Sunday, March 30, 2008
‘the odd couple’
GnarlsBarley (Atlantic)
Grade: B+
Gnarls Barkley has such a well-founded reputation for eccentricity — dressing up as tennis players, airplane pilots and “Wizard of Oz” characters, or just acting “Crazy” — that it’s easy to forget how serious the genre-bending duo of Cee-Lo Green and Danger Mouse is. It’s hard to miss it though, if you listen closely to “The Odd Couple,” the soul-rap-rock-experimental-pop duo’s follow-up to their celebrated 2006 debut, “St. Elsewhere.”
On the surface, the long-awaited and now rush-released album — expected April 8, it came out digitally last week and hit stores March 25 — comes off as effusive, idiosyncratic, and downright kooky enough to satisfy fans. And Danger Mouse’s production is simultaneously subversive and pop-savvy. But as a soul man whose crackly, bottom-heavy voice is an underrated instrument, Green unburdens himself of many a verse suggesting that being the popular class clown isn’t always such a laugh riot.
— Dan DeLuca
‘trouble in dreams’
Destroyer (Merge)
Grade: B
“I was caught in the middle of a word war,” Dan Bejar sings to begin “Plaza Trinidad,” and it’s an apt description of listening to “Trouble In Dreams,” his eighth Destroyer album. Bejar sings knotty, verbose tunes full of non sequiturs and wordplay, and one could get lost trying to parse their labyrinthine content (and many indie-rock bloggers have done so). He’s a cynic whose voice and penchant for glam-rock recall Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust phase (and who contributes three songs to every New Pornographers album).
“Trouble In Dreams” mingles acoustic folk rock, sprightly Brit pop, declarative anthems, and sighing meditations. It mixes images of a world at war with references to flowers and specific girls (Susan, Nicole, Jenny, etc.) and to Tulip, who may be both.
“A woman by another name is not a woman,” Bejar sings, cryptically. “I’ll tell you what I mean by that. Maybe not in seconds flat, maybe never.”
— Steve Klinge
‘sounds so good’
Ashton Shepherd (MCA Nashville)
Grade: B+
She grabs you right from the start: “I’ve got a cold beer in my right hand/In my left I’ve got my wedding band,” Ashton Shepherd belts over the hard-edged honky-tonk of the lead-off track and first single from her terrific debut.
“Takin’ Off This Pain” sets up an album that presents the big-voiced young Alabama native as a torch-bearer of tradition-minded country (dig that rare reference to Keith Whitley), albeit one wrapped in a very attractive physical and commercial package. Her verve and charisma recall that of a young Terri Clark, and she’s already a pretty sharp songwriter — she wrote or cowrote 10 of the 11 tunes. The sap runs high on “How Big Are Angel Wings,” but with the rest she exudes freshness even while covering familiar ground, revealing a fetching blend of feistiness and vulnerability.
— Nick Cristiano
‘honey songs’
Jim Lauderdale and the Dream Players (Yep Roc)
Grade: B
He’s an exceedingly prolific songwriter, but Jim Lauderdale has a canny way of keeping himself out of a rut. Whether switching between honky-tonk and bluegrass, teaming with mountain music patriarch Ralph Stanley or rootsy jam band Donna the Buffalo, he has usually managed to keep things interesting.
For “Honey Songs,” Lauderdale has indeed assembled a dream team: It features three alumni of Elvis’ last band, including guitar great James Burton, steel whiz Al Perkins, and E Street Band bassist Garry Tallent, while Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris and Patty Loveless are among the harmony vocalists. They all serve a set of songs that, in typical Lauderdale fashion, manages to be both original and accessible, echoing strains of classic country as well as the Dead and the Burritos, all of them held together by Lauderdale’s own rich North Carolina drawl.
— Nick Cristiano
‘The Remedy: Live at the Village Vanguard’
Kurt Rosenwinkel (artistShare)
Grade: B+
There are no halfway measures here. Guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel and his working quintet of two years ago get captured on the hallowed ground of the Village Vanguard in New York in a disciplined but far-ranging session.
The results on this new release can be loud and clanging, but it’s also the kind of jazz that can change the way you think about the world — if only for a listen.
Rosenwinkel is a Philly native who broke in with vibraphonist Gary Burton and drummer Paul Motian in the early 1990s and is now a much-lionized player and a professor at the Jazz Institute of Berlin. After fours discs on Verve, he launches here on artistShare with a quintet recording with tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, pianist Aaron Goldberg, bassist Joe Martin, and drummer Eric Harland.
Rosenwinkel, Turner and Goldberg hit some incredible high points as soloists, yet it’s not showboating. It’s all deep in the service of the group’s sound. Rosenwinkel also shows verve as a composer. Some tunes, such as “Terra Nova,” inspired by a trip to Russia, project a mystical quality.
— Karl Stark
McClatchy Newspapers