RECORD REVIEWS

February 27, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Radiohead

Album: “The King of Limbs”

Grade: A

“The King of Limbs” is Radiohead’s free jazz album.

Like revolutionaries Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane and Charles Mingus who railed against the staid conventions of jazz in the 1950s and ’60s, Thom Yorke and his band of merry pranksters have been completely deconstructing post-Nirvana rock ’n’ roll in the new century.

At turns transcendent and befuddling with more than a hint of menace under the surface, the new eight-song album is the band’s latest step away from anything traditional — melody, time signatures, hooks, lyric structure, subject matter. At times it’s more collage than album, a mixture of sounds and loops and beats so confusing and enchanting and mysterious, it hits the mind like a crowded bazaar.

Leave your preconceived notions at the door, the band announces with opener “Bloom,” a warning shot across the bow of those waiting for Radiohead to return to the arena rock that first brought the band to the attention of the world almost 20 years ago. It is a song both manic and lush, with multiple time signatures played out across several instruments and backwards loops that eventually coalesce into a “song” that’s as beautiful as it is difficult.

While “The King of Limbs” is not Radiohead’s best album, it might be the band’s best “experience.” From its guerilla-style launch to the breathless anticipation and deconstruction of the album across the Internet, Yorke, Jonny and Colin Greenwood, Philip Selway and Ed O’Brien — continues to show it’s the most interesting “rock ’n’ roll” band in the world.

— Chris Talbott, Associated Press

ADELE

Album: “21”

Grade: A-

The one-two punch that opens Adele’s “21” (XL/Columbia) is so brilliant and powerful that it leaves you dazed and blissful and rushing to hear it again.

“Rolling in the Deep” kicks things off with the Grammy-winning Brit’s remodeling of the blues, taking classic blues verses and an acoustic guitar and welding it to a glorious thud and a chorus of soaring soul. It shows off the beauty in her voice, but also its power.

Somehow, “Rumour Has It” is even more stunning, potent enough to make legions of critics re-evaluate their feelings about OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder. Yes, Tedder co-wrote the stomping, snarling slice of revved-up soul with Adele, but it’s virtually unrecognizable from the rest of his catalog, it’s so swaggering and sassy. Adele’s vocals command attention over a pounding backbeat and a flurry of soul claps, as if the Queen of Soul herself had been reincarnated into a 21-year-old British girl.

The rest of “21” is good, but suffers by comparison. As she showed on her debut “19,” Adele loves to belt out a ballad, and “Turning Tables” and “Take It All” are certainly nice additions to her repertoire, while her delicate, Brazilian take on The Cure’s “Lovesong” is a sweet surprise. , “21’s” amazing start shows she’s capable of so much more.

— Glenn Gamboa, Long Island Newsday

G. LOVE

Album: “Fixin’ to Die”

Grade: B+

Garrett Dutton, aka G. Love, has always been able to turn almost anything into the blues. On “Fixin’ to Die” (Brushfire) he turns his talents on everything from a stomping version of Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” to a gorgeous acoustic take on The Velvet Underground’s “Pale Blue Eyes,” to a bunch of his own originals, with good results. Much of the credit should go to the Avett Brothers, who produce the album and play in G. Love’s backing band, keeping the arrangements spare and streamlined, unlike some of his occasionally cluttered back catalog.

— Glenn Gamboa, Long Island Newsday

THE LOW ANTHEM

Album: “Smart Flesh” (Nonesuch)

Grade: A

It’s too bad the Foo Fighters already called an album “Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace,” because that title perfectly describes the new effort by the Low Anthem. To record the follow-up to 2008’s buzz-building “Oh My God, Charlie Darwin,” this Rhode Island-based folk-rock outfit set up shop in a former pasta-sauce factory outside Providence; the group’s goal was to capture an explicitly handcrafted vibe not much in vogue in these days of Pro Tools and Auto-Tune.

Fortunately, what the Low Anthem accomplished neatly transcends such a conservative impulse: Excepting a couple of Arcade Fire-style stompers, “Smart Flesh” is a gorgeous, inventively arranged set of reverb-rich roots ballads in which the music’s frayed edges add emotional weight, not who-cares credibility. Give hushed, slow-rolling songs such as “I’ll Take Out Your Ashes” and “Apothecary Love” time to properly unspool and you’ll find yourself swept up in the band’s old-fashioned tales of romance and mortality.

— Mikael Wood, Los Angeles Times

GIL SCOTT-HERON AND JAMIE XX

Album: “We’re New Here” (XL)

Grade: B

Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx make music about seemingly opposite subjects. Scott-Heron’s long career in spoken word and proto-rap anticipated hip-hop’s rage, and his exquisitely bedraggled tone is its own evidence for the toll of urban decay. Jamie xx, the very young beatsmith for the experimental trio the xx, helms that band’s hormonal, minimalist suites about teen lust. But they both ask one big question in their music: What happens when you lose control? On “We’re New Here,” a full-album remix of Scott-Heron’s 2010 record, “I’m New Here,” the duo lends each other gravitas and levity on this curious but ultimately immersive LP.

Scott-Heron’s brutal, searing original record was rooted in guttural blues and creaking electronica (courtesy of XL founder Richard Russell), but on “We’re New Here” Jamie xx lets some fresh air in. “My Cloud” is a sample-damaged bit of Sunday- morning soul, and a looped Scott-Heron makes the house-infused dubstep track “Ur Soul & Mine” feel deliciously stalkerish. The beats are enticingly broken and reggae-indebted, but the best move on “We’re New Here” is to underline Scott-Heron’s humor — the title track and “Piano Player” catch him chuckling at baser pursuits such as picking up girls at bars.

— August Brown, Los Angeles Times