SOUND CHECK; COMMON.

Common/``Like Water for Chocolate'' (MCA)

The rapper formerly known as Common Sense is pushing the musical envelope more than ever, continuing to follow in the footsteps of his jazzman dad. The new album's production, handled by Jay Dee of the Ummah (and former Tribe Called Quest fame) and a visionary ensemble known as the Soulquarian is richly textured and thick as molasses. Guest players include trumpet titan Roy Hargrove and rappers Black Thought of the Roots and Mos Def.

Common keeps good company, and he still manages to shine. An uncharacteristic homophobic slur seems to come out of nowhere on ``Dooinit'' - a play for street credibility or conformity? - but for the most part he continues to make hard-core and boho sound like kissing cousins. Three and one half stars

- Chris Vognar

Dallas Morning News

Trisha Yearwood/``Real Live Woman'' (MCA Nashville)

Listen to a few bars of ``Where Are You Now,'' this disc's opening track and best tune, and you'll realize that Yearwood is onto something good. The song, by Kim Richey and Mary Chapin Carpenter, is an honest-to- God country firestorm of hurt and anger, and the recently divorced Yearwood wails it out with new-found conviction. It sets the tone perfectly for an album that's all about enduring and surviving love gone wrong. ``Real Live Woman'' also affords Yearwood a chance to explore the country-rock stylings of her musical idol, Linda Ronstadt, and a cover of Ronstadt's ``Try Me Again'' is among the disc's best moments. Three stars

- Greg Crawford

Detroit Free Press 

Catatonia/``Equally Cursed and Blessed'' (Atlantic)

Will America fall in love with pop star Cerys (sounds like ``terrace'') Matthews and her Welsh band, Catatonia? Maybe. Already certified hitmakers in Britain, the band was formed in 1992 but has yet to land a hit on these shores. But if anyone's going to break through the current glut of squeaky-clean female voices, it will be femme fatale Cerys with a growl that's reminiscent of early Marianne Faithful crossed with Petula Clark sucking helium. Three stars

- Michelle Solomon

Detroit Free Press

BR5-49/``Coast to Coast Live!'' (Arista)

If ``Waiting for the Axe,'' one of two new compositions on BR5-49's contract-completing final Arista album is any indication, the sensible country-swinging fellows knew full well they weren't long for major-label land. But in true BR5 fashion, the band that named itself after Junior Sample's phone number on ``Hee-Haw,'' isn't going to get down in the mouth about being without a record label. ``Coast to Coast'' finds multi- instrumentalist Don Herron cutting loose with considerable aplomb and front men Chuck Meade and Gary Bennett taking turns on a swell set of covers of such country greats as Don Wilson, Gram Parsons and Bob Wills, not to mention Charlie Daniels' superbly satiric ``Hot Rod Lincoln'' rewrite. Three stars

- Dan DeLuca

Philadelphia Inquirer

Randy Weeks/``Madeline'' (HighTone)

Weeks had the distinction of writing the one non-original, ``Can't Let Go,'' on Lucinda Williams' ``Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.'' The pungently rocking slide-guitar fest held its own quite well on that brilliant set, and Williams even earned a Grammy nomination for her performance of it. Weeks does a similar version on ``Madeline,'' a solo debut that often trades in the Everlyish country-rock he made with the now-defunct Lonesome Strangers for a more rawboned, roadhouse style built on stinging guitar and punchy organ riffs. With the help of his superior songwriting, Weeks pulls off this stylistic shift in engagingly convincing fashion, although it's unlikely he'll be getting any Grammy nods for his vocals here. Three stars

- Nick Cristiano

Philadelphia Inquirer

Sammie/``From the Bottom to the Top'' (Capitol)

Given that Sammie just turned 13, it's tempting here to invoke Michael Jackson or Stevie Wonder and blithely predict big things to come. But Sammie, it's a cold, hard world out here, and this record stinks. Which isn't Sammie's fault, really. You could remove his vocals from most of these tracks and leave them Muzak-ready - support singers sustaining melodies over lifeless programming - and largely intact. For this we must blame Atlanta producer Dallas Austin. A one-man industry of mediocre r&b, Austin has worked with both child stars (Monica) and childish ones (TLC). He wrote or found formulaic songs fitting for Sammie's age, and ``I Like It'' has already charted. One and one half stars

- Fred Beckley

Philadelphia Inquirer

Soundtrack/``Price of Glory'' (New Line)

The 14-cut soundtrack to the new Jimmy Smits boxing flick proves to be a sonically adventurous - not to mention moody - opus that succinctly captures the beat of the barrio atmosphere in the film. Salsa-meets-metal band Puya opens the disc with the sauntering, simmering ``Keep It Simple,'' a bilingual tune that sets a Latinos-do-hip-hop tone for the rest of the album. Other standout tunes include Los Lobos' deliciously danceable ``Cumbia Raza'' and King Chango's percussive nugget ``Finalmente.'' Three stars

- Mario Tarradell

Dallas Morning News

Various/``Machine Soul'' (Rhino)

Twenty-two years of electronic music is synthesized in this two-disc overview of electronic pop, which begins where it should: with Kraftwerk's 1978 classic ``The Robots,'' which proved exactly how much could be accomplished with an analog synthesis and a drum machine, and reaches a penultimate peak with German DJ Paul Van Dyk's majestic trance epic ``For an Angel'' before signing off with an appropriate ``Godspeed'' by BT. Crammed in between, like so many connective wires and widgets, is everything from bass-drenched disco (Donna Summer's ``I Feel Love'') to Throbbing Gristle's industrial punk and the absurdly influential Euro-rap interface of ``Planet Rock.'' Three stars

- Terry Lawson

Detroit Free Press

David Gray/``White Ladder'' (ATO)

Though he often relies on sweeping, anthemic chord sequences that artificially inflate his wispy melodies, Gray has managed something rare in singer-songwriterdom: a communication built on sighs and slight inflections that say plenty without overtly stating too much. On ``Babylon,'' the first single from his long-overdue second effort, ``White Ladder,'' he adopts a tone somewhere between confession and self-recrimination to underscore the sense of the lyrics: ``Looking back through time you know it's clear that I've been blind, I've been a fool/to open up my heart to all that jealousy, that bitterness, that ridicule.'' Three and one half stars

- Tom Moon

Philadelphia Inquirer

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Photo: no caption (Common)