record reviews

May 30, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

STONE TEMPLE PILOTS

Album: “Stone Temple Pilots”

Grade: B

Give the Stone Temple Pilots credit. They’re not resting on their laurels.

“Stone Temple Pilots” (Atlantic) could have simply retraced their ’90s-rocking heyday and been just as successful, considering the interest in the band’s first album in nine years. Scott Weiland, Dean and Robert DeLeo, and Eric Kretz could have trotted out “Another Interstate Love Song,” “Plusher” and “Big Bang Teenager” and been done with it.

Instead, Weiland and the gang successfully stretch a bit, reflecting their time apart and their work with Velvet Revolver and Army of Anyone. The jangly “Cinnamon” is a surprising slice of power pop, complete with a carefree refrain of “yeah, c’mon c’mon now, yeah, c’mon c’mon.”

Of course, there’s plenty of classic STP sounds on “Stone Temple Pilots,” as well. The slow, grinding guitar of “Peacoat” could have easily been on “Core.” The first single, “Between the Lines,” is packed with post-grunge guitar riffs and rehab references that suggest things may be better now than “when we used to take drugs.”

Whether that turns out to be the case, Stone Temple Pilots seem excited enough to stick together for the foreseeable future.

— Glenn Gamboa, Long Island Newsday

NAS AND DAMIAN “JR. GONG” MARLEY

Album: “Distant Relatives”

Grade: B

Nas and Damian Marley are both veteran recording artists and sons of famous fathers. Nas’ father is instrumentalist Olu Dara, and Marley’s is reggae icon Bob Marley. Each has long outrun the legacy of his family. Yet with this collaboration, poetic hip-hop MC Nas and dance-hall mouthpiece/producer Marley go beyond genre and heritage to fashion a world music that borrows as much from Queensbridge as from Kingston.

The spaciousness of dub, along with the catchy hooks and subtle rhythms of dance hall, figures prominently on “Distant Relatives” (Universal Republic). Marley’s supple touch (he produced most of this) gives Nas’ incendiary rants a lightness of being — sexuality, even — that much of Nas’ work usually lacks. The lyrical flow of “Friends” oozes through Marley’s cinematic soundscape and lingers through its lolling pulses playfully. The murky jazz of “As We Enter” samples Ethiopian composer Mulatu Astatke for cool ruminations on guns and ganja.

For all “Distant Relatives”’ sweeping sonic mastery and simmering lyricism, there is a sociopolitical consciousness to the proceedings that’s happily never preachy.

— A.D. Amorosi, Philadelphia Inquirer

BAND OF HORSES

Album: “Infinite Arms”

Grade: A-

Each of the first two Band of Horses albums, though solid, contained a stellar track that overshadowed the rest. “Infinite Arms” (Columbia) lacks a song like “The Funeral” or “Is There a Ghost,” yet it’s the Horses’ most satisfying and tuneful album, start to finish. It features a new five-member lineup — Ben Bridwell is the sole constant from the band’s first album — and lusher production, with Beach Boys harmonies, Band-like organ, and thickly layered guitars supplementing the Americana twang and supplanting the indie rock, each of which has been part of the band’s metier. There’s less My Morning Jacket and more, much more, Jayhawks to this one.

Although the band shows it can rock out on the churning “NW Apt.” and the Neil Young-indebted “Laredo,” the dominant mood is sunny, pastoral, and uplifting, as in the breezy “Dilly” and the floating, airy title track. Bridwell’s songs are still open-ended and cryptic, but it’s easy to get wrapped up in “Infinite Arms.”

— Steve Klinge, Philadelphia Inquirer

OTIS REDDING

Album: “Live on the Sunset Strip”

Grade: A

We already have ample documentation of Otis Redding’s incendiary power as a live performer — the Stax/Volt tour of Europe, the Monterey Pop Festival. Still, “Live on the Sunset Strip” (Stax) manages to add a significant new chapter to his immortal legacy.

The two-CD set presents, for the first time, complete sets from Redding’s three-night stand at West Hollywood’s Whisky A Go Go in April 1966. In this intimate club setting, we get to hear the soul titan build a full show. And what a show — or shows. Backed by a nine-man band, including horns, Redding is loose but focused, interacting with both the musicians and the audience. Mixing pleading ballads (“These Arms of Mine,” “Chained and Bound”) with gospel-infused roof-raisers (“I Can’t Turn You Loose,” “Respect”), Redding is at his “got-ta, got-ta” grittiest, exuding utter command and sweat-soaked charisma. “Sure was a groove that time,” he says after a blistering take on the Stones’ “Satisfaction.” “See how hard we have to work to eat?” No question he earned his money.

— Nick Cristiano, Philadelphia Inquirer

MIKE STINSON

Album: “The Jukebox in Your Heart”

Grade: A-

Long a leading light on the Los Angeles country scene — Hollywood hillbilly Dwight Yoakam recorded his “Late Great Golden State” — Mike Stinson is now based in Texas. That’s where he cut this new album, produced by dynamic Lone Star country-rocker Jesse Dayton.

Stinson’s own new take on “Late Great Golden State” is just one of the many standouts on “The Jukebox in Your Heart” (Stag), a set of terrific, 100-proof honky-tonk. Stinson turns a memorable phrase (“If you’re going to leave, slip my mind for me”), spins fresh variations on age-old themes (“I Will Live to Drink Again”), and lays his heart on the line (”May the jukebox in your heart play a song of mine tonight”).

All of which proves that, when it comes to being a saloon-song poet, Stinson is nothing like the loser he so vividly portrays in “Stop the Bar,” the one who vows, “I’m going to quit while I’m behind.”

— Nick Cristiano, Philadelphia Inquirer