Offspring fans won't be disappointed by Conspiracy Of One. The sixth album from the old-school punks with "low self-esteem" is chock full of breakneck pop melodies and witty asides, possibly even more than before. Indeed, Conspiracy of One sounds even more punky than either Americana or Ixnay On The Hombre: perhaps mindful of their fans, everything has become stripped-back and frantic. Trouble is, by sacrificing the subtlety, the Offspring are starting to sound a little formulaic. "Original Prankster" is "Pretty Fly" given a few fresh licks of metal paint: the vocoder effect on Dexter Holland's voice makes him sound uncannily like the Foo Fighter's Dave Grohl: the near-irresistible "Damn It, Changed Again" and full-on emo-fest of "Denial Revisited" both sound like prime Green Day. Still, any record that boasts the turbulent "Million Miles Away" and "Come Out Swinging" can't be too bad. A solid, if unexciting, return. -Jerry Thackray.

On his two early-1970s solo albums, collected here on one disc, Gram Parson lends his fragile, aching tenor to music that's the definition of what he called "country soul". Neither of these titles is quite as strong as the work Parsons had previously done with the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, but with originals as great as "She" and "In My Hour of Darkness"-not to mention backing from Emmylou Harris and the core of Elvis's early-1970s band-both GP and Grievous Angel still stand as country-rock classics. -David Cantwell.

Respected as one of the finest blues rock bands of their time, The Free Story reminds us that there is much more to them than standard classics like "Alright Now". This compilation, spanning all six of their albums, opens in true form with the swaggering groove of "I'm A Mover" taken from Tons Of Sobs. Singer Paul Rodgers' soulful wailing and the band's inventive playing brings the blues to life with their own brand of traditional folk and sultry rock. The parade ends with a single track from their final album, Heartbreaker. By this time, founder guitarist Paul Kossoff had left the group, to be replaced by Rodgers on guitar; this accounts for the complimentary song writing on "Come Together In The Morning". Often shadowed by the legendary supergroups of the early 1970s, Free hold a quiet authority as the masters of understatement and pure musical passion. -David Trueman.

The Cooper Temple Clause's Kick Up the Fire and Let the Flames Break Loose is a multi-layered, painstakingly produced return that thankfully sees vocalist Ben Gautrey shying away from young Gallagher-esque intonations in favour of a resonating richness. With the exception of "Into My Arms"-which shifts from a limp flirtation with the sweeping grandiose balladry perfected by Spiritualised to an industrial cacophony-this is a powerful return. Kick Up the Fire. is as eclectic, vibrant and uncompromising as their acclaimed debut, See This Through and Leave. Epic, violently intense songs glow, growl and bristle while keeping just the right side of bombast. Driving bass, heaving guitar hooks and weaving atmospheric electronics blend to create moments of guitar-fuelled mayhem and spartan sonic reprieve. In keeping with the Mansun, Placebo and Radiohead school of intricate studio shenanigans, tracks such as "The Same Mistakes" and "Talking to a Brick Wall" make for a well polished, if occasionally imperfect, gem. -Christopher Barrett.

REM have no right, at this advanced stage in their career, to be making such spirited and beautiful music as that on Reveal. Twenty years after "Radio Free Europe", they're still jiggy as year-old pups. Reveal is the sound of a band who have moved beyond feeling the need to change or to prove themselves to each new generation, but still want to make music that expresses a passion for life. Michael Stipe's voice has never been more evocatively beautiful than it is on "I've Been High", and Peter Buck's eclectic tunesmithery has continued in the highly accessible vein it was mining on their previous album, Up. Those who yearn to hear the Stipe of old, mumbling incomprehensibly behind murky Byrds-u-like chords, will remain disappointed by his increasing emergence as an upfront vocalist whose lyrics, if never entirely self-explanatory, now make ingenious use of phrases, images and vignettes that anybody can identify with. Hovering over much of the album is the spirit of Brian Wilson, whose melodic and harmonic genius is echoed in "Beachball" and almost transcended in the astonishingly plangent "Summer Turns to High". With so much to live up to from "Losing My Religion" to "Man On the Moon", it's not far short of astonishing that REM can still come up with a song like "Imitation of Life", whose gorgeously chiming and shimmering chorus sets the heart soaring and the eyes misting over. That song alone would be worth the price of admission but, fortunately, from the first synthesiser swirls of the album's opener, "The Lifting", there's not a dud to be heard in the entire dozen cuts. -Johnny Black.

Note the track-listing: "I'd Lie For You (And That's The Truth)", "If This Is The Last Kiss (Let's Make It Last All Night)". Those titles alone would be enough to do an average singer in, let alone interpreting, emoting, living these songs as Mr Loaf is wont-in his inimitable way-to do. This successor to Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell, must confront the very same problem he faced years before, after the staggering success of the original: how to follow up a worldwide smash? How to avoid a nagging sense of the anti-climactic? Particularly given the absence, this time around, of songwriter and all-round svengali Jim Steinman. Admittedly, two of his cast-offs-"Original Sin" (from Paradise Lost) and "Left In The Dark" (from Bad For Good)-take up a little of the slack; otherwise, the void is filled by Diane Warren, power-ballad hitmaker for Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, et al. , whose penchant for orchestral flourishes, choral rhapsodies and wayward metaphors, exceeds even the master's. Preposterous, of course, but oddly hard to dislike. -Andrew McGuire.

Just two tracks into Reinventing The Steel, and it seems that Pantera-the godfathers of speed metal-have brightened up: "Don't waste your life / Embrace it" roars vocalist Phil Anselmo on "Goddamn Electric", an unusual sentiment to hear amid the pile driver drums and Diamond Darrell's crunching guitar riffs. Does this mean that Pantera have lost their brutal edge? Of course not. Reinventing The Steel is as vicious as they've ever been, it's just that now they're a bit more thoughtful and-after more than a decade-mature. Though for the most part the songs are as aggressive as ever ("We'll Grind That Axe For A Long Time", "Death Rattle" and frenzied album opener "Hellbound"), and display more depth than ever before, especially on standout tracks like "You Don't Belong To It" and "Uplift". Not since their breakthrough Cowboys From Hell has thrash metal sounded so fresh, and not since Vulgar Display Of Power have Pantera sounded so good. -Robert Burrow.