Vertavo String Quartet, rating: 8/10

Four strangely exotic Norwegian middle aged women play stringed instruments. They do like to play all sorts: Grieg (also Norwegian), Bartok, Schumann, and Verdi. One looks a bit like Lisbeth Salander (or Noomi Rapace), despite the fact that Salander is Swedish.

All-American Rejects: When the World Comes Down

Not as full of hits as some previous albums, but some great melodic tracks like: I Wanna, Breakin', and [Untitled].

# # #

Pink: Funhouse

Not as good as her previous album, but a couple nice tracks: Please don't leave me and It's all your fault.

Kings of Leon: Only by the night

I must be getting old: I like this group's very mellow and relaxing sound. They're so mellow they hardly qualify as alternative ("rock") which is listed as their genre. 80's classic rock would probably be a more correct classification. My favorite songs on this album: Sex on Fire, Manhattan and Notion.

Jesse McCartney: Departure

I have no idea who Jesse McCartney is, aside from some baby faced guy I had vaguely heard of on the web. I had to do a search for him on Wikipedia, and even then nothing rings a bell: All My Children? But anyway his third and latest album, Departure, has a number of catchy tunes on it. My favs: Leavin' and How do you sleep? That said, his high pitched voice can be a little rough on the ears.

4:13 Dream: the Cure

There are a number of excellent tracks on this new album from the mainly 80s band, the Cure. I liked Underneath the Stars, The Only One and The Hungry Ghost.

Where the Light Is: John Mayer

A number of tracks are nicely done acoustic versions of some of Mayer's better songs. Also included is a minimalistic but great sounding cover of Tom Petty's Free Fallin'.

Viva La Vida: Coldplay

I'm used to exotic sounds and disharmony from Coldplay. And I tend to like only the most melodic bits of their songs. On this album a couple songs are more conventional and very conventionally melodic, but they totally work for me. I'm addicted. They are: Lovers in Japan and the title song.

Narrow Stairs: Death Cab for Cutie

I saw the lead singer of this group on TV, and realized that he looks quite different than I thought he would. It's good he's a singer... Anyway, on this album, I liked the song: 'Your new twin sized bed' among others.

NIN: The slip

Nine inch nails is building social capital with their free download of their recent album: the slip. It's unusual in that you can get better than CD quality and lossless downloads. Strangely, it encourages you to use BitTorrent software. I liked the songs: discipline and echoplex.

Vampire Weekend

Liked three songs on their recent album including Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa. A little exotic tropical island music-ish and casual, but catchy.

Blake Lewis, Audio Daydream

I never thought I'd like a singer from American Idol. Lewis doesn't have a great voice, but apparently someone gave him some good music to sing to.

Angels & Airwaves: I-empire

I was a bit suspicious of the group because of their name and the worry that I'm probably missing all the hidden Christian meanings in the lyrics, but anyway they play some really catchy tunes in this new album. Perhaps ignorance is bliss. Apparently, it was started by a guy from Blink-182 [wikipedia]. My favorites on the album: Breathe.. and okay, Heaven.

James Blunt: All the lost souls

Somehow I really like this album. He's got a really strange yet melodious voice. Well, perhaps it's an acquired taste.

Pacifica Quartet

I'm pretty into classical music, but for some reason I didn't dig the choices for a recent performance of this quartet. It was mostly Beethoven and Smetana. And too bad the cello seemed to have some strange squeaking sound coming from it.

It seemed to me a big contrast versus the Jupiter Quartet at the same venue. The Jupiter Quartet had much more interesting, strange and yet wonderful pieces and sound.

The shade of poison trees: Dashboard Confessional

Seems to fit my horrible mood right now. Early tracks seem a little mellower perhaps than previous albums. The title track is actually my current favorite of the disc. Lyrics