SOUND CHECK.

KILLERS: "Sam's Town" (Island) - Three stars

These Las Vegas-based Anglophiles drop the fake accents and rock hard on an album named for an off-Strip casino where the Bellagio types, in town for Celine Dion, don't go. The Killers' fine singer, Brandon Flowers, agrees with Bruce Springsteen that, even on the other side of the tracks, it's a town full of losers. And the best way out is through this fine set of new-wave-tinged numbers that sound great in car and bar. Although the aching ``Bling (Confessions of a King)'' could drive you to drink, it's the galloping, high-energy guitar rockers like ``When You Were Young'' and ``Uncle Jonny'' that earn iPod nano space. The Killers' aim is true.

-- Fred Shuster

BECK: ``The Information'' (Interscope) Two and one half stars

Now that it's OK to eat spinach again, it must be time for a new Beck album. Synths, space and an underground stream of clattering noise and electronic blips mark his often amusing new art-rock salad.

Melodies are average or nonexistent and lyrical content is the usual junkyard surrealism, but none of that's the point this time. Nigel Godrich's grounded production ensures ``The Information'' simply sounds too good to ignore. Every found sound is perfectly tracked, making even the benign throwaway ``Dark Star'' noticeable.

As friendly as the warm, funky ``Elevator Music'' and ``No Complaints'' might be, there's little here that Hansen hasn't attempted before (and, for that matter, nothing Don Van Vliet hasn't done better), but the disc works well as intriguing wallpaper -- quirky enough to draw attention in the right places and mild enough not to distract from worries that carrots might be next.

-- F.S.

JOHN COLTRANE: ``Fearless Leader'' (Prestige) - Three and one half stars

This six-disc box spans the 11 sometimes uneven albums Coltrane cut for Prestige in the 18 months after the saxophone giant was bounced from the Miles Davis Quintet. Here, on records including the passionate, self-titled debut and the classic ``Soultrane,'' Trane fronts straight-ahead quartets and quintets, laying out a blues- and standards-based road map for the sonic breakthroughs to come. Surefooted backing from such luminaries as pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, trumpeters Wilbur Harden and Freddie Hubbard, and drummer Art Taylor maintain tension even when the material is spotty. What's the level of Trane's soloing? Put it this way: At the end of this period, he performed with Thelonious Monk at Carnegie Hall, resulting in the best jazz album of last year; a year later, he'd not only join Miles to make the landmark ``Kind of Blue,'' but also would record ``Giant Steps,'' an earth-shaking set of his own compositions. ``Fearless Leader'' reveals how he got there.

-- F.S.

WEATHER REPORT: ``Forecast: Tomorrow'' (Columbia/Legacy) - Three and one half stars

The biggest draw of this hefty dose of '70s fusion will be the great-sounding DVD of a concert offering up-close looks at bassist Jaco Pastorius in action. Pastorius' solo spot during ``Third Stone From the Sun'' is the stuff of legend, and the rest of the band -- this is the later lineup featuring lightning-fast drummer Peter Erskine -- is up to form. This is that rare box that works both as an introduction and definitive summation.

-- Glenn Whipp

JEANNE NEWHALL: ``Wild Blue'' (Blix Street) - Two stars

Local smooth-jazz singer-pianist Newhall's 14th album is bookended by believably lonely covers of Bruce Springsteen's ``Hungry Heart'' and the jazz standard ``These Foolish Things,'' but none of that melancholy makes its way into the originals in between. A quiet, competent singer, it's Newhall's piano that shines both in accompaniment and solo functions, but her own songs seldom rise to the occasion.

-- Steven Rosenberg

JAKE LA BOTZ: ``Graveyard Jones'' (Charnel Ground) - Three stars

Sometime car-dweller and indie movie actor La Botz dreams up bizarro electric blues, rocking just as hard on sentimental pieces. As the album's title suggests, there's a good deal of morbidity and mortality obsessed over here, but it's one lively-sounding funeral. To promote the disc, La Botz is taking his impassioned, woodchipper voice on a tour of some of the nation's finer tattoo parlors, starting Saturday at the Shamrock Social Club in Hollywood.

-- Bob Strauss

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(1) no caption (The Killers)

(2 -- 6) no caption (cd covers)