Former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr's first solo album opens with the droning, midtempo psychedelia of "Last Ride," and the album doesn't stray far from this vein--pleasant, electronic-tinged classic rock, unsurprising and delivered with dexterity. The gratifying shock is Marr's voice, which is workmanlike in the best possible sense, alternately streetwise...

Oleander is a droll name for a band whose lead singer's last name is Flowers--the Sacramento quartet gets its handle from the ubiquitous, dusty pink and white shrubs that "decorate" freeway medians across the land (and the blossoms are deadly poisonous, how rock and roll). Coming off at first like...

The first artist since Merle Haggard to effectively glamorize California's dusty honky-tonk corridors, Dave Alvin and his roots-rock cohorts The Blasters fused blues and country with a unique back-street punk edge. Like a West Coast Springsteen for the early '90s, Alvin's solo albums showcased his deep, rumbling voice (which sounds...

With their powerhouse chords and heavy riffs, the Toadies still evoke nostalgic memories of the musical ennui and confusion of the mid-'90s, when cries of "sellout!" reverberated loudly through the rarefied air of certain punk and alternative-music circles. As avaricious radio programmers co-opted punk and sold it to a mainstream...

Like a two-headed Hydra made of spare Ramones and Cramps parts left over in the lab, the Groovie Ghoulies decree that every day is Halloween and make every stage their own personal (albeit cheerful) abattoir. Spawned on the shadowy streets of Sacramento, the threesome is celebrating a new album on...

Long-haired Arizona troubador Roger Clyne kicks off the title track of his latest album, Sonoran Hope and Madness, with a volley of fireworks--and a typical show from the Peacemakers, his sharp band of compadres, promises equally high spirits, with a sometimes irritatingly generous approach inherent in their life-affirming brio. The...

Conjuring a prototypical underage Saturday afternoon in the city, Arlo strains its sunshine-drenched power pop through a gritty colander of Gen-X smog, then magically regurgitates it as pure retro pleasure. Having mastered the arcane art of writing hooks hypnotic and muscular enough to charm a cobra, the Los Angeles band...

Chris Isaak and Natalie Merchant are, for all intents and purposes, king and queen of the post-punk prom. After all, both seem to have shucked off any native spark of f-you energy, each of them eagerly trotting off to more (and MOR) easily digested pastures. When Merchant used her shimmering...