Sophomores and Seniors

Fall can often feel like a bit of a comedown after the glitzy package tours and megawatt marketing campaigns of summer albums. It can also feel like a relief, a time for cooler music and cooler heads to prevail.So it is this year. Here's a list of the records and concerts this critic is looking forward to.

RELEASES

THE LEMONHEADS, "The Lemonheads"(Vagrant), September 26

It's been 10 years since the last Lemonheads album, and 14 since their jangly alt-rock masterpiece "It's a Shame About Ray." Now, after an underappreciated, country-tinged solo album in 2003, frontman Evan Dando is reviving the old band name (if not the old lineup: he's now backed by former Descendents Bill Stevenson and Karl Alvarez). "It really sounds like the Lemonheads, maybe a little better," Dando has said of the new work.The first single, "No Backbone," has the same easy melody, catchy guitar flourishes, and self-pitying lyrics that made the band almost famous the first time around.

BECK, "The Information" (Interscope), October 2

Following close on the heels of the success of "Guero" and its even-more-pixilated cousin "Gameboy Variations," Beck is set to release "The Information." The album was recorded with producer Nigel Godrich, but unlike their past work together — the introspective and acoustic works "Mutations" and "Sea Change" — "The Information" promises to be upbeat and genre-bending. In fact, the original vision was to make a hip-hop record, though judging from the leaked material, that's not how it ended up.

The album will feature all sorts of extras — every CD comes with one of four sticker sheets, enabling buyers to "customize" the blank sleeves; a second disc includes "homemade" videos for each of the album's 15 songs — that can either be seen as lame marketing ploys or clever riffs on the nature of the album, depending on how seriously you take Beck's retro-minded art.

YOUNG JEEZY, "The Inspiration: Thug Motivation 102" (Def Jam), October 31

Young Jeezy had two Billboard top 10 albums last year: his breakout solo effort, "Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101," and the self-titled debut by his Atlanta group, Boyz N Da Hood. His secret? Clever, breathy rhymes and tense beats that injected new life into the moribund drug-peddling rap narrative. Details are still sparse on the follow-up, "The Inspiration: Thug Motivation 102," but the title suggests the Snowman is sticking with his street-tested style, albeit with a few more super producers in the credits.

JOANNA NEWSOM, "Ys" (Drag City), November 14

What do you get when you pair folk imp Joanna Newsom with a production team that includes Steve Albini (tracking), Van Dyke Parks (production), and Jim O'Rourke (mixing)? Your guess is as good as mine. But the results will be available for all to hear with the release of "Ys" (pronounced "ees"), the followup to Newsom's quirky, magical lo-fi debut "The Milk-Eyed Mender."

The new album is comprised of five epic (or long, anyway) songs that stretch to a combined 55 minutes and include not only Newsom's signature harp, but also strings, woodwinds, brass, marimba, mandolin, banjo, and percussion on a horse skull. Freak folk just got a whole lot more ambitious.

PERFORMANCES

BUILT TO SPILL
October 3 (Warsaw)
October 4-6 (Irving Plaza)

Last year's "You In Reverse" captured the live sound of Built to Spill perhaps better than any studio album in the band's two-decade career. But it still doesn't compare to the Pacific Northwest post-grunge guitar heroes in person.After a long delay (due to frontman Doug Martsch's emergency retinal surgery), New York City will finally get to hear the new material live over four nights in October.

HARVEY DANGER
October 7 (Mercury Lounge)

Seattle one-hit wonders Harvey Danger quickly went from charming to grating when their one hit, "Flagpole Sitta," was picked up for heavy rotation on MTV in the summer of 1998. Lightening, of course, failed to strike twice for their follow-up, "King James Version," and they were promptly dropped by their label. Now it may be time to reclaim the band from the I-Heart-the-1990s dustbin.

Last week, the boys self-released the finest album of their career, "Little By Little." In the hope of getting people to listen again, they're giving it away free on their Web site (harveydanger.com). Cinematic songs like "Little Round Mirrors" and "Wine, Women, and Song" make it well worth the sticker price.

BOB DYLAN
November 3 (Nassau Coliseum)

The great charm of Bob Dylan's Never-Ending Tour (now in its 19th year) is that his songs never stop evolving. The somewhat-staid arrangements on his Confederate-quoting new album "Modern Times" will benefit from the mileage. See a legend, miraculously, still in the making.

LOU REED
December 14-17 (St. Ann's Warehouse)

Lou Reed used the leeway and goodwill earned by his David Bowie-produced hit album "Transformer" to record 1973's "Berlin," a Weimar-tinted theatrical concept album about lovers drug-addled and doomed. But to this today, the album has never seen a stage. That'll all change in December, when the ex-Velvet Undergounder will perform the grandly flawed work in its entirety over three nights.