‘HATE IT OR LOVE IT’

‘HATE IT OR LOVE IT’

Chingy (DTP)

Grade: B

You have to admire the confidence of an artist who would hand reviewers a Louisville Slugger of an album title like this one, just as you have to give a certain amount of respect to a guy who has turned one huge hit — 2003’s singsong “Right Thurr” — into a career now on its fourth big-label release.

The last two were largely disappointments, but now that he’s back with Ludacris’ Disturbing Tha Peace imprint, Chingy sounds reinvigorated, turning in a dozen lean tracks that contain the best single — “Gimme Dat,” a synth-happy vehicle for his reunion with Luda — he’s had since his signature smash.

That’s not to suggest that “Hate It or Love It” tips heavily in favor of the latter option. The hypnotic, skeletal beats of “Kick Drum” and L.T. Moe’s “2 Kool 2 Dance” give Chingy plenty of room to operate in his slurry St. Louis drawl, but the album’s wide-open spaces tend to highlight his lyrical shortcomings, as well. “Spend Some $” might be a message good for the economy, but it adds nothing to hip-hop.

Still, “Hate It or Love It” contains enough to like, at least, that the pendulum of Chingy’s Midwest swing should stay in motion for the foreseeable future.

—Dan LeRoy, Hartford Courant

‘THE MAKINGS OF A MAN’

Jaheim (Atlantic)

Grade: B

While he has a marked (and often remarked) vocal similarity to Luther Vandross, Jersey singer Jaheim compares favorably to another late, but lesser-known vocalist as well. Like Gerald LeVert, Jaheim draws heavily on classic R&B to fashion a sound more concerned with soul than style. Although he’s managed success with this approach — his third album, 2006’s “Ghetto Classics,” topped the charts — there’s always the chance his thug/lover persona will lose the kids.

It probably won’t happen on “The Makings of a Man,” which contains the R. Kelly-penned “Hush,” a cheatin’-on-my-best-friend tale stuck in Kelly’s usual thematic and melodic rut. Jaheim offers just that one sop to current trends. The rest of the disc is filled with the rich, sampled soul riffs his voice deserves. Though borrowed from ’70s and ’80s sources such as Gamble & Huff and Atlantic Starr, Jaheim has the sort of commanding voice that can make them his own.

Just as significantly, the nostalgic “Have You Ever” and “She Ain’t You” take a mature look at relationships that Kelly has never attempted. Jaheim was already a man before this album, but he’s putting even more distance between himself and the boys.

—Dan LeRoy, Hartford Courant

‘SUITE E.P.’

Le Concorde (Fourchette)

Grade: B+

Le Concorde’s “Suite E.P.” is a tasty, light appetizer of indie-pop shaded by New Wave.

The release is a teaser for a possible full-length collaboration between Le Concorde frontman Stephen Becker and producer David Garrison (of Scritti Politti), who make an excellent match on “Suite E.P.”

The retro vibe flows immediately as an easy electronic rhythm and surprisingly well-suited harmonica usher in Becker’s anxious rush of words on opening cut “I Want You Back,” his desperation stirring empathy as he frets at song’s end, “Is it too late?” “Suite E.P.’s” six tracks aren’t filling, nor are they exceptional, but they stream together for a breezy, and mostly contagious, flurry of nearly 19 minutes of gentility and sophistication.

Ginger harmonies and an electronic/acoustic blend of instrumentation send “Break You Like a Promise” wafting into the atmosphere, and the politely infectious “April Wine” has the pleasant, if faint, feel of vintage Scritti Politti.

When Becker puts more muscle in the mix, it backfires: “International Flight” fares just fine with its plucky, sunny drive until he forces his vocals into a rockier chorus, and “All These Fragile Unions” creates a bit of a mess with its overwrought tone and cluttered production.

Yet Le Concorde offers the quintessential sendoff: The ballad “Lullaby for Dollface” concludes “Suite E.P.” with tender, acoustic guitar and gorgeous vocal harmonies. Best of all, Becker’s seeming sincerity on the finale encapsulates the release’s inviting accessibility.

—Chuck Campbell, Knoxville News Sentinel

‘FLY’

Ilonka (Gambit)

Grade: C+

Depending on how you feel about Celine Dion and Dave Matthews, Ilonka could be the best or worst thing to come out of South Africa since Matthews.

From the way she looks to the way she sings, Ilonka bears more than a passing resemblance to Dion. Only she’s an edgier Celine Dion. Edgier, like a butter knife vs. a plastic spoon.

“How Do You Feel?” — the first single from the Nashville-based Afrikaner’s new “Fly” — is certainly more electrifying than Dion’s typical fare, with guitar bluster and a vigorous melody swelling until the song rather infectiously explodes.

From there, the momentum sputters and the oversinging Ilonka’s adherence to formula leashes “Fly” to limited artistry.

Clearly Ilonka prefers the aggressive pitch, supplying her volatile vocals with passionate quavering as she intensely markets her refrains of hackneyed lyrics. And for pop-rock music that bludgeons its listeners with its hooks, it’s not so bad, especially the country-twisted “You Lift Me” that zigzags through a wild gait and the souped-up “No Fear” that finds the life-affirming Ilonka proclaiming, “I have no fear!”

The singer makes all-too-rare forays into a softer mode and is effective with a gentler stand alongside the syncopated rhythm of “Right Now” and mournful synths of “The Reason.”

By contrast, the title track is a shockingly unsubtle ballad, a mess of a song that fuses her overwrought voice to the objections from an abused piano.

—Chuck Campbell, Knoxville News Sentinel

‘ALONE: THE HOME RECORDINGS
OF RIVERS CUOMO’

Rivers Cuomo (Geffen)

Grade: C

Weezer leader Rivers Cuomo has always marched to his own drum — putting his hit-making power-pop band on hiatus for long periods, and heading off to Harvard to earn his undergraduate degree rather than indulge in the excesses of stardom. So it’s no surprise that the guy who made his bones cranking out catchy, slightly bent confections that explore his own loneliness has been squirreling away solo recordings since he was a teenager. The surprise is that there isn’t more to the undernourished “Alone,” though it does have amusing moments, like a cover of Ice Cube’s “The Bomb,” and simple pleasures, such as “Longtime Sunshine,” plus an early demo of “Buddy Holly” that perks things up. But Cuomo is no Bob Dylan when it comes to holding back secret masterpieces. And “Alone” mainly makes you wish Cuomo would come out into the sunshine and play with his band.

—Dan DeLuca, Philadelphia Inquirer

‘INTUITION’

Betty Harris (Evidence)

Grade: A

Another soul great returns. During the 1960s, Betty Harris scored big with her own version of the Solomon Burke hit “Cry to Me,” and she worked successfully with Allen Toussaint, Lee Dorsey and others. (You can hear that work on the CD “The Lost Soul Queen.”) At the end of that decade, the Florida-born, gospel-rooted singer quit the business, but she is back with what is — hard to believe — her first solo album.

Intuition begins with “Is It Hot in Here?” and boy is it ever: Harris rides the rock-edged rhythms with as much grit and fire as Bettye LaVette. There’s a lot of other tough, hard-hitting stuff here, but Harris is no one-trick pony. Cuts like the gently entreating title song and her sweet-soul duet with fellow R&B veteran Freddie Scott complete a portrait of a full-blooded, fully dimensional singer who is at the height of her powers.

—Nick Cristiano, Philadelphia Inquirer