Fifteen minutes into The United Nations of Sound, even the most casual of music consumers will ask themselves, “Is this guy kidding?”

Seeing J Mascis live is traditionally a loud affair, but on this night the guitar hero brought his expertise to a new acoustic context. And the results were remarkable.

Acid House Kings’ fifth album, Music Sounds Better With You, may be the Swedish trio’s Annie Hall.

Hot on the heels of The Tudors, Showtime takes further outrageous liberties with 15^th century history in The Borgias. Boldly claiming the infamous clan as “the original crime family,” The Borgias is the story of Spaniard cardinal Rodrigo Borgia who becomes Pope Alexandar VI (Jeremy Irons) and his ruthless family who have no qualms decimating anything and anyone in their path.

An opening shot of wooden chairs strewn upright along a desert road. A man standing, holding bunches of pairs of binoculars, obviously waiting for someone. A car appears, knocks down each of the chairs, stops, and an officer of the law emerges —from the trunk. What could all of this mean? Rubber amusingly addresses, early on, the lack of a reason for the inclusion or omission of certain elements of movies, and then launches into its own series of events for your consideration.

Alison Mosshart has the blues. She and The Kills’ other half, guitarist Jamie Hince, have grounded themselves after 2008’s Midnight Boom, the impeccably stylized art rock exhibition that was praised as much as it was polarizing. Things here do get manipulated, and the duo is still unabashed in their hyperbolic swagger, but for the most part Blood Pressures reeks of whiskey and sex—a taste that lingers like secondhand smoke.

If Adele ever has a successful relationship, that could be the end of her musical career. Luckily for her listeners, she seems really bad at picking partners. A terrible relationship gave her material for her critically acclaimed, award-winning debut, 19. A good—but now ended—relationship has given her its successor, the already critically acclaimed and likely soon to be award-winning 21.

Erstwhile frontman of eccentric Texas weirdoes Lift to Experience, which released one album in 2001, the brilliant The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads, and called it quits, Josh T. Pearson’s debut is a mixed bag.

We have seen the cop’s point of view, the detective’s, the lawyer’s, the crime scene investigator’s, and the forensic anthropologist’s, now, it’s the medical examiner’s turn. Dana Delany is the central character, Dr. Megan Hunt. And boy, does she think she’s great. Somehow playing Hunt as a smug know-it-all is the way the cleverly titled Body of Proof decided to go.