Eminem, 'Relapse' (Interscope)

Slim Shady gets back to his blood-soaked roots.

It's been five years since Eminem's last record, Encore, and on occasion, the world has felt somewhat empty without him. But that's nothing compared to the emptiness he feels.

Dave Matthews Band, 'Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King' (RCA)

Jam-band kings bulk up, rock through sadness.

The first sound you hear on the new Dave Matthews Band album is the bleat of LeRoi Moore's saxophone -- appropriate for a disc titled in honor of the founding member, who died unexpectedly last August following a freak ATV accident.

Elvis Costello, 'Secret, Profane & Sugarcane' (Hear)

Caffeinated polymath pays visit to Nashville.

Elvis Costello has always been an idiom savant, pin- balling through arsenic-laced pub rock (My Aim Is True), amphetamine-addled soul (Get Happy!!), and highbrow chamber pop (The Juliet Letters). His latest showcases another readymade style: dirt-floor Americana.

The Mars Volta, 'Octahedron' (Warner Bros.)

Duo reinjects soulful noise into interstellar freakouts.

Unless you're the kind of prog-rock nut who plans to buy I Love You, Man on DVD just to relive the scene at the Rush concert, you're probably suffering from an acute case of Mars Volta Fatigue right about now.

The Dead Weather: Gang of 4

First the White Stripes. Then the Raconteurs. Now the Dead Weather. Here's what's behind Jack White's driving ambition.
Photograph by <br>Francesco Carrozzini

Stuttering slightly, leaning up and back, running a hand through his thick, inky spray of goth-teen hair, Jack White finds himself in an extremely unfamiliar situation -- at a loss for words.

Breaking Out: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Brooklyn indie-poppers disavow irony, get warm and fuzzy.
Photograph by Annie Powers

Like lots of nice boys who dig the Ramones and loud noise but not rebellion, Kip Berman once pretended he was someone else. "When I was in high school," recalls the

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