It's summertime, and no band says good times, hot babes, and cool rays quite like Motley Crue, right? Currently out pillaging the countryside on their Cruefest tour, the original bad boys of the Sunset Strip are also back this week with Saints of Los Angeles, their first new album in eight years.

With song titles like "Mutherfucker Of The Year," "Down At The Whiskey," and "This Aint A Love Song" (we'll let you guess what it actually is then), the Crue-boys also look to be trying to extend their already over-extended adolescence a few more years. The only thing missing here is the tittie-cam.

Speaking of bad boys, Pete Doherty checks out of rehab long enough to grace us with Babyshambles new live CD/DVD set Oh What a Lovely Tour. Elsewhere, we have a new one from Ry Cooder in the sci-fi influenced I, Flathead. Sigur Ros are back with Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust.

Earlier this week Blogcritic Clayton Perry wrote a
glowing review describing Anthony David's new Acey Deucy as nothing less than the future of soul music.

On the hip-hop side of things, southern rappers Three 6 Mafia are down to a duo on their new CD Last 2 Walk. Wu-Tang Clan's resident alchemist RZA checks in under his alter-ego Bobby Digital with Digi Snacks.

Donald Gibson will be along shortly to talk about the new one from Jessie Baylin. But first, we welcome Josh Hathaway to our revolving cast of contributors, making his debut pick for NAR this week. Regular visitors to BC already know Josh as an assistant music editor here, and publisher of Confessions Of A Fanboy. Josh can also be heard Thursday nights on his Blogtalk/BC Radio show, B-Sides Concept Album.

Watermelon Slim & The Workers are ready to defend their title. No Paid Vacations follows last year's The Wheel Man, which took home the Blues Music Award for Album of the Year. Vacations — his third album in three years — doesn't stray far from the vision of the blues he's crafted on previous records, which is good news. There's massive amounts of slide guitar, tasty harmonica licks aplenty, and Slim telling stories with that unique cadence of his. These are the ingredients that make his albums work, and No Paid Vacations has all of them.