record reviews

August 7, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE

Album: “Sky Full of Holes”

Grade: B

For four albums, Fountains of Wayne — led by the crafty Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood — have built sharp, clever power-pop, smart, detailed, mostly suburban stories driven by polished hooks and catchy guitar riffs.

The new album, “Sky Full of Holes” (Yep Roc), ditches their trademark power-pop. This is powerless pop. Much of the rootsier, drifting music practically feels exhausted — a change that’s undoubtedly designed to match the more hopeless stories in these songs.

Instead of “Stacy’s Mom,” who not only had it going on but sparked the narrator to intense, upbeat feelings, we get the harried dad of “Action Hero,” who can’t find his keys and is so stressed out that his doctor worries about his health.

“He’s an action hero, and he’s racing against time,” Schlesinger sings poignantly. “He’s an action hero ... in his mind.”

The fact that it’s one of the most upbeat-sounding songs on the album, alongside the also-uptempo “Someone’s Gonna Break Your Heart,” makes it all the more depressing.

Even when they try to gin up some enthusiasm, as they do in the pretty, acoustic “A Road Song,” which tells of life on tour, they have to poke a hole in it, singing in sweet harmony, “It’s a clich , but, hey, that doesn’t make it so wrong.”

“Sky Full of Holes” is well built and effective at creating a mood of imminent collapse, but do we really need more of that feeling right now?

— Glenn Gamboa, Newsday

KEB MO

Album: “The Reflection”

Grade: C

Keb Mo, “The Reflection” (Yolabelle International/Ryko/Warner Music Group)

With bluesy guitars, groovy Hammond organs, and Keb Mo’s rich, smoky voice, “The Reflection” is a warm, mellow ride from start to finish. Like a smooth-jazz station all its own, “The Reflection” is never rowdy or boastful.

It just cruises along at an easy pace, like a Sunday morning when you’ve got nowhere to go, as Mo muses on identity and fidelity, love and faith.

The problem with those kind of Sundays though, is that you’re likely to nap your way through it. And while Mo spent two years writing and producing the album, much of it fades into the background.

There are a few highlights. Slap bass and thoughtful lyrics make “Inside Outside” a catchy track, and “All the Way” gets jazzed up with hints of gospel.

India.Arie’s voice is a fine complement for Mo’s on “Crush on You,” a good date-night track. Vince Gill joins Mo on “My Baby’s Tellin’ Lies,” a breakup song highlighted by the country star’s vocals. Mo is a singer, songwriter and guitarist, and he shines in all three.

On “The Reflection,” his voice is strong, his lyrics clever and the guitar riffs are fat, but somehow they add up to an album that lacks spark.

— Sandy Cohen, Associated Press

Trace Adkins

Album: “Proud To Be Here” (Show Dog-Universal)

Grade: A

On his previous album, Trace Adkins came out stomping and snarling like a riled-up snake, creating the hardest-rocking album of his career. But the album failed to generate any top 10 hits.

Understandably, on his new collection “Proud To Be Here,” the tall country star returns to what he does best, using his deep, gruff baritone to lend philosophical weight to sensitive songs about love, lasting relationships and working-class value.

The album’s first single, “Just Fishin’,” perfectly captures the sentimentality of a father and an elementary school-age daughter spending a morning on the water, with the focus more on togetherness than on what they catch.

Other songs rise to the same level, from how the title cut recognizes the blessings that have come his way to the way the songs “Days Like This” and “Poor Folks” find beauty in a simple life.

Adkins can rock, as he’s proven regularly in the past. But when he slips into a conversational tone and delivers story songs about what matters most to him, as he does throughout “Proud To Be Here,” he is as good as anyone in contemporary country music.

— Michael McCall, Associated Press

JOHN HIATT

Album: “Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns” (New West)

Grade: A

“I got me a deuce and a quarter, babe / She will ride you right,” John Hiatt boasts on “Detroit Made,” singing of General Motors’ Buick Electra 225. The celebration of automotive style, craftsmanship and durability is fitting, since these qualities continue to mark the work of the 58-year-old Indiana-born singer and songwriter.

“Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns” shows Hiatt’s muse to be as sharp as ever. Amid another earthy amalgam of rock, soul, blues and country, Hiatt still writes about restless, haunted, and on-the-edge souls with the penetrating power of someone who’s been there. (“Have you ever been broken, really broken?” he asks on “All the Way Under.”)

“Down Around My Place,” meanwhile, sounds like an allegorical State of the Union that’s all dark and foreboding.

But “I Love That Girl” is unabashedly upbeat, and the somber remembrance of 9/11 that closes the album, “When New York Had Its Heart Broke,” ends on a note of stubborn resilience.

It’s a trait that applies to many of the characters here — and to the artist himself.

— Nick Cristiano, Philadelphia Inquirer

MAT KEARNEY

Album: “Young Love”

Grade: B

There’s a giddiness to much of Mat Kearney’s “Young Love” (Universal Republic) that’s infectious.

Though we’ve gotten used to the oh-so-serious singer-songwriter sounding a certain way in recent years, Kearney busts that convention, adding a touch of island rhythm to the acoustic-guitar base of “Hey Mama” and “She Got the Honey,” a bit of hip-hop in “Chasing the Light” and “Ships in the Night.”

Then, on “Learning to Love Again,” Kearney shows he can still beat the sad sacks at their own game, too.

— Glenn Gamboa, Newsday

KENNY “BLUES BOSS” WAYNE

Album: “An Old Rock on a Roll” (Stony Plain)

Grade: B

Besides his own many records, guitarist Duke Robillard has produced stellar sessions by a number of venerable R&B and jazz men, from Jimmy Witherspoon and Jay McShann to Rosco Gordon and Herb Ellis.

Here he helps turn the spotlight on a lesser known but similarly talented artist.

Piano-playing Kenny “Blues Boss” Wayne is in his late 60s, but he really does sound like “an old rock on a roll.”

Backed by Robillard and several of the guitarist’s usual cohorts (who always ensure there is plenty of “roll”), Wayne delivers an album of fleet-fingered boogie and tough R&B.

There’s a vintage vibe to it all — “Heaven, Send Me an Angel” and “Wild Turkey 101 Proof” recall Ray Charles’ classic Atlantic sides, while “Run Little Joe” and “Bring Back the Love” inject a dose of New Orleans.

Wayne, however, wrote all 12 songs, bringing his own irrepressible personality to bear and making sure an old style sounds as fresh as ever.

— Nick Cristiano, Philadelphia Inquirer