Record reviews

December 11, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

AMY WINEHOUSE

Album: “Lioness: Hidden Treasures”

Grade: B

Pretty much everything about Amy Winehouse’s “Lioness: Hidden Treasures” (Universal Republic) is heartbreaking. It bears all the hallmarks of a posthumous album — the cobbled- together new material, the previously passed-over tracks, the alternate versions of her hits — and they all serve as a reminder that if Winehouse were still alive, this album never would have happened.

What makes it all the more wrenching is how, at times, it still sounds completely amazing.

On “Between the Cheats,” one of a handful of tracks that producers say were meant for the follow-up to her 2006 masterpiece, “Back to Black,” Winehouse shows how incredibly skilled she was at making her pain sound upbeat. Surrounded by the gorgeous doo-wop track, she declares, “I would die before I would divorce ya, I’d take a thousand thumps for my love.”

Her wounded, woozy delivery is even more poignant placed after the hopeful, almost innocent sound of a much-younger Winehouse on her reggae-tinged take on “Our Day Will Come.”

Her vocals are so well crafted and distinctive that they hold their own against the legendary Tony Bennett on “Body and Soul,” the final song she completed before her death from alcohol poisoning in July, and they overshadow Nas and his timely rhymes on the rushed-sounding “Like Smoke.”

“Lioness” has many moments like that, where something doesn’t sound quite right. Then, you remember, it’s not right because Amy’s not around to fix it.

—Glenn Gamboa, Newsday

THE BLACK KEYS

Album: “El Camino” (Nonesuch)

Grade: A

This is a straight-ahead rock ’n’ roll album, and an excellent one. Last year’s “Brothers” was the Black Keys’ breakthrough, garnering the Akron duo its best sales and several Grammys on the strength of the single “Tighten Up” (not coincidentally the sole track produced by Danger Mouse) and the album’s diverse, soulful intensity. For “El Camino,” the duo’s seventh full-length album, guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney decamped to Nashville, brought back Danger Mouse as songwriting partner, keyboard player and producer for the whole record, and dialed up the volume.

Although garage-band blues is still the bedrock, these tracks share DNA with the riff-happy best of T. Rex (“Lonely Boy”), Led Zeppelin (“Little Black Submarines”) and the Clash (“Hell of a Season”). There’s nothing subtle here: “El Camino” is pure high-octane rock and, as the title implies, perfectly calibrated to be heard at maximum volume on a road trip.

—Steve Klinge, Philadelphia Inquirer

Robin Thicke

Album: “Love After War” (Star Trak)

Grade: B

Much of the subject matter for “Love After War,” the fifth record from Robin Thicke, is based on Thicke’s relationship with wife and Hollywood starlet Paula Patton. Though there are some stormy moments, judging from the disc as a whole, Patton is a lucky girl.

Thicke wrote and produced the album with Pro Jay, and delivers a great mix of seductive songs that are bound to get temperatures rising.

From the top, Thicke’s sultry voice sets the scene with the slow jam “All Tied Up.” But before you can get too comfortable in a dreamy state, he swiftly takes you back to the 1960s with the Motown-sounding “An Angel On Each Arm” — a track Stevie Wonder would be proud of.

The album’s only collaboration features old friend Lil Wayne. “Pretty Lil’ Heart” is their third song together, but this time Thicke’s voice is the main focus. Wayne starts the track off with a syrupy flow over the piano and drums before Thicke takes full control. The rhythmic verses are smooth, and his voice is strongest when he sings the chorus: “Baby, you got me, don’t worry your pretty little heart.” This one is definitely classic old-school R&B.

At 20 tracks on the deluxe edition, there are some minor exhausting moments, and there’s not a song that touches Thicke’s classic “Lost Without You.”

But overall, “Love After War” is still a must buy.

—Bianca Roach, Associated Press

CANDI STATON

Album: “Who’s Hurting Now?” (Forced Exposure)

Grade: B

Alabama-born R&B belter Candi Staton earned her “First Lady of Southern Soul” sobriquet in the early 1970s, recording for Rick Hall’s Fame Studios, and she scored one big pop hit with “Young Hearts Run Free” in 1976. After decades singing gospel, she made a pop comeback with 2006’s “His Hands,” recorded for Britain’s Honest Jon’s label. “Who’s Hurting Now?,” a follow-up produced by Lambchop’s Mark Nevers, includes songwriting contributions from ’60s song scribe Dan Penn, alt-country singer Mary Gauthier and indie changeling Bonnie Prince Billy, aka Will Oldham, who also wrote the title track of “His Hands.” The uniformly strong set of raspy-voiced soul was issued in the United Kingdom in 2009, but unavailable in the United States until this month. Standout cuts include Staton’s quietly searing reading of Gauthier’s “Mercy Now” and the rough-cut “Lonely Don’t” — cowritten by Vancouver, Wash., bus driver Connie Knapp — which concludes that one is better off with one’s own company than that of a drunken, good-for-nothing man.

—Dan DeLuca, Philadelphia Inquirer

KENNY VAUGHAN

Album: “V” (Sugar Hill)

Grade: A

Kenny Vaughan has been the guitar slinger in Marty Stuart’s Fabulous Superlatives for 10 years, and the Colorado native has been an in-demand accompanist since he hit Nashville in the late 1980s.

“V” is Vaughan’s first solo album, and it’s, well, superlative. A brisk and varied set of originals, it blends impressive instrumental mastery with down-to-earth charm.

Backed by the Fabulous Superlatives, including Stuart, Vaughan starts off appropriately with the rollicking honky- tonk of “Country Music Got a Hold on Me.” From there, he dives into Western swing with “Hot Like That,” goes hangdog for the mandolin- accented lament “Lillie Mae,” channels Buck Owens with the propulsive twang of “Stay Out of My Dreams,” gets funky with the Oak Ridge Boys on a trip to “Okolona, Tennessee,” and closes with the driving gospel of “Don’t Leave Home Without Jesus.”

Interspersed among these numbers are three atmospheric but wholly distinct instrumentals, which help round out the vibrant portrait of a sideman who has more than ably stepped to the front.

—Nick Cristiano, Philadelphia Inquirer