record reviews

March 13, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Sara Evans

Album: “Stronger” (RCA/Sony Nashville)

Grade: B

In the liner notes for Sara Evans’ new CD, she thanks “everyone for waiting so patiently on me to make this record.” Indeed, it’s been six years since the Missouri-born singer’s last album.

As celebrity-gossip followers know, she dealt with drastic life changes over those years. In 2007, she divorced her first husband, politician Craig Schelske, amid allegations of cheating on both sides; she quit the TV series “Dancing with the Stars” midseason to deal with the revelations. She then married a former star college quarterback, Jay Barker, uniting their seven kids under one roof after moving from Nashville to Alabama.

So, predictably, Evans’ new song trumpets renewal and strength. However, the anthemic songs fall flat: On the fist-pumping “A Little Bit Stronger” and the spiritually inclined “Desperately,” Evans sounds oddly detached and the arrangements sound overly dramatic.

But once she gets past the front-loaded survivor songs, she settles into layered tunes that better reveal her strengths. The multidimensional “My Heart Can’t Tell You No,” about a woman who doesn’t fully break from the man who hurt her, and the breezy “Anywhere” bring out a verve in Evans’ husky voice that is absent from the big showcase tunes.

— Michael McCall, Associated Press

R.E.M.

Album: “Collapse Into Now”

Grade: A

Sometimes being legendary can be a drag — so much to live up to, so much new ground to break — and that weight nearly crushed R.E.M. a couple of albums ago.

But with their stunning rebirth on “Accelerate,” Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills cut themselves free. Now, on “Collapse Into Now” (Warner Bros.), they sound almost giddy, showing a playful side we haven’t seen since 2001’s “Reveal.”

“I feel like an alligator, coming up the escalator,” Stipe fizzily declares in the dizzying “Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter,” which features Peaches sounding like a long lost B-52. “That Someone Is You” enthusiastically rhymes “Sharon Stone Casino,” “Scarface Al Pacino” and “’74 Torino” in the kind of Buck-driven guitar rave-up that used to be commonplace in the “Reckoning” days.

“Mine Smell Like Honey” sounds like it came from that era, too, especially as Mills’ backing vocals beautifully bounce off Stipe’s growl and Buck gets a bit jangly. “It Happened Today” brings back the lush loveliness (and mandolin) of “Out of Time,” while Eddie Vedder adds some poignant harmonies.

For “Collapse Into Now,” R.E.M. let go of the idea that each album has to have a singular sound and simply let the songs dictate their approach. The result is more organic and a whole lot of fun. Who says legends can’t enjoy themselves, too?

— Glenn Gamboa, Long Island Newsday