Record Reviews

Wild Beasts

Album: “Boy King”

Grade: B

Wild Beasts live up to their name on the potent “Boy King,” 10 electric exposures of the English art rockers’ raw carnal desires.

Led by Haden Thorpe’s sometimes ghostly vocals and a barrage of synths and guitar riffs both glimmering and rusty, the band’s fifth album displays a lineup of a certain kind of very male narratives about what must be modern love.

Most of the characters on “Boy King” seem burdened by stunted emotional growth, the intensity of feelings expressed in lines like, “You can stuff your chastity, your wait and see” (“He the Colossus”).

After all the saber rattling, “Boy King” ends in a reflexive mood, supplanting testosterone with tenderizer. The man-as-boy-again in “Dreamliner” drops the hedonistic bluster and cries out “so be kind to me now.” Like everyone else, he just wants to be loved and would give his kingdom for a hug.

—Pablo Gorondi, Associated Press

Dmitri Hvorostovsky

Album: “War, Peace, Love and Sorrow”

Grade: B

The opera world was shocked by news last year that Dmitri Hvorostovsky had brain cancer. But the beloved Russian baritone with the velvety voice and phenomenal breath control carried on, canceling some appearances but performing when he could.

“War, Peace, Love and Sorrow,” his new release recorded last October during a break in his chemotherapy, reaffirms that he sounds as good as ever.

Unfortunately, apart from reassuring his fans, there isn’t much about this album that makes artistic sense. As the title suggests, it’s a hodgepodge of scenes and arias, some of which the baritone had recorded before.

Still, there’s much to enjoy. The magical opening from Prokofiev’s “War and Peace” finds him in terrific form, moving from dejection to hope as he overhears Natasha sing of her joy in life. This is followed by excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s “Mazeppa” and “Iolanta.”

—Mike Silverman, Associated Press