John Mayer
“Continuum”
Columbia Records

From the first note of John Mayer’s long-awaited third studio album, “Continuum,” it is clear that Mayer has spent three years expanding his musical style. After a strong showing from his second effort, “Heavier Things,” many believed that Mayer had burned himself out and couldn’t live up to the hype he built for himself. On “Continuum,” Mayer pleases both fans of his “Your Body is and Wonderland” pop, as well as those who are more partial to his “Who Did You Think I Was?” blues. When he declares, “One day this generation will control the population,” it appears that this generation has finally found its shining musical star. This album proves, without a doubt, that John Mayer is the best songwriter and, at the very least, guitarist in pop music today.

After his 2001 debut, Mayer found most of his popularity with folk-loving preteens. With his much more complex 2003 album, he achieved the critical acclaim that he ceaselessly seeks. This time around, he attempts to tackle both a more mature musical style and more mature subject matter. Songs like “Waiting on the World to Change” and “Belief” are groovin’ modern-day protest songs about the need for a change of government and the dangers that the world faces from all sides. While songs like Jimi Hendrix’s “Bold As Love” and John Mayer Trio’s “Gravity” and “Vultures” showcase Mayer’s straight ahead bluesy, Clapton-esque guitar playing, “The Heart of Life” and “Stop This Train” are more similar to the singer/songwriter John Mayer to whom we are accustomed. This is not to say that they are disappointing; quite the opposite. “Continuum” is a breath of fresh air to those who feel saturated with Brit-rock, and hopefully more artists will take Mayer’s lead and start to play the blues.

-Jake Hyman

Muse
“Black Holes & Revelations”
Warner Brothers

The moment that will scare away most listeners comes about three and a half minutes into the six-minute opening track “Knights of Cydonia,” when singer Matthew Bellamy goes all Geddy Lee and emits vocals that can only be described as banshee-like. The word that comes to mind when describing the general sound of “Black Holes & Revelations” is “excess.” The band clearly has a grand vision of some sort of fantastical rock and roll opera, and maybe even the chops to pull it off, but they seem to lack the focus, as well as the discretion. Much of the album sounds like it should be playing in the background of a spaghetti Western (and indeed their music video for “Knights” is themed as such), and they’ve managed to create that sound reasonably well, but one wonders what a band from Devon, England has to say about the saga of gunslingers and no good tramps.

At his best, Bellamy’s voice does a reasonable impression of Thom Yorke’s, and when the band scales back its theatrics and just lets him sing, like on “Hoodoo” and “Invincible,” something approaching actual emotion bubbles to the surface, but for the most part it’s a lot of smoke and mirrors.

Bright Eyes
“Noise Floor”
Saddle Creek Records

You’ll have to wait for spring 2007 for the next chapter from Mr. Conor Oberst, but the singer-songwriter-signifier has delivered a collection that should sate his public, the genuflectors and the jeerers alike. A collection of b-sides and rarities, “Noise Floor” isn’t anything spectacular – it seems to be a product of the Ryan Adams “throw-everything-on-tape-and-see-what-sticks-but-then-release-everything-even-if-it-doesn’t-anyway” school of art – but its sincerity bleeds through, and it does have a few transcendent moments. That said, even the misfires are compelling. Spanning from 1998 to 2005, the record follows Oberst from the age of 18 to 25, and what’s striking is that while his songwriting gets better as time goes by, his command is always there. Even when he’s not saying much of anything, like on opening track “Mirrors and Fevers,” one is forced to pay attention anyway. There’s a quiet intensity here, that becomes positively disarming on songs like “Trees Get Wheeled Away,” which blooms from soil scarred with psychopharmacology and sin, like a broken flower with honey sweet.

The Grates
“Gravity Won’t Get You High”
Cherry Tree Records/Interscope

The Grates come from Australia, and they do their damnedest to make up for the unoriginal exploits of their compatriots Jet and Wolfmother. Of course, no one is actually staking the musical reputation of an entire country on three kids with nothing but infectious hooks and scream-able songs, but vocalist Patience Hodgson and crew blow through “Gravity Won’t Get You High” like their lives depended on it anyway.

Like Be Your Own Pet’s Jemina Pearl, Hodgson sounds like Karen O’s little sister – she screams oh so melodically, and generally gives one the impression that she’s having entirely too much fun for everyone else, but unlike the Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer, doesn’t sound like a living, breathing orgasm. The band keeps up, as the three-piece plays their music fast enough to allude to the urgency that runs from the Pistols and the Buzzcocks on through the end of the world. The real trick, though, is when the band slows down enough to highlight the real desperation that resides in the breathy vocals that would have been shrouded by loud guitars and drum fills in a more conventional arrangement.

“Rock Boys” especially displays the ragged heart at the core of the tornado, with enough real pain behind the shredded vocal chords to convince you that even indie rock superwomen get the blues. It’s not all punk rock pathos, though, as the band produces some real screamers, particularly “19 20 20” and “Lies Are Much More Fun,” but it’s when the scenester growl betrays a vulnerability that this beast truly howls.

As Tall As Lions
“As Tall As Lions”
Triple Crown Records

As Tall As Lions is a rock band from Long Island, but before you file them away with Brand New, Taking Back Sunday and their mall punk brethren, you probably ought to know that the band’s musical home differs from their actual one. They may be straight out of Massapequa, N.Y., but no one told them that, as their sound took a turn somewhere east of New York at some point in their development, specifically to London.

Vaguely anthemic, the band has clearly attended the Coldplay school of rock. “A Break A Pause” is especially effective in that vein, with the vocals artfully buried in the mix beneath a layer of swirling guitars and twinkling piano. The band goes beyond such staid contemporaries, though (if not above them), when singer Daniel Nigro forgets that the first rule of proper Brit rock is to mumble inaudibly into the microphone when singing, and actually stretches his vocals a bit on songs like “Love, Love, Love (Love, Love).” Occasionally exciting, but inconsistent, As Tall As Lions self-titled record is the document of a band looking for a home.

-Jeffrey Parker