‘wait for me’

‘wait for me’

Moby (Mute)

Grade: B

Filmmaker David Lynch spoke at the 2008 BAFTA awards about approaching the creative process for its own sake. Moby was listening — and the notion pushed him during his latest project.

Following his homage to the dance floor on 2008’s “Last Night,” Moby returns with a melodic, atmospheric effort on his latest, “Wait for Me.”

Moby has said this is a personal record — the one he wanted to make, not the one he was expected to. The idea doesn’t take him outside his established sound, but while “Last Night” was an eclectic and rousing collection, “Wait for Me” softly flows as a cohesive work.

Voice samples surround haunting, spiritual tracks, and a healthy dose of instrumentals act as the glue that keeps it all together.

“Pale Horses” boasts minimal beats and a ghostly vocal; “Scream Pilots” is an eerie touch of early new wave; and “Jltf” is as lovelorn as it gets.

The gem is “Mistake,” with a very drab vocal that somehow works with the moody bounce that builds into this regret-fueled track.

“Wait for Me” is a haunting collection, but it probably won’t give Moby a huge chart hit — and it sure sounds like a fitting soundtrack for a David Lynch film.

— John Kosik, Associated Press

‘Wilco [The Album]’

Wilco (Nonesuch)

Grade: B

Wilco’s seventh studio album is the Jeff Tweedy-led Chicago alt-rock band’s second straight nonexperimental outing. Following 2007’s softly straightforward “Sky Blue Sky,” “Wilco [The Album]” kicks off with the jaunty fan thank-you “Wilco [The Song]” — “Wilco will love you, baby,” the raspy-as-ever Tweedy sings — and settles into a dependable, careworn comfort zone. Occasionally, a ruckus is raised, as on the throbbing keyboard blast “Bull Black Nova,” in which avant ax man Nels Cline comes closest to really cutting loose.

Otherwise, the eponymous set concerns itself less with noisy envelope-pushing, a la 2004’s “A Ghost Is Born,” than with delivering rock-solid tunesmithery about life’s little ups and downs. “You and I,” a duet with Feist, is a lovely love song that’s mildly underwhelming considering its indie-star-power quotient. And “You Never Know,” is a “My Sweet Lord”-referencing cool breeze whose “I don’t care anymore” hook finds Tweedy insisting he’s put the anxiety that riddled earlier Wilco efforts behind him.

— Dan DeLuca, Philadelphia Inquirer

‘Lines, Vines and Trying Times’

Jonas Brothers (Disney)

Grade: D

At least the teen idols get points for being ambitious. They also get docked for being overly so.

Right from the start (“World War III,” loaded with big-crunch guitars and a punchy horn section), the production dwarfs the Jersey boys’ callow songwriting and singing.

“Paranoid” sounds like a kiddie Billy Squier, but that musical posturing is still preferable to the Shania Twain-like “What Did I Do to Your Heart?”

The brothers sound most at home on the more unadorned ballads such as “Black Keys” and “Turn Right.”

But first you have to get past “Before the Storm,” which features a quavery-voiced Miley Cyrus. (Is she imitating Dolly Parton?)

For the most part, “Lines, Vines and Trying Times” is an amorphous mess. Kind of like the CD’s pretentious title.

— David Hiltbrand, Philadelphia Inquirer

‘Crime Pays’

Cam’ron (Asylum)

Grade: B

This is Cam’ron circa 2009: The Harlem-based MC at his raw-knuckled best shifting his concerns from the penthouse to the pavements without missing a step.

Lest you think he’s headed into the recession-era poorhouse without a fight, think again. Cam’ron likes his coupon-cutting topicality touched by the same liquor-and-drugs Iggy Pop sang of on “Lust for Life.”

As the big beat hits and its melody swells, “Get It in Ohio” lets Cam play in the fields of landlords, launderers, “blue pills and Grey Goose” with his flow at its loosest. The song stays the thing on the contagious “My Job,” with its piano-driven pulse pushing Cam’s “Office Space”-like dismay to the max. Every disgusted Everyman and Everywoman will be singing “My Job” this summer. And while there are delicious examples of Cam’s usual street- swaggering gamesmanship (a foul “Where I Know You From”), cocksureness (“Who”), and misanthropic romanticism (“Cookies-N-Apple Juice”), his blue-collar approach to rap, rhythm, and melody finds him at his fighting best.

— A.D. Amorosi, Philadelphia Inquirer