly. One Hot Minute has got everything a Chili Peppers record should need and then some, as their music grows in all manner of wondrous new directions. -David Trueman.