Record reviews

December 4, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

MARKETA IRGLOVA

Album: “Anar” (Anti)

Grade: B

Marketa Irglova’s career began when the Czech-born pianist and singer, then 18, played opposite Glen Hansard of the Irish band the Frames in the 2006 indie film “Once.” She and Hansard won an Oscar for the song “Falling Slowly,” and the pair have released two passionate albums as the Swell Season. They since have ended their offstage romance, and the Swell Season is on a hiatus that they promise is temporary.

That hiatus prompted Irglova’s first solo album, the moody, tender “Anar.” It’s full of somber piano ballads, often reminiscent of Tori Amos or Joni Mitchell: poetic, nocturnal, intimate but forceful. Although a few tracks have horns or strings, and most feature the dramatic percussion of Aida Shahghasemi, Irglova’s florid piano is the heart of the songs. Compared to the Swell Season’s work, “Anar” is a bit monochromatic, but its shades are beautiful.

Steve Klinge, Philadelphia Inquirer

BRIAN ENO

Album: “Panic of Looking” (Warp)

Grade: B

Brian Eno did more to thaw his cool image during his recent “Colbert Report” appearance than a dozen productions of a Coldplay album ever could. The Brit shared jokes with the host, talked up his multimedia art installations, and discussed how singing a cappella made one sexy with a rendition of “Lean on Me,” featuring Colbert and R.E.M’s Michael Stipe. Despite his chilly ambient leanings and technical electronic advances, the human voice is obviously crucial to Eno.

For his third effort within 12 months, Eno, daughter Darla and British poet Rick Holland (a member of Drums Between the Bells) elevate the spoken word to the level of torrid tone poem with tweaked choral voices skipping and soaring throughout the subtly electro-enhanced proceedings like the hottest of Santa Ana winds.

“If These Footsteps” is a traditional looped electronic interlude. “Watch a Single Swallow in a Thermal Sky, and Try to Fit Its Motion, or Figure Why It Flies” is an elegant display of Erik Satie-like simplicity. Father and daughter lift their voices to subjects “beyond stack and gray to the solace of grass,” with the drone of layered keyboards below. Gorgeous.

A.D. Amorosi, Philadelphia Inquirer

HOT CHELLE RAE

Album: “Whatever”

Grade: B

Like Ke$ha without the Jack Daniel’s bottle, Hot Chelle Rae specializes in watered-down party music — its polished summer smash “Tonight Tonight,” with the line about dancing on the edge of the Hollywood sign, is as crazy as this Nashville pop-rock quartet gets.

Talented people are in this band, beginning with Ryan Follese, who has an effective regular-guy falsetto, but “Whatever” (RCA) has the feel of filling studio quotas. “Tonight Tonight” is here, as are such studied reproductions as “I Like It Like That” and “Downtown Girl”; “Beautiful Freaks” is the requisite dance anthem, with the Auto-Tuned “oh oh oh oh oh” chorus and layered synth bursts; and weepy ballads “Why Don’t You Love Me” and “The Only One” follow Good Charlotte and OneRepublic blueprints.

Steve Knopper, Philadelphia Inquirer

KATE BUSH

Album: “50 Words for Snow”

Grade: B

If it weren’t obvious enough from the lyrics — “roll his body/give him eyes” — a smoochy picture in the CD sleeve illustrates “Misty” as a song about getting it on with a snowman. It’s one of several jarring, unpredictable moments on veteran British singer-songwriter and pop experimentalist Kate Bush’s second album of 2011, “50 Words for Snow” (Anti-). Frequently the spacey piano arrangements, stately backup choir and Elton John cameo (on “Snowed In at Wheeler Street”) give these seven, long songs a certain ethereal beauty. But the album contains too many interminable clunkers, such as the repetitive eight- minute title track, in which actor Stephen Fry enunciates “creaky-creaky,” “melt-o-blast” and “Zhivagodamarbletash.”

Steve Knopper, Philadelphia Inquirer