• ROCK

DAUGHTRY

Leave This Town

19/RCA

* ½

American Idol finalist Chris Daughtry never met a cliché he couldn't steamroll his way over on angst-driven post-grunge rock. That was forgivable on his band's 2006 debut because you figured he probably didn't have that much say in its direction.

However, this baggage is damnable on Leave This Town, the sound-alike follow-up to the quadruple-platinum Daughtry.

Leave This Town is maddeningly generic and predictable. Hey, big dumb rock doesn't have to strive for Art. Chickenfoot's no-frills retro rawk, for instance, is a blast to crank while you try to drive 55.

Not so Daughtry's sullen rockers. The lyrics are little more than nonsensical, unrelated lines strung together so he can sing in rhythm. ``With time to kill and an empty tomb / I always find the way to pass the time with you,'' he yowls on the muscular You Don't Belong.

If the brooding music was occasionally fun and distinctly crafted, this would matter little. But Daughtry, who sings well but sounds as if he hasn't listened to any rock band pre-2003, merely apes Creed and Nickelback, whose leader Chad Kroeger cowrites two tracks, including the first single, No Surprise, an apt alternate title for this disc.

Daughtry's faceless group isn't well served by returning producer Howard Benson's glossy but tightly compressed sound. Guitarists Josh Steely and Brian Craddock are mixed into flat bread when ear-grabbing solos should offer dynamics on otherwise catchy cuts like Ghost of Me, the CD's best. Country's smooth crooner Vince Gill guests on Tennessee Line but is similarly rendered ineffectual.

-- HOWARD COHEN

hcohen@MiamiHerald.com

• ROCK

THE MARS VOLTA

Octahedron

Warner Bros.

* * * ½

Vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala and guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez wasted no time starting The Mars Volta after ending their speed garage band At the Drive In. Since rocketing to Mars, they've made smug prog-metal with psychedelic touches of free jazz that was sharp, cold, yet (if you disregard their oddball lyrics) surprisingly easy to understand, no matter how complex their rhythmic shifts may have been.

Yet, for all their dynamic range, they've never been warm or worried about melody until the quietude of Octahedron.

With Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante (a Volta constant) along for its most subdued and soulful effort, Mars Volta finds buoyant, hummable composition at its command on the heartbroken likes of Since We've Been Wrong and Teflon. These are, at their simplest, lovely melodies with weary lyrical embrace.

There's a curvaceous tenderness within Octahedron that's only been hinted at within Bixler-Zavala's laments or Rodriguez-Lopez's sonic leaps. Beyond passionate display, there's spaciousness -- something no crammed-and-cramped Volta album ever had. With Twilight as My Guide is space rock in the most literal sense -- dreamy, open and crisp. Still, for all the roominess and ruined romance that Mars' men contemplate, there's hard steel (e.g., Cotopaxi ) found within Octahedron's dangerous curves.

-- A.D. AMOROSI

The Philadelphia Inquirer

• JAZZ

CHRISTIAN McBRIDE & INSIDE STRAIGHT

Kind of Brown

Mack Avenue

* * *

Twenty years into his career, Christian McBride is known to spice his work with funk, soul, fusion and pop. In his head, pianist Herbie Hancock lives alongside Sly and the Family Stone.

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