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Running Jeff Tweedy's rasp through power-chord guitar fuzz should be a can't-miss career move; and with Wilco "maturing," Toronto's Constantines are trying to ease into that niche. At least that seems to be the theory. In practice, Kensington Heights is a mixed bag of aesthetically correct placeholders: "Our Age" and "Life or Death" offer twangy verses but no payoff hooks.

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In 2004, the Chapin Sisters' acoustic cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic" began popping up on Los Angeles radio stations; the trio may have been singing through smirks, but they converted the dance-pop grind into a genuinely unnerving (maybe even prescient?) saga of self-destruction.

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More than a decade after eviscerating MCs on his classic Black Moon recordings, Buckshot has settled into a comfortable middle age. Like a once-great boxer, his fearsome rap flow has slowed into a punchier cadence. On The Formula, Buckshot amiably dispenses wisdom and business strategies over 9th Wonder's languid soul loops.

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Wondering if the 2004 documentary Dig!'s harsh depiction of Brian Jonestown mastermind Anton Newcombe might've caused Newcombe to reevaluate his loose-cannon shtick?

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The 50-year-old rabble-rouser hasn't always done a good job of keeping the no-fun didacticism out of his liberal-humanist protest songs; more than once during the past two decades, he's released a record that's easier to admire than like. Here, though, leading a band that includes former Faces keyboardist Ian McLagan, Bragg gets the balance of message and music just about right.

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If Boris's 2006 American breakthrough, Pink, was one long earthquake of speed metal, shoegaze, and stoner grunts and shouts, consider the Japanese sludge trio's follow-up album the aftershock.