Living Things, 'Ahead of the Lions' (Jive)
Getting arrested at the 2004 Republican National Convention, setting fire onstage to a photo of President Bush, hurling meat at a Dubya blow-up doll: Lillian Berlin has earned his spot in the political-rock fray. As the rail-thin frontman of Living Things, the St.
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The Fiery Furnaces, 'Rehearsing My Choir' (Rough Trade)
Rock siblings aren't like the rest of us. Their harmonies can blend almost incestuously, as though locking away family mysteries in a mesh of notes. Though Matt Friedberger mostly leaves the singing to his sister, Eleanor, the duo codes its art pop in a private language only the genetically linked share.
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Damian Marley, 'Welcome to Jamrock' (Tuff Gong/Ghetto Youth/Universal)
Welcome to Jamrock may be the best album any son of Bob Marley has ever made. Yet it labors under an almost unbearable burden -- his father's massive legacy. How does one break from a tradition when it's part of the family inheritance?
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Animal Collective, 'Feels' (Fat Cat)
Using song titles like "Daffy Duck" and cover art that features kids in a farmyard, Animal Collective are still working with children and animals. But the New York group's vision isn't a rose-tinted regression to a lost idyll. It's more like their music is a child -- angelic one moment, monstrous the next. Dulcet passages give way to tantrums of flailing drums and shrieks.
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Fiona Apple, 'Extraordinary Machine' (Epic)
She's been a bad, bad girl. Six years ago, it seemed like Fiona Apple was out of our hair forever -- the doe-eyed ingenue delivered a sophomore album with a 90-word title, had a meltdown onstage in New York, and publicly railed against MTV and eating turkey at Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey!




