This week, Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas reinvents himself away from the band and Anna Nalick’s Wreck of the Day is anything but.

something to be review

Pop/rock: Rob Thomas, Something to Be (* * * out of four) After dispensing highly commercial but colorless rock with Matchbox Twenty in the 1990s, Rob Thomas found his groove in Smooth, the 1999 hit collaboration with Santana. He brings that rhythm method to this lively solo album, a largely enjoyable assortment of pop flavors with a pulse strong enough to travel from the ears to the hips. The title track is overwrought, and Streetcorner Symphony is a painful misfire, but Thomas compensates with the salient When the Heart Aches and first single Lonely No More, dance-pop with a genuine funk core. —Edna Gundersen