RECORD REVIEWS

Colin Hay

Album: “Fierce Mercy”

Grade: A

Colin Hay’s pop skills get a Nashville customization on “Fierce Mercy,” a frequently introspective album that ranks among the best by the former Men at Work front man.

Hay’s songwriting elegance has no need for bells and whistles, but a graceful string section and classic arrangements blending folk, country rock and pop provide an attractive foundation for as strong a set of songs as he’s recorded in a 13-album solo career.

Hay’s vocals are one of the most easily recognizable in rock and he has the ability to adapt it to a wide array of settings and styles without losing any of its character and emotion.

Whether eulogizing his departed mother on “She Was the Love of Mine,” relating the return home of a war veteran on “Frozen Fields of Snow” or recounting an opportunity for nostalgia caused by a seemingly fickle May-September romance on “I’m Going to Get You Stoned,” Hay’s scenarios are never forced or artificial.

As for musical touchstones, there are echoes of late ’80s R.E.M. in “I’m Inside Outside In,” an Elton John piano solo would fit snugly on “The Best in Me” and Roy Orbison could have contributed “Secret Love” to a Traveling Wilburys album.

A distinguished bunch, as are Colin Hay’s songs.

— Pablo Gorondi, Associated Press

The Shins

Album: “Heartworms”

Grade: B

James Mercer takes the helm on “Heartworms,” producing The Shins’ fifth album and shaping the band’s style and identity as much as ever. Mercer creates a diverse set of tunes which remain playful even when he explores relationships where nothing appears to be simple or straightforward.

A folky guitar and snappy percussion drive “Mildenhall,” a true-to-life glimpse into Mercer’s military brat adolescence and “Painting a Hole” is the first of several tunes that seem musically inspired by those years Mercer spent in Britain in the 1980s.

“Cherry Hearts” has an angular, New Wave approach similar to Howard Jones, while “Rubber Ballz” namechecks Paul Simon and may have settled on a harsh solution to every boy’s fantasy-gone-wrong, “And I just can’t get her out of my bed/Wish I’d gone with her sister instead.”

The title tune has more of the typically Mercer-ish confessions, wordy and rather resigned, with sounds which hark back to the band’s early albums, what has been described as a “return to the handmade.”

Natalie Portman’s famous line in Zach Braff’s “Garden State” notwithstanding, The Shins may not change your life, but with albums like “Heartworms” they can definitely ease the tedium.

— Pablo Gorondi, Associated Press