Van Morrison surely is one of our more modern pop prophets, and this album makes clear that we should all certainly listen to him speak.

A slightly slower blurbing programming beat informs “Sometimes,” all under a teasing female vocal, it’s a hypnotic drone of a tune while “The Dark Storm,” the last song here, begins with a simple piano line and stays that way, mainly. This is the most interesting, and atypical song to everything else on Music Is My Life, a piano instrumental. What a mind-blowing ending to all the dance beats and horns that preceded it.

NYC “experimental” rock & roll/electronic artist max lee has released his 18-song collection Colors of Noise. And there is certainly lots of both…color and noise delivered here.

Maybe By Fall delivers on Analysis Paralysis. Here are some well-written tunes of a certain stripe, the band playing hard and tight behind distinctive vocals (lead and backing), making some rather commercial rock concoctions.

I’m not sure I am sold on lots of what sound like lots of the same sounds (especially from the guitar) of Crooked Flower’s arsenal. This is why I was so taken with the last tune “Own World,” as it sounded so unlike everything else, by the time I came to it my ears were loving the difference. Still, there is a lot of solid songwriting and tight playing here from Daniel Erik on bass, Dan Ingberman’s guitar and the wonderful drumming and percussion maneuvering of Patrick Shields. Angelina Dang singing over the top completes a pretty tight unit.

A synth bleating bass and snapping percussion from the fantastic “God & Love” gets us up and moving for the 11-song wonderfulness that is Boy George and Culture Club’s new album Life. Although the songs come at you at different tempos, mostly what we get here is fantastic percussion, lots of horn interplay and George’s voice, lower, but stronger than ever.

In the grand tradition of Pink Floyd and King Crimson, as well as bands like Russian Circles and Joe Satriani’s work, we get solid instrumental songwriting, producing and playing from Adam Rose on Levitate the Base.

Obviously a strong songwriter and player, of Mike Carnahan steps out a bit on CarnyMusic.

Sean Paul Mad Love (Universal-Island Records Ltd) I’m not one to give titles to artists but if I could give a title […]

There’s two parts to the title track, the first “”Profiles Part 1/Profiles Part 2″ ending the first side of the original album, a good rockin’ instrumental, truly showcasing Fenn’s guitar and keyboard playing. At over ten minutes we get a confectionary-sounding high keys middle leading that slows the rocking down, taking us all the way out with layering key leads.