Julian Casablancas, 'Phrazes for the Young' (RCA)

New York's grooviest rocker spiffs up his sound.

In the eight years since the Strokes instigated savior-speak with the gutter-glam classic Is This It, Manhattan has been nanny-stated into bland fashionability, the quintet's hipster status has gradually declined, and its rhythm guitarist, drummer, and bassist have all beaten singer Julian Casablancas to recording solo albums. "Last Nite" was a long time ago.

Weezer, 'Raditude' (Geffen)

Rock's most maddeningly hummable practical joke continues.

After listening to Weezer's seventh release, you may want to describe frontman Rivers Cuomo with one word: demented.

Norah Jones, 'The Fall' (Blue Note)

Don't know why she didn't do this before.

Thanks to the involvement of folks like Ryan Adams (who cowrote one song) and Kings of Leon producer Jacquire King, The Fall has been billed as Norah Jones' rock album. In fact, it's something even more surprising: a hot-blooded soul record from the queen of the even keel.

Shakira, 'She Wolf' (Epic)

Latin pop mami down for whatever, wherever.

"I want us thinking outside the box," Shakira tells a lover on her third English-language studio disc.

Dashboard Confessional, 'Alter the Ending' (Vagrant/Interscope)

King of emo-folk pain embraces two-state solution.

All Chris Carrabba’s albums as heartthrob-in-chief of Dashboard Confessional have been about tension, primarily romantic: He can't help comparing his current love to the idealized version in his pretty little head. But an aesthetic battle also rages within Carrabba, one pitting Dashboard's solo-acoustic roots against the frontman's desire to move arenas with the intensity of his emotion.

Slayer, 'World Painted Blood' (American/Columbia)

The godfathers of thrash bleed for you again.

Their horrific onslaught has been passed on the extreme left by myriad black-death grind upstarts, and these thrash originators mostly spin their mosh-pitstuck wheels on this tenth studio album -- anticipating Armageddon, reveling in torture, protesting oil war.

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