record reviews

January 2, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

DEADMAU5

Album: “4 X 4 = 12” (Ultra)

Grade: B

You’re familiar with the oversize head and the big mouse ears of progressive house music maven Deadmau5. Sports fans saw the Canadian-born DJ perform at Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Kids caught Mau5 as a character in Activision’s “DJ Hero 2” video game.

Yet with the exception of singles compilations such as “It Sounds Like” and the mix-mastered likes of “For Lack of a Better Name,” he has not released a full-length artist CD of his own until now.

While massive electro epics such as “Some Chords” and the nasty “Animal Rights” (both previously released) fill this Daft Punk-y CD, there are, happily, dastardly surprises at every turn. While “One Trick Pony” and “Raise Your Weapon” find the Mau5 hotly interpreting the clutter of dubstep, the rich electro classicism of “Right This Second” and the crepuscular moodiness of “Cthulhu Sleeps” are lustrously ripe with eerie yet catchy melodies as through-lines to their pulsing, beating heart.

— A.D. Amorosi, Philadelphia Inquirer

ANDREW BIRD

Album: “Useless Creatures” (Fat Possum)

Grade: C

Andrew Bird’s albums crackle with eclectic wordplay, esoteric themes, impressive whistling and even more impressive violin-playing. “Useless Creatures,” however, is an animal of a slightly different stripe: It’s a set of instrumentals (give or take a few sighs and whistles), originally released as a bonus CD with 2009’s “Noble Beast,” that highlights Bird’s wide-ranging interests and experimental spirit.

Recorded quickly with bassist Todd Sickafoose and Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche, “Useless Creatures” favors extended pieces built on cyclical patterns or loops but anchored in a wide range of styles: classical chamber pieces (“You Woke Me Up!”), ambient drones (the Eno-esque “The Barn Tapes”), African vibes (the Konono No. 1-inspired “Hot Math”), and sometimes a hodgepodge (“Carrion Suite”).

As background music, “Useless Creatures” is useful; in the foreground, it’s a diversion.

— Steve Klinge, Philadelphia Inquirer

STACIE COLLINS

Album: “Sometimes Ya Gotta ...” (Rev Records)

Grade: B

You don’t come across too many female honky-tonk firebrands, let alone one who also blows a nasty harmonica. So in that sense, Stacie Collins stands out from the get-go. Team her with producer Dan Baird, the former Georgia Satellites front man, and a band that includes Baird and Jason and the Scorchers’ Warner E. Hodges on guitars, and you’ve got somebody who, in a better world, would be a big star.

“Sometimes Ya Gotta ...” is Collins’ second collaboration with Baird, and like “The Lucky Spot,” it’s a blazing amalgam of Satellites, Scorchers, Stones and Skynyrd. But Collins, who co-wrote all 12 songs with her husband, Scorchers bassist Al Collins, who also plays here, has passion and personality to burn, making these familiar riffs all her own. And while Collins most often comes across as one tough, swaggering broad (“Lord you know he’s gotta pay for what he done to me,” she warns on “Lend the Devil a Hand”), on the acoustic-flecked changes of pace “Little Things” and “It Hurts to Breathe,” this cowboy-hatted hell-raiser can turn touchingly angelic.

— Nick Cristiano, Philadelphia Inquirer

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

Album: “Apollo Kids” (Def Jam)

Grade: B

Whether accidental or intentional comedy, the iTunes tags that accompany Ghostface Killah’s ninth album classify “Apollo Kids” as country music. Of course, Dennis Coles isn’t pulling a Nelly and enlisting Tim McGraw to croon the hook on “Handcuffing Them Ho’s,” but in its rigorous devotion to genre standards, it resembles a triumph from a veteran Nashville musician.

With impeccably selected guest spots (the Game, Joell Ortiz, Busta Rhymes, Black Thought and his Wu-Tang brethren), the Staten Island kid hews closely to the bloody-nostril boom-bap the Wu-Tang Clan pioneered a decade ago. Lyrically, Ghostface eschews the surreal bent of his second-career zenith “Fishscale” for straightforward boasts about fast cars, fast women and faster blades.

Though “Apollo Kids” is light on the sweat-dripping narratives that Ghostface staked his reputation on, “Drama” finds Ghostface in “Masterpiece Theatre” mode, sketching crime scenes of guns and grams surrounded by “big jars of haze, Cheech & Chong bongs, Tropicana strawberries and diced bananas.”

Album finale “Troublemakers” finds Ironman pairing with Method Man, Raekwon and Redman to play “backgammon in the cabin.” Like the album itself, its intentions are minimal — adamantine beats, colorful raps and little filler.

Due to his abstract innovations and imagination, fans and critics expect Ghostface to win the Daytona 500 every year. But as he says on the album highlight, “In Tha Park,” “this rap [stuff] came at a time that was accurate / Twenty years later I mastered it.” “Apollo Kids” shows that one of rap’s company drivers is still on the speedway — zooming slightly slower than before but with better pacing and control of the wheel.

— Jeff Weiss, Los Angeles Times