record reviews

April 11, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

‘The Dark Leaves’

Matt Pond

(Altitude)

Grade: B+

Throughout a fruitful songwriting career, Philly expat Matt Pond has often expressed his melancholy in the form of quivering, universal beauty.

Now based in Brooklyn, N.Y., and fronting the latest version of his titular band on this eighth album, he’s no less fixated on changing seasons and other wonders of the natural world. (See “Winter Fawn” and “Brooklyn Fawn.”)

Just as rewarding as Pond’s scratchy voice and thematically consistent lyrics is the girl-group fullness of the instrumentation.

Steel guitar, finger snaps, strings, keyboards and more coalesce in a honeyed syrup.

An electric guitar even climbs its way to a skyscraping, rock-star flourish on “Running Wild.” That tune and the Springsteen-ish “Remains” demonstrate a scrappier, more lighthearted Pond. He sounds hopeful, almost.

— Doug Wallen, The Philadelphia Inquirer

‘Women and Country’

Jakob Dylan

(Columbia Records)

Grade: C+

The son of a legend, Jakob Dylan would seemingly have all the cred one could need. But after five albums with the modern rock outfit the Wallflowers, each with a declining chart impact, and one rather quiet solo acoustic effort with 2008’s “Seeing Things,” a creative and career revitalization is in order.

Teaming with alt-country scorchers Neko Case and Kelly Hogan certainly can’t hurt the effort.

Add a former collaborator and veteran producer in T Bone Burnett, and the resulting “Women and Country” is as rootsy and elegant as all the aforementioned r sum s would foretell. It’s a comfortable fit for the hushed-voiced artist. “Truth for a Truth” accentuates Dylan’s sense of melody with steel-guitar shading, a Wild West strut and seductive barking harmonies, though the three vocalists are up to something far more haunting on “Down on Our Own Shield.”

Yet one can’t shake the feeling that the real star here is Burnett.

Pairing Dylan with a number of musicians who helped shape the Burnett-produced Robert Plant- Alison Krauss collaboration “Raising Sand,” the 11 tracks of “Women and Country” are similarly dressed with low-key Americana atmospherics. The results, however, are mixed.

— Todd Martens, Los Angeles Times

‘The Rain Water LP’

Citizen Cope

(Rainwater Recordings)

Grade: B+

Reiterating the antiquated reference in the title, this CD begins with the scratchy hiss of a phonograph needle on vinyl. It fits.

Citizen Cope has always been a bit of a throwback, its swamp-funk style reminiscent of JJ Cale.

The mood is enhanced by the drowsy voice and backwoods inflection of frontman Clarence Greenwood.

There are a lot of nice musical flourishes here, such as the organ on “Healing Hands,” which sounds like a Kingston calliope.

Or the bouncy background of “Off the Ground,” which suggests a bamboo xylophone.

Even when Cope turns up the grill on “Jericho,” its tone somehow remains acoustic and organic.

The band’s distinctive back-porch voodoo lingers in the ear long after the music has stopped.

— David Hiltbrand, The Philadelphia Inquirer

‘Slash’

Slash

(Dik Hayd/EMI)

Grade: C

On Slash’s first solo album the most faithful approximation of the classic Guns N’ Roses sound doesn’t come in the track featuring Ozzy Osbourne or the one with Avenged Sevenfold frontman M. Shadows.

Nor is it in “Watch This,” which includes input from another ex-GNR member, Duff McKagan. Rather, it’s “Beautiful Dangerous” that comes closest to old hits such as “Welcome to the Jungle” and “You Could Be Mine.”

The guest vocalist on that cut? Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas.

Slash’s recruitment of such a heavy-metal outlier illustrates his determination to find a replacement for Axl Rose, whose paranoid whinny so perfectly complemented the guitarist’s arsenal of trashy glam-blues riffs.

You can look at the 14 all-star collaborations on “Slash” as evidence of his impressive Rolodex, or you can view them as a series of creative tryouts — musical speed dating in search of a new Mr. (or Ms.) Right.

Team-ups with Ian Astbury (“Ghost”), Chris Cornell (“Promise”) and Wolfmother’s Andrew Stockdale (“By the Sword”) produce familiar sparks but die out quickly.

And a ballad with Adam Levine of Maroon 5, “Gotten,” aims for “November Rain” but ends up pretty soggy.

— Mikael Wood, Los Angeles Times