The Lobo threesome

Ludacris

Release Therapy

Available Now

Apparently, haircuts are the newest trend in hip-hop.

Following Busta Rhymes, who hacked off his dreadlocks to promote his latest release, Ludacris has done away with his cornrows and, apparently, taken on a more mature image. Granted, this isn't a Talib Kweli record, and Luda is still down to drop giggle-worthy lines about tampons. Instead, he segregated his album into two distinct halves, Release and Therapy. The former finds 'Cris revisiting the style that made him famous, led by the Neptunes-produced single "Money Maker."

For the most part, Luda is in his southern-fried element, hosting an impressive duet with Young Jeezy in "Grew Up a Screw Up." However, on Therapy, the album's "grown-up" portion, 'Cris doesn't quite box his weight class. He deserves to be commended for tackling issues like depression and domestic violence, but he's not Common - a fact he proves on the clunking, pseudo-confessional "Slap."

I guess everyone has to grow up someday, but I'm still listening to Chicken -N- Beer.

If you like this music, you might also enjoy:

King - T.I.

You Can't Ban the Snowman - Young Jeezy

Port of Miami - Rick Ross

TV on the Radio

Return to Cookie Mountain

Available Now

It's hard to be a band from Brooklyn, N.Y.

Between Interpol, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Liars, the music press has been charging Brooklynites with saving rock for the past four years. As the Liars got schizophrenic, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs went MTV and Interpol went shopping, TV on the Radio is the last band from Brooknam making a case for the borough.

With Return to Cookie Mountain, the band further explores the Prince-on-acid sound it defined on Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes. "Hours" features vocalist Tunde Adebimpe crooning over military snares and disjointed synthesizers, adding emotional weight to the song's tale of abandonment. On "Province," none other than David Bowie lends vocals to TV on Radio's answer to the rock ballad. But Return to Cookie Mountain isn't all minor-key malaise. "Dirtywhirl" showcases Adebimpe's soulful voice over a chugging rhythm, akin to Otis Redding singing about the apocalypse.

Return to Cookie Mountain stirred quite a bit of controversy prior to its release, as the band, formerly on indie-mainstay Touch and Go Records, signed with Interscope. However, TV on the Radio eschewed mass appeal and used its major-label debut to refine the sound it crafted years before.

If you like this music, you might also enjoy:

A Hundred Miles Off - Walkmen

Gulag Orkestar - Beirut

Classics - Ratatat

Mute Math

Mute Math

Available Now

Imagine a world where Radiohead remade The Bends every year and Chris Martin ruled the earth. This is the world in which Mute Math lives.

The band's debut finds its four Christian members doing their best mid-'90s Brit-rock impression with little success. To counter the banality of the band's faux-Blur routine, Mute Math tosses in the occasional vignette of noodling space rock, as though to assure, "Take us seriously - we're experimenting."

But it's not all pretensions of British greatness. On "Noticed," the band provides a skittering background for vocalist Paul Meany to wax Peter Gabriel, making for the most provocative track on the album. "Plan B" encroaches arena-rock territory with gangly guitars and electronic drums, making it a shoe-in as the soundtrack to the Myspace profiles of the lamest people you know.

The album's best moments come only as Mute Math is able to mask its influences for long enough to say something listenable.

While imitation is the highest form of flattery, plagiarism is just plain boring.

If you like this music, you might also enjoy:

Sam's Town - Killers

These Stars Are Monsters - Inkwell

Cum Laude - Velvet Teen