‘T.O.S.: Terminate On Sight’

‘T.O.S.: Terminate On Sight’

G-Unit (G-Unit/Interscope)

Grade: C

50 Cent’s ruthless streak has been well documented. He’s had several very public spats with rappers (Ja Rule, Fat Joe, The Game) and actresses (Vivica Fox). And he’s even booted former protege Young Buck from the actual G-Unit group — now officially just 50, Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo. (Recently, 50 circulated a taped conversation of Buck crying and begging him for money. Buck has retaliated with a diss track called “Taped Conversation.”)

That backstory gives much needed context to the hardcore, synth-heavy beats of “T.O.S.: Terminate on Sight,” G-Unit’s second group album. The disc is just as angry and aggressive as 50 seems these days. Over the muddy bass line of disc opener, “Straight Outta Southside,” 50 barks his guntalk: “I’m Charles Bronson, Dirty Harry with the cannon/ you shooting blanks, you ain’t hit/ ... I’m still standing.” Meanwhile, throughout the disc, Banks and Yayo contribute equally cocky boasts. “Cartier glasses, Cartier belt/ Cartier watch tell me time somewhere else/ like Germany, Sweden or Serbia” brags Yayo over the keyboard stabs of “Piano Man.”

At 18 tracks of similar testosterone-charged bombast, the disc gets tiresome for all but the G-Unit loyalist. Yet 50 is savvy. He adds slight variety to the mix — dancehall star Mavado on the reggae-tinged “Let It Go” and requisite thug love jams (“I Like The Way She Do It,” “Close To Me,” “Kitty Kat”). And even Young Buck (who’s still signed to G-Unit Records) is featured on a few mediocre cameos despite the beef. 50’s merely covering his bases by placing business before personal concerns, as the closing song title states: “Money Make the World Go Round.”

— Brett Johnson, Associated Press

‘identified’

Vanessa Hudgens (Hollywood)

Grade: C

While the second installment of “High School Musical” was extremely successful, that might not be the case for Vanessa Hudgens’ second album, “Identified.”

The follow-up to her gold debut, “V,” “Identified” shows Hudgens hasn’t really grown musically in the two years since that album’s release — her voice remains weak and uninspiring. The CD adds to her problems with subpar material.

“I’m tired of the boys who don’t like to dance/And if you don’t like to dance you don’t stand a chance,” she sings on the first single, “Sneakernight.” The song, produced by JR Rotem (Rihanna “SOS,” Sean Kingston “Beautiful Girls”), is sophomoric and tailor-made for the Radio Disney-set. It is also indicative of the entire CD.

A few tunes suggest the promise that “Identified” fails to deliver. The title track is solid, as is “First Bad Habit. “Amazed,” featuring Lil Mama, is arguably the album’s best track: The lip-gloss queen and the Disney star may even see a Top 40 hit with this one. All those songs were produced by Dr. Luke (Kelly Clarkson “Since U Been Gone,” Katy Perry “I Kissed a Girl”); Clearly he should have played a bigger role in this CD.

— Mesfin Fekadu, Associated Press

‘Superhero Brother’

G. Love Special Sauce (Brushfire)

Grade: B

It’s unlikely that anyone’s more surprised by how long G. Love has managed to stick around than G. Love himself. The funky Philadelphian (born Garrett Dutton) first appeared on the national radar in 1994 with the MTV hit “Cold Beverage” — a laid-back fusion of blues licks and hip-hop beats — and since then, he and his backing band, Special Sauce, have built a devoted audience.

On “Superhero Brother,” the third album he’s made for his pal Jack Johnson’s Brushfire label, Love seems determined to reward his devotees with more of what attracted them in the first place. This is unapologetically breezy stuff, long on strummed acoustic guitars and shuffling rhythms. Most of the tunes emphasize the value of having a good time; several go into more specific detail, such as “Who’s Got the Weed?”

As with Johnson’s records, there’s a temptation here to wonder if Love is running some kind of cynical musical experiment, a sort of how-low-can-I-go operation. But every time you start to doubt his sincerity, Love busts out a guileless little gem like “Wontcha Come Home,” where he tells a lover, “There’s no need for looking when you find what you need.”

— Mikael Wood, Los Angeles Times

‘Arizona Motel’

The Hacienda Brothers (Proper)

Grade: A-

This is the last Hacienda Brothers album, with good reason — lead singer Chris Gaffney died of cancer in April at 57. It’s also the best Haciendas album, as Gaffney and his fellow front man, Dave Gonzalez, continue to explore a hybrid of their own dubbed “Western soul.”

It’s a variation of country-soul, the Southern style pioneered by Dan Penn, who is back to work again with the band, this time as producer of five cuts and cowriter of two. If Gonzalez’s generally twangy guitar accounts for a lot of the country element, much of the soul emanates from the singing of Gaffney, who was also a member of Dave Alvin’s Guilty Men. With his weathered tenor, he expresses the deep hurt of “Use to the Pain,” the steady resolve of “I Still Believe,” and the sweet joy of the gospel/R&B-fired “Soul Mountain” in ways that would give George Jones a run for his money — and only heighten the sense of loss.

— Nick Cristiano, Philadelphia Inquirer

‘Digi Snacks’

RZA (Koch)

Grade: C

These days, it seems every rapper has at least one alter ego, a character he can use to explore different sides of his personality.

It’s a songwriting device that has its limitations, as few artists go beyond the simple comic-book psychology of Batman or the Incredible Hulk.

On his latest album, Wu-Tang Clan sonic sensei RZA revisits Bobby Digital, a role he has played throughout his career. The disc promises to be a meditation on Bobby’s inner struggles, but a few songs in, it’s clear that RZA doesn’t have the discipline to pull off such an analysis.

Instead, he flings boasts and drops wordy nonsense, his kaleidoscopic rants sometimes leaving him breathless, as on “Booby Trap.” He reveals himself to be an underrated emcee, a slightly less imaginative version of Ghostface Killah, the Wu-Tang member with the greatest gift for left-field lyricism.

Of course, RZA is more a producer than a rapper, and it’s for that reason that “Digi Snacks” truly disappoints. Stacked with would-be club and jeep jams, the album pushes a broad, populist hip-hop that has never been RZA’s bag.

His strength lies in harsh beats and phantom piano, elements he has long used to conjure urban paranoia and alienation. Here, cast in a mainstream light, he’s stripped of his powers — Superman in kryptonite bling.

— Kenneth Partridge, Philadelphia Inquirer

‘Hymn and Her’

Earlimart (Majordomo)

Grade: B+

The kind of emotion-drenched indie-pop that fills “Hymn and Her” is nothing new for Earlimart — the group delivered a fine album of confessional lyrics and inventive, engaging music in 2007 with “Mentor Tormentor,” a major step in its steady rise toward the top tier of Los Angeles bands.

Releasing another full-length effort less than a year later is unusual, but the accelerated pace might account for the infusion of freshness that makes “Hymn and Her” so arresting.

The music crackles and trembles with a restless bravado that might have been muted with more time and deliberation, and in the process Earlimart brings its intimate conversations out of the confession booth and into the cathedral itself, where they expand to fill the vast space.

The group, now down to the duo of Aaron Espinoza and Ariana Murray, returns to its trusted tools — rich melody, a tone of taut urgency, clapping percussion, a strong sense of atmosphere and space, weird little things squirming in the far corners — but on this sixth album everything seems enhanced, raised to a new level.

— Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times