Half-submerged in a pool of water, wearing a slinky red dress, PJ Harvey achieves a schmaltzy grandeur on the cover of her new album. Even the title, To Bring You My Love, carries with it the over-glazed aroma of countless AOR ballads by the likes of Michael Bolton and Chris DeBurgh.

But do not let Polly Jean's seeming resemblance to DeBurgh's "Lady in Red" fool you. It's all a front. Harvey's third album (excluding 1993's 4-Track Demos) is a masterfully constructed work not to be judged by its cover. The album's 10 tracks all deal with love in its many aspects, but rather than swooning the listener with easily defined contentment, Harvey takes the road less traveled into a world of realistic ambiguity.

"I've lain with the devil/Cursed God above/Forsaken heaven/To bring you my love," Harvey snarls on the album's title track. Unlike her previous outing, the Steve Albini produced Rid of Me, Harvey does not disappear into the production this time out. Along with co-producer and engineer Flood, best known for his work with industrial bands like Nine Inch Nails, Harvey creates a musical landscape she stands over rather than falls into.

Flood's industrial sound is most evident on the album's first three tracks, including the driving "Meet Ze Monsta" and the funky "Working For the Man." After that, it is all PJ's show -- and what a magnificent show it is. From the spacious "C'Mon Billy" to the seductive crawl of the album's first single, "Down By the Water," Harvey continually finds ways to reinvent herself.

From the disillusioned voice of "I Think I'm a Mother" to the spurned lover of "The Dancer," Harvey runs the gamut of emotions with wild abandon, her voice often asexual with references to lovers on either side of the fence, struggling with religion as she goes. Backed by a talented group of musicians, including co-producer John Parish on percussion, Harvey's album spills over with beautiful arrangements, utilizing an organ on many tracks to give them a reverent tone that does not go overboard.

But the masterstroke of the album is the tone Harvey brings to it. Unlike the majority of pop artists, Harvey seems to realize that the most interesting comment on love deals with the internal battles we all have with those in our lives -- not every situation ends with a smile and a rainbow. Her refusal to neatly tie up loose ends is what propels To Bring You My Love into a loud, complex work, but just like love itself, the rewards are plenty.

The latest offering from alternative-pop guru Matthew Sweet is short on originality, but long on fun. In fact, 100% Fun is a potent batch of tunes in Sweet's signature style, with several standout ditties that sound unsurprisingly similar to each other.

But this is a different album from his others -- at least it has a different title. And it's no surprise that Sweet is sticking to his guns. With the recent success of former backup buddies Velvet Crush, the Sweet sound has come of age.

The opener, "Sick of Myself," starts off the musical romp with a blast of predictable song craft -- "But I'm sick of myself when I look at you/Something is beautiful and true." The sentiments are straight off of Sweet's mainstream breakthrough, Girlfriend.

On the particularly enjoyable "Walk On," rockabilly rhythms distinguish the tune with a little bit of originality -- to someone who's never heard of Tom Petty.

Sweet's skill has always been his ability to elevate teenage skater virtues to s omething more universal. A pop mentality keeps the songs out of the realm of edgy self-importance and the message to a high-saccharine level.

Perhaps the best example of this is the closer, "Smog Moon" -- a mellowed look at soul searching.

"There's a lost man/With a bitter soul/Only for a moment/Did life make him whole." It's cliche, but it works.

Despite the lack of any grand new statements or rich new musical directions, Sweet is doing what he does indeed do best.

100% Fun is exactly that -- a hook laden collection of hum-a-long classics with no pretensions to be (pardon the pun) an Altered Beast.