After the back-to-basics Plead the Fifth, Taproot once again get serious on The Episodes, an ambitious concept album that finds them reconnecting with their prog side without quite abandoning the churning nu-metal that brought them to the...

Korn remembered who they were just in time to forget it all again on The Path of Totality, an unexpected left turn into dubstep and all manner of dark electronica from the kings of nu metal. Unexpected...

Alice Cooper may not have had a hit single in two decades but he’s hardly kept quiet during the two decades that separate 1991’s Hey Stoopid and 2011’s Welcome 2 My Nightmare. In addition to his quite...

Hiring producer Howard Benson, best known for helming heavier acts, for 2011’s Time of My Life is a suggestion that 3 Doors Down realized their eponymous 2008 album was a little anonymous. To be sure, Benson does...

Brilliant name it may be, but the four females of Lez Zeppelin aren’t necessarily lesbian: they’re a tribute band smart enough to know that they wouldn’t get anywhere without a snappy name. Lez Zeppelin not only built...

Forget all that nonsense about Dave Grohl listening to the Bee Gees and ABBA when writing Wasting Light. You can even forget Bob Mould’s killer cameo on “Dear Rosemary,” no matter how seamlessly the Hüsker Dü frontman’s...

It’s been a long 16 years since Bon Jovi was last compiled, when Cross Road arrived for the holiday season of 1994, two years after Keep the Faith capped off a near-decade long run of dominance for...

Kid Rock has made no secret of his desire to follow in Bob Seger’s footsteps, but it still comes as a mild shock to have Bob Ritchie deliver an album that feels like it could have slipped...

Apparently his time in Chickenfoot made Joe Satriani want to get back to where he once belonged, so he goes retro on 2010′s Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards. About as far away from the heavy-footed party rock...

Since so much of Soundgarden’s legacy lay in the years before their superstardom, their major label-oriented 1997 A-Sides compilation didn’t quite do them justice. Although it contained cuts from the years before they signed to A&M, A-Sides...

10 Years managed to chalk up three albums and one big modern rock hit — 2005’s modern rock chart-topper “Wasteland” — without quite making a name for themselves. They remained stuck in the middle of the pack,...

Let there be no doubt of Joe Elliott’s deep love of Mott the Hoople. Who else would — or could — craft an album-length salute to the music the group made after Ian Hunter left, rounding up...

Peter Frampton releases records so rarely that he’s almost forced to plainly admit their themes in the titles: 2003′s Now dealt with the present while its 2010 successor, Thank You Mr. Churchill, casts an eye toward the...

When Jeff Beck last ventured into the studio it was to cut 2003′s Jeff, a deliberately modernist album steeped in electronica, to which 2010′s Emotion & Commotion almost feels like a refutation. Working with producers Steve Lipson...

Like Jeff Beck before him, Slash is a superstar guitarist who can’t sing a lick — a situation that poses a considerable problem when it comes time to record a solo album, which apparently is whenever his...