R.E.M. ‘Accelerate’s

‘accelerate’

R.E.M. (Warner Bros.)

Grade: A

When R.E.M. was at its peak, its music was filled with urgency and energy — something the band lost over the years.

After a decade of what singer Michael Stipe calls unfocused studio efforts, R.E.M. picks up the pace on the enjoyable “Accelerate,” its first album since 2004. Equal parts political commentary and personal introspection, “Accelerate” contains many of the hallmarks of the early R.E.M. sound abandoned in its middle age. Here though the jangly guitar and ambulatory bass lines are more about jittery nerves than beautiful atmospherics, the high harmonies more Greek chorus moan than a reflection of the joy the band shared with millions of fans while making groundbreaking rock ’n’ roll in the 1980s.

Stipe, one of our great storytellers, is as sharp and wickedly funny as ever here. In “Man Sized Wreath,” he sings, “Turn on the TV/What do I see?/A pageantry of empty gestures/All lined up for me.” In “Houston,” a song featuring acoustic guitar, mandolin and an insistent organ line that sounds like a warning siren, he opens with, “If the storm doesn’t kill me the government will.” And in the powerful punch of “Horse to Water,” he sings, “Bring a horse to water and watch him drown.”

—Chris Talbott, Associated Press

‘Funplex’

The B-52s (Astralwerks)

Grade: B

After a decade as one of New Wave’s quirkiest pleasures, the B-52s burst into the mainstream with 1989’s “Cosmic Thing” but went on to release only one more album of new material, and that from a reduced lineup that couldn’t replicate some of the act’s best previous qualities.

Once again a quartet for its first new disc in 16 years, the band reassembles its signature elements and evaporates concerns about age by showing some fresh spring-loaded party pop. With all its members in their 50s, the group continues to rely on the way Kate Pierson and the returned Cindy Wilson intertwine their voices into a brass-laden, spunky chorus and serve as counterpoint to the arch, almost sneering bark of the gleefully flamboyant Fred Schneider. Paced by Keith Strickland’s crisp guitar edge on the throbbing, electronic dance rock “Pump,” the trio makes the most of that separation of powers, playing up each distinctive shred of personality atop a sprightly electronic backdrop.

Its method hardly sounds dated, and balances such trademark fare as “Too Much To Think About” with the humorously robotic, mildly hypnotic “Love in the Year 3000.” Still a hoot when it tosses Schneider’s intently overdone yelps at “Hot Corner” or the oddball meditation on consumerism’s banalities in the title track, the group is still curiously hip, and there is no reason to change those stripes.

—Thomas Kintner, Hartford Courant

‘Live 1969’

Simon Garfunkel (Sony Legacy)

Grade: A

This live album from Simon & Garfunkel can be considered better late than never for a couple of reasons. One is that these songs capture folk’s most successful pair on their final tour before a bitter split. The other is that, almost 40 years later, there’s finally a satisfying concert document of the duo, which shows them at the height of their powers and offers — by drawing from a half-dozen shows, with and without top-notch accompaniment — the best-rounded selection of S&G concert material available (legally, at least).

Part of that success owes to the inclusion of the title track from “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” which hadn’t been released at the time of this autumn tour. This take, presented by Garfunkel solo, should generate as many goose bumps as the studio version, and it’s joined by renditions of hits such as “The Boxer,” “Homeward Bound” and “Scarborough Fair/Canticle,” which put the focus on Simon’s underrated guitar fingerpicking and the pair’s one-of-a-kind harmonic blend. The disc ends with Simon’s melancholy “Kathy’s Song,” one of his greatest, if less-remarked, compositions. It’s an appropriately wistful close to this document of a duo in its twilight, but “Live 1969” offers a lovely postscript to an untimely end.

—Dan LeRoy, Hartford Courant

‘ATTACK RELEASE’

The Black Keys (Nonesuch)

Grade: B

Fans of the Black Keys don’t have to worry that their beloved Akron, Ohio, band might have cleaned up too much by recording in an actual studio with an actual producer instead of recording in a basement and producing themselves like they typically have since putting out 2002’s “The Big Come Up.”

The new “Attack & Release” is thoroughly gritty despite the touches of producer Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) and the luxuries provided by Cleveland’s Suma Studio. And if the explosive finale to opening track “All You Ever Wanted” isn’t reassuring enough, the distorted gut-check of the subsequent “I Got Mine” establishes that the duo of Dan Auerbach (vocals, guitars) and Patrick Carney (drums) isn’t betraying established roots.

However, “I Got Mine” does introduce a quirk — in the form of an apparitional choir that surfaces mid-song — and other twists follow, including banjo, Moog and keyboards plus supporting vocals by teen-ager Jessica Lea Mayfield on the grim closer, “Things Ain’t Like They Used To Be.”

Again, fans needn’t panic. “Remember When (Side A)” may waft out like a soundtrack cut from a David Lynch Western, but the Black Keys immediately follow with a “Remember When (Side B)” that’s just as rough and hard as the twosome ever has been. Timeless chugging and propulsion drive the group’s primal blues-rock, and Auerbach is as compelling and soulful as a man of few words can be. His lyrics don’t get much more complicated than “I won’t get lost in your world” (from the earthy “Psychotic Girl”) and “Nothing I do will make you love me ... I wanna die without pain” (from the slow-burning “Lies”), but the raw-to-the-bone music on “Attack & Release” conveys all the Black Keys need to get across.

—Chuck Campbell, Scripps Howard

‘HOLD ON NOW, YOUNGSTER ...’

Los Campesinos! (Arts Crafts)

Grade: A

They just had to do it. After last summer’s release of a near-perfect EP of indie pop, “Sticking Fingers Into Sockets,” the Welsh-born Los Campesinos! just had to put out a full-length follow-up and test their fate as a self-effacing bunch of smart-alecks who by all indications shouldn’t want to be popular but probably will be if they don’t stop making music.

These seven who are especially fond of exclamation points and ellipses and who all adopted “Campesinos!” as their last name aren’t quite as triumphant on their new “Hold on Now, Youngster ...,” which might serve (by design?) to retard their budding fame. However, producer David Newfeld (”Broken Social Scene”) and the band couldn’t refrain from dropping in irrepressible tracks of endearing mania.

The two best “Sticking Fingers” cuts even found their way onto “Hold On” — the party-minded “You! Me! Dancing!” and the buoyant romp “Don’t Tell Me to Do the Math(s).” Meanwhile, the new tracks carry forward all the successful “Sticking Fingers” elements, including frenzied glockenspiel, tasty violin, boundless rhythms and all manner of guitar jangle and buzz plus the demonstrative vocals of Gareth softened by the feminine countervocals of Aleks.

After grappling with a group identity crisis on opening cut “Death to Los Campesinos!,” the band of early-20-somethings slices through tracks with titles like “Broken Heartbeats Sound Like Breakbeats” and “Drop It Doe Eyes,” the latter of which features the line, “When I touch you, you fold up like an envelope with everything I ever wrote pouring out of your mouth.”

The act’s relentless sarcasm works thanks to the nonstop energy and wry self-deprecation, yet the formulaic chaos is overkill in the full-length format, and the law of diminishing returns sets in. But if the urge to second-guess Los Campesinos! gets strong, listeners would do well to play “You! Me! Dancing!” and free themselves of overthinking.

—Chuck Campbell, Scripps Howard

‘Keep It Simple’

Van Morrison (Lost Highway)

Grade: C-

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Van Morrison takes the title of his new album, “Keep It Simple,” to extremes. His first set of self-written songs since 2005’s “Magic Time,” the Irish legend focuses on laid-back soul and relaxed blues grooves through all 11 cuts.

The lyrics are similarly threadbare, with many of the themes are built around familiar R&B catchphrases: “One monkey don’t stop no show,” in the song “No Thing,” or “I don’t get around much anymore,” in the song “I Don’t Go To Nightclubs Anymore,” about how, at age 62, he no longer enjoys the nightlife they way he once did.

On the positive side, Morrison’s distinctive, horn-like voice sounds as flexible and expressive as ever. He treats each tune like a late-night improvisation, moaning one line as leisurely as smoke curling from a cigarette tip, then punching out the next like a boxer snapping left-jabs at a sparring partner.

Several lyrics start with an interesting premise, whether it’s the back to nature treatise on “End of the Land,” or the political and cultural critique of “School of Hard Knocks.” Unfortunately, few songs extend past an interesting stanza or two; instead, each cut just repeats the initial opening lines while devolving into a steady-rolling jam.

Too often, the result is like an underdeveloped photograph. The images could be interesting if brought into focus. But the process stops too early, leaving everything fuzzy and ultimately less than it should be.

—Michael McCall, Associated Press

‘troubadour’

George Strait (MCA)

Grade: B

As one of country music’s traditional standard-bearers, George Strait mistakenly gets described at times as conservative or predictable. The wide-ranging, often surprising “Troubadour” should put that notion to rest, once and for all.

In fact, “Troubadour” emphasizes the opposite sides of Strait’s musical tastes. Several songs are as contemporary and pop-influenced as he’s ever sounded, as in “River of Love,” which unfolds to an upbeat island rhythm. Also, the complicated country-rock arrangement of “Brothers of the Highway” shows off Strait’s vocal range in ways few songs of his past ever have.

On the other side, he steps back in time with the rousing two-stepper, “Make Her Fall in Love with Me Song,” and a delightful western swinger, “That West Texas Town,” a duet with Strait’s favorite songwriter, Dean Dillon. Strait also soars in another duet, this time with the great Patty Loveless, on “House of Cash,” a fiery tribute to Johnny and June Carter Cash.

Strait has only rarely veered into the over-the-top sentimentality that runs through some contemporary country songs, but his current hit, “I Saw God Today,” is the kind of formulaic tear-jerker better left to lesser artists. But “Troubadour” finds Strait taking risks — a rare move for an artist with a three-decade track record. For the most part, his gambles pay off nicely.

—Michael McCall, Associated Press