RECORD REVIEWS

Built to Spill

Album: “Untethered Moon”

Grade: B

On the lead track of Built to Spill’s latest album, Doug Martsch sighs, “And now we settle for this complicated metaphor and leave this simple truth unsaid.” His sentiment gets at the center of “Untethered Moon,” a record flush with blustery guitar passages, hooks and heart.

“All Our Songs” rumbles out of the gate with pounding percussion before giving way to a quip from Martsch’s boyish, high register: “It’s so hard to tell a face that never rang a bell.” Along the way, three different solos torch the verses. “Living Zoo” grazes on everything from early R.E.M. to Dinosaur Jr. before settling into one of his bleary-eyed choruses that never gets old.

A few songs are grounded in a more classic Pacific Northwest sound, but pull back or morph into chugging ramblers with psych moves and serpentine melodies around every corner.

—Jake O’Connell, Associated Press

Blur

Album: “The Magic Whip”

Grade: B

Blur were Britpop flag-bearers of the 1990s, waging a media-driven battle with Oasis for the musical soul of Cool Britannia.

Blur’s first album as a foursome for 16 years — the result of time spent together in a Hong Kong studio in 2013 — finds them older and perhaps wearier, but still full of creative brio.

Produced by longtime Blur collaborator Stephen Street, the album is a characteristic mix of the global and the parochial. “Lonesome Street,” one of the standout tracks, is distinctly Kinks-y in its vocal harmonies and references to London buses and suburban trains.

“The Magic Whip” is infused with Albarn’s wanderlust and penchant for bittersweet reflection. The album won’t win over listeners who find Albarn’s languid vocal style mannered. But on tracks like world-weary “New World Towers,” punky “I Broadcast” — which has the adrenaline of Blur classic “Song 2” — and cathartically upbeat closer “Ong Ong,” Blur show they can still charm and delight.

—Jill Lawless, Associated Press