‘Defying Gravity’

‘Defying Gravity’

Keith Urban

(Capitol Nashville)

Grade: B

Keith Urban’s new “Defying Gravity” arrives at a wholly different time in the country music star’s life than his previous studio album, 2006’s “Love, Pain & The Whole Crazy Thing.”

The distinction comes across clearly in the exuberance and comfort expressed in his new songs. Back then, Urban had checked into rehab two weeks before the album’s release, barely four months after his marriage to Nicole Kidman. Apparently, the long title reflected his conflicts between personal bliss and private torment.

Urban sounds decidedly more buoyant on “Defying Gravity.” The album’s sophisticated arrangements, several of which unfold at over the five-minute mark, also suggest the Australian native made the best of his extended creative break (which included the release of a greatest-hits compilation in late 2007). Tunes like “My Heart Is Open” and “If Ever I Could Love” experiment with rhythms and textures, and Urban expresses his joy in ecstatic guitar runs as well as in lyrics.

Indeed, some songs — “Kiss A Girl” and the album’s first hit, “Sweet Thing” —concentrate almost too much on musical merriment while letting the lyrics slip into juvenile sentiment.

However, the best songs — the soulful “Standing Right In Front Of You,” the sweet ballad “Only You Can Love Me This Way” and the cover of Radney Foster’s “I’m In” — illustrate the distinctive talent Urban has for tying high-spirited instrumentation to upbeat statements about the pleasures of love and everyday life.

— Michael McCall, Associated Press

‘Outer South’

Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band (Merge Records)

Grade: C

“Outer South,” Conor Oberst’s new dusty rock caravan with the Mystic Valley Band, doesn’t have a single sulky teenager sentiment in it, not one diary-cribbed confession that would prompt the parents to hide every liquor bottle in the house and speed-dial the family therapist.

Oberst is nearly 30 now but “Outer South” pleads a case for the onetime wunderkind to get back in touch with the affection-starved, ragingly insecure teenager he was in the early days of Bright Eyes, the marquee band of Saddle Creek’s now-matured Nebraska scene.

The 16 songs vary in tone, from grease-and-nicotine-stained jams to spit-shined ballads, but too little of it is adroit enough in construction or execution to stick in the craw.

Even “Roosevelt Room,” Oberst’s stab at Dylanesque political outrage, flames too brightly with no gradations.

If only Oberst had seared more of his sirloin-steak country-rock with a fraught sense of place, the “Outer South” of his title that’s left largely unexplored.

“Cabbage Town” is named for a bohemian enclave in Atlanta, the symbolic city of the gentrifying South caught between multilane highways and neon-sign honky-tonks, a place where the foul-mouthed baby artists gather to play cards and take drugs in the old shotgun houses.

When Oberst sings over dive-bar-sloppy keys, “I’m going to love you like the New South,” it’s not exactly a compliment, but he does mean forever — big-box stores and all.

— Margaret Wappler, Los Angeles Times

‘Ben Folds Presents: University A Cappella!’

Ben Folds (Epic)

Grade: A

First came the Ben Folds Five, which was really a trio, and now we have the Ben Folds Multitudes delivering the piano man’s quirkiest album yet.

“University A Cappella!” makes glee club suddenly seem hip. Longtime campus favorite Folds combed through 250 video performances of his songs submitted by college a cappella groups, then traveled around the country to record his favorites.

It sounds as though everyone involved had a lot of fun. The creative arrangements showcase Folds’ sense of humor and gift for melody in ways a rock album can’t.

In lieu of instruments, singers keep the beat with such phrases as “ba-da-ba-da,” “noo-noo-noo-noo,” “dig-a-duh-bump,” “doo-bah-dah-doo,” “jim-jim-jim-jim” and — Folds’ favorite, no doubt — “dong-dong.”

Fourteen groups contribute, including a marvelous coed high school ensemble from Newton, Mass., and Folds overdubs his own vocals on two of the best efforts, “Boxing” and “Effington.” There’s doo-wop, jazz, choral music and even frat rock that’s R-rated. Kids will be kids.

— Steven Wine, Associated Press

‘The Devil You Know’

Heaven and Hell (Rhino)

Grade: A

This may be blasphemous, but Black Sabbath has always been a better band with Ronnie James Dio at the microphone instead of Ozzy Osbourne. And this being Black Sabbath, blasphemy has always been cool.

Performing under the new moniker Heaven and Hell, to differentiate the Dio-era lineup from the classic Ozzy roster, Sabbath shines on its fourth studio album with Dio in command.

This is their third go-round together, after brief flings in 1980-82, 1992 and 2007-09.

Dio and guitarist Tony Iommi bring out the best in each other, achieving heights they rarely attain separately.

Bassist Geezer Butler provides a macabre heavy underpinning, while drummer Vinny Appice lets the plodding grooves take over at the expense of flash.

“Bible Black,” a song about a Satanic scripture, starts with a nod to Metallica’s “Fade To Black,” but then achieves its own sinister spin with Dio’s soaring vocals over Iommi’s squealing guitar.

It’s a pattern that repeats again and again on this album: clever, adventurous songwriting and narrative storytelling wrapped up in bone-crunching riffs and power chords that can loosen the phlegm in your chest.

“Fear” harkens back to primitive times “when only God had fire,” while “Eating The Cannibals” kicks into high-speed for a shout-worthy concert opener. Slower, riff-heavy tracks like “Breaking Into Heaven” and “Atom and Evil” pay homage to Sabbath’s early ’70s lore.

Let Ozzy have his TV show; Black Sabbath is in far better hands. Again.

— Wayne Parry, Associated Press

‘Together Through Life’

Bob Dylan (Columbia)

Grade: D

The curse of Bob Dylan’s bootleg series is that you might start thinking of his official releases as first drafts.

Dylan has been on a roll this past decade, staring mortality in the face and wringing memorable music from it. The “Tell Tale Signs” disc of outtakes and reimaginings proved just how sturdy the work is. It also contributes to making “Together Through Life” a letdown.

This is a batch of mostly pedestrian compositions in a bluesy style, with Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo’s accordion giving several of the cuts a Tex-Mex feel.

“My Wife’s Home Town” (that would be hell) with blues maestro Willie Dixon getting a co-writing credit, and “It’s All Good” best flash a nimble wit.

Robert Hunter, known for his songwriting with the Grateful Dead, co-wrote lyrics for eight of the 10 tracks with Dylan, and while the love-gone-wrong songs match Dylan’s haggard voice, they offer little real insight or emotional tug.

The style of “Shake Shake Mama,” repeating a verse’s opening line, sounds stale.

A lyric such as “I walk the boulevard, admitting life is hard, without you near me,” could have come from anyone. Dylan’s not anyone.

Perhaps producer Jack Frost could have pushed harder (yes, we’re aware that Frost is a Dylan pseudonym, but producer doesn’t serve the artist here).

— David Bauder, Associated Press

‘Son of a Preacher Man’

John Rich (Warner Bros.)

Grade: C

John Rich opens his new album with its best and most-talked-about song. “Shuttin’ Detroit Down” may be short on nuance, but it powerfully taps into the national anger over corporate excess and the dire consequences for regular folks.

It’s well known that Rich comes from the right — he was a vocal McCain supporter — but “Detroit” maintains a nonpartisan thrust.

The rest of “Son of a Preacher Man” is earnest but pedestrian mainstream Nashville fare.

Rich hits bottom with the cliche-driven “Trucker Man” and the dim-witted country-rocker “Turn a Country Boy On,” while faring better with ballads such as “Preacher Man” and “Why Does Somebody Always Have to Die.”

In the end, he is more appealing on his own than as part of Big & Rich, which gives an idea of how little we think of that hit duo’s off-putting blend of forced hilarity and mawkish sentimentality.

— Nick Cristiano, Philadelphia Inquirer