record reviews

October 31, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

TAYLOR SWIFT

Album: “Speak Now”

Grade: A

Only Taylor Swift could make beefing sound this adorable. Only Taylor Swift, country’s brightest star and owner of the top-selling album for the past two years, could still make her underdog status sound this believable.

Yeah, “Speak Now” (Big Machine) is that good.

Swift’s third album is arguably her best — still packed with extraordinarily catchy songs about her recent past and her still-growing dreams, but told with increasing skill as a lyricist and a songwriter.

It doesn’t hurt that the 20-year-old’s life is incredibly interesting, either.

Though it won’t be the biggest hit from “Speak Now,” the most talked-about song is “Dear John,” a six-minute-plus kiss-off to an older former boyfriend.

Is it about John Mayer, who she reportedly dated around the time they worked on his song “Half of My Heart”? “Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with?” she asks, while appropriating Mayer’s acoustic blues style.

Over the course of 14 tracks, Swift also takes on boyfriend-stealing actresses (“Better Than Revenge”) and critics who say she can’t sing in the charming, Dixie Chicks-ish “Mean,” declaring, “Someday I’ll be living in a big ol’ city and all you’re ever gonna be is mean.” She also forgives Kanye West for his MTV dis in “Innocent.”

Swift adds more musical styles to her arsenal — the new-wavey “The Story of Us” and the Evanescence-like “Haunted” — though she’s at her best with the effortless country of “Mine” and clever pop of the title track.

In a year of uncertainty, “Speak Now” is a rarity — a surefire smash.

— Glenn Gamboa, Long Island Newsday

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Album: “Treme: Music From the HBO Original Series, Season 1” (Geffen/HBO)

Grade: A

HBO’s “Treme” series has accomplished the none-too-easy task of capturing the musical pulse of New Orleans, a pulse that continues despite the devastation wreaked on the Crescent City in recent years by hurricanes, broken levees and governmental ineptitude.

The soundtrack from the series covers a lot of ground, but then, so does the city’s uniquely vibrant cultural melting pot, one large enough to encompass jazz, R&B, soul, hip-hop, gospel and blues.

Many of the homegrown acts highlighted in the series are here, including the stalwart Rebirth Brass Band, the ever-outspoken Dr. John, the Treme Brass Band, “Soul Queen of New Orleans” Irma Thomas and breakout star Trombone Shorty.

The masterstroke is the engaging in-the-streets or in-the-club atmosphere across the board; the community in which these musicians lives and works is indistinguishable from the music it produces.

Trumpeter-singer Kermit Ruffins is represented on the soundtrack with the raucous Latin-accented “Skokiaan.”

— Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times

BRYAN FERRY

Album: “Olympia”

Grade: B

Post-Roxy Music Bryan Ferry has only one go-to move, the sly, sophisticated croon that made “Avalon” a classic. Luckily, he doesn’t need much else. “Olympia” (Astralwerks), his first album in eight years, confirms it.

The first single, “You Can Dance,” even feels like a continuation of “Slave to Love,” while Brian Eno’s synths on “Alpha ville” are reminders of Roxy’s headier days.

While “Heartache by Numbers” with Scissor Sisters and his take on Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren” seem misplaced, Ferry shows his ongoing mastery of the form on the aching “Tender Is the Night.”

— Glenn Gamboa, Long Island Newsday

HENRY THREADGILL’S ZOOID

Album: “This Brings Us To, Vol. II” (Pi Recordings)

Grade: A-

There’s no way to talk about Henry Threadgill’s Zooid without first trying to explain what he’s doing. Named after a type of cell that can move independent of its larger organism, the quintet operates within a unique improvisational framework that took the 66-year-old composer and member of Chicago’s highly regarded AACM collective some eight years to perfect, culminating with the release of last year’s acclaimed “This Brings Us To, Vol. 1.”

Now comes “Vol. II,” and the results are just as bewitching, if tough to pin down. Trombonist Jose Davila sets the tone with “Lying Eyes,” weaving through a harmonious conversation between Threadgill’s flute and Liberty Ellman’s acoustic guitar over a rhythmic background that’s quietly assertive, yet unsettled.

Throughout the album, the ground keeps moving under everyone’s feet but never feels out of control. Each player gamely operates in a surprising amount of space; patiently introduced melodic turns slowly rise to the surface, such as Stomu Takeishi’s rattling bass solo tangling with Davila’s tuba in the title track, and Threadgill’s woozily bent saxophone dialogue with Ellman in “Polymorph.”

Resisting familiar chord changes, scales or overt structure, the album won’t be the easiest of listens for some, but it also somehow never sounds the same way twice. As its mysteries unfurl, “This Brings Us To” ultimately remains rewarding simply by being so much fun to follow.

— Chris Barton, Los Angeles Times