Ludacris
Theater of the Mind
This album takes formulaic to an almost scientifically precise level. The verses, the beats and the guest spots feel as though they were put together by a crack team of statisticians with a powerful computer after many years of careful study. The flow is modulated and standard, the guest spots are carefully inserted at strategic points, the subject matter clings tightly to the girls-clubs-cars-money standard, even Ludacris’ famous similes, no matter how clever, seem to arrive perfectly on time (like a train at the station). Even so, it wouldn’t be so bad if anyone on the album sounded like they wanted to be there. T.I. doesn’t put much into his verse, The Game seems to have phoned his in, and Rick Ross spits (drools?) a verse so comically lazy it was difficult to even listen to without cracking up. This album is going to be the gold standard of “average” all other albums from now on will be judged by. It doesn’t really make sense to criticize Ludacris for doing what he’s been doing for basically his entire career, especially because he’s taken his chosen themes to interesting places before. But it does make sense to criticize him for making an album that came perilously close to putting me to sleep. -KS

The Flaming Lips
Christmas on Mars
It could have been a conscious marketing move that this CD arrived in our office in December and not March, but the movie this soundtrack is for is not actually a themed holiday offering (and the movie came out in March, not December). Of course, if you know anything about the Flaming Lips, you’re knee-deep in trivia like this so it’s pointless to explain. Anyway, the album is all film-score sounds, there aren’t any lyrics and for many of the tracks there’s very little structure to get in the way of the Lips’ musical exploration. Sometimes this grates, but more often it slides. It’s a great album to put on in the background while you do something else, because on its own, without the action of a film in front of you, it’s difficult to find much to concentrate on. But while you’re doing the dishes or vacuuming, you can scrub and push to the haunting melody of “The Gleaming Armament of Marching Genitalia” and before you know it, the dishes will be stacked, the floor will be clean and the album will be turning over for another go. You’ve still got some work to do, right? -KS

Trap Them
Seizures In Barren Praise
Trap Them’s second full-length album is every bit as dark, harrowing and heavy as one would expect. It is also one of the best hard-core albums of the year. The band’s take-no-bull approach paves the way for buzzsaw guitars, blast beat drums and downright fierce vocals. But the band is also adept at drop-of-the-hat time changes, and all of a sudden, a furiously fast song will change direction and the band will switch to a riff that’s inexplicably heavy. Seizures In Barren Praise would serve as the perfect soundtrack to the apocalypse, and the band plays up that notion well. Song titles such as the creepy “Flesh and Below” and “Mission Convincers”8212;which, clocking in at more than seven minutes, is the best song on the album8212;showcase the band’s bleak outlook on life. If Trap Them is considered the future of metal, the collapse of modern society is in good hands. -TH