Esthero

Esthero hasn't exactly been munching bonbons and kicking back with the daytime soaps since the 1998 release of Breath From Another, her critically lauded debut album. Besides appearing on tracks by the Isley Brothers and Black Eyed Peas, the Canadian finished an album of all-new material, Wikked Lil' Grrrls -- due out later this year -- and earned the No. 1 slot on the Billboard Club Play charts last October with "O.G. Bitch."

The six-song EP Revolution serves as a sneak preview to Grrrls, and certainly shows her musical growth from Another. Gone is the slinky trip-hop heat and often haphazard genre-melding of that disc in favor of songs that possess distinct personalities -- from radio-friendly R&B ("Gone," featuring the dulcet tones of Cee-Lo Green) to Homogenic-era Björk (the oceanic strings undulating through "Amber and Tiger's Eye"). Unfortunately, tidying up her once-messy mash-ups produces songs that just aren't very interesting -- or, in the case of the rock 'tude present on the title track, weak condemnations of Ashanti and Britney ("I'm so sick and tired of the shit on the radio/And MTV, they only play the same thing") that simply sound whiny.