The Matrix Reloaded soundtrack comes on two discs packed to the gills with as much diverse entertainment as possible. There are trailers for the movies, The Animatrix and the video game; there are bonus songs apparently inspired by the movie; and, as if that weren't enough, they even found space for music featured in the film. Despite the glaringly overdone all-markets marketing gloss, the good music, thankfully, really is worthwhile. Disc One carries a dozen tunes to rival the hard-as-nails mix of the original movie's soundtrack. Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie, the Deftones and Rage Against the Machine have all survived the four-year gap (although the Propellerheads haven't), but now they're joined by scene-stealing rivals Linkin Park, Fluke and, inevitably, Paul Oakenfold. It adds up to a flit-about experience, but not so Disc Two. Composer Don Davis is joined and jump-started by Rob Dougan and Juno Reactor, layering his postmodern orchestral writing with dizzyingly fast drum loops and samples. This is the album's real musical surprise; that so many disparate styles should fuse perfectly in the score section. It's definitely the disc that'll more consistently recall the most stunning sequences of the film. With Revolutions, this is set to be the most experimentally diverse and widely appealing trilogy of movie soundtracks ever put on disc. [+]

With Lou Reed settling into a comfortable, BBC-sponsored retirement, David Bowie lapsing into a deeper coma of pretentious irrelevance by the minute, and Mick Jagger dedicating his life to the sale of Rolling Stones merchandise, it's good to see that Iggy Pop-rock & roll's original wild child-is still the consummate punk rocker. It's remarkable, also, though, that he's still alive-Nude and Rude. is surely testament to Iggy's iron constitution. A retrospective covering his career from The Stooges's eponymous 1969 debut through to 1990's Brick By Brick, Nude and Rude. can crudely be split into three parts. The Stooges' grimy "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "Search and Destroy" are magnificent howls of scuzz-rock, "Nightclubbing", "Lust For Life" and "The Passenger" are fruits of Iggy's dramatic rebirth in 1977, and, if the later work isn't as flattering to Iggy's legend, remember that it's still better than any of Reed, Bowie or Jagger's output at the turn of the century. [+]

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.

As a placeholder between the full-length "Pretty Hate Machine" and "The Downward Spiral", Broken packs a serious punch. Angrier and less poppy than "Machine", this EP is full of noisy hooks, if such a thing is possible (check out that guitar riff on the full-throttle "Wish"), and much closer aesthetically to the industrial subgenre that informs Trent Reznor's music. As song titles like "Help Me I Am in Hell" suggest, Broken is a work of undiluted rage, which is, of course, a big part of its appeal. -Genevieve Williams.

Alice In Chains were initially tagged with the "grunge" moniker, when in fact their haunting, ponderous sound was far closer to the progressive rock of Queensryche. Their second album Dirt was a moody, portentous affair, filled with occasionally inspired riffing from guitar-player Jerry Cantrell and hair-tossed wailing from singer Layne Staley. Perhaps the band got lumped in with Generation X because of their lyrics-depression, death and drugs. Certainly, titles like "Down In A Hole, "Junkhead" and "Hate To Feel" didn't leave much room for doubt as to what Cantrell's particular passion was for. The quartet did have a slightly lighter, almost poppy side to them, though, as "God Smack" and Hate To Feel" indicated. In the main, however, Dirt was classic angst rock, of the style their peers Pearl Jam had made so popular. -Everett True.

The Grateful Dead produced some of the most extraordinary and innovative music ever to fall under the general heading of "rock". In fact a blend of exploratory jazz, folk, rock & roll and world music all bound together by the purest improvisatory psychedelia, few bands have attempted music of such scope and ambition. The problem was that although they could often produce music of this stature live, their inspiration nearly always crumbled when faced with a studio setting. The exceptions that proves the rule, American Beauty and Workingman's Dead, are the band's finest studio excursions. They contain more excellent songs, better performed, than any other two albums of theirs. Featuring a smooth electric/acoustic mix of instrumentation spiced by pedal steel and mandolin, American Beauty harks back to their folk and jug-band days of the mid-60s. Besides the stunning harmonies-which owe a debt to David Crosby's coaching-and the band's outstanding songwriting ability, it's Robert Hunter's lyrics which raise this album to classic status. Songs such as "Truckin" (a true story of life on the road with the Dead in early 1970), "Box Of Rain", "Friend of the Devil", "Brokedown Palace", "Attics of My Life" and the magnificent "Ripple" contain some of Hunter's most direct and compelling verses. For those who might want to hear where the Grateful Dead could take songs like these on a good day, however, an attempt should be made to get some of the many live recordings now available. -James Swift.