Solomon Burke Don't Give Up on Me (Fat Possum)
If you're a songwriter and one day the phone rings and somebody tells you soul giant Solomon Burke is recording again and looking for songs, you really have only one option: Get busy. Even if you're Brian Wilson, Elvis Costello or Tom Waits. Burke is the rare singer who makes songwriters sound wise beyond their words -- he finds ache lying dormant in unlikely places and manages to pinpoint, with GPS accuracy, the murky emotional terrain within the lyrics. He's been singing definitive versions of soul songs since back when the Stones (who covered his "Cry to Me") were kids, showing men how to plead with passion and dignity, teaching all who would listen the virtues of patience. When producer Joe Henry put out the call for material, folks Burke had influenced -- such as Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Waits, Wilson, Costello, Nick Lowe and Dan Penn -- responded with melodies well suited to the legend's bearish, exceptionally sensitive (and remarkably well-preserved) baritone. Patterning their songs on the declarative balladry and blues-inflected gospel of Burke's Atlantic classics, these writers give Burke plenty of room to work his slow-cooked magic. Some tracks sound as if they could be forgotten gems from the heyday of soul (Penn's anguished title plea, Costello's courtroom drama "The Judgment"), and some have the galvanizing intensity of spirituals (Henry's "Flesh and Blood," Waits' timeless "Diamond in Your Mind"), but all of them share one essential trait: They wouldn't be nearly as rousing sung by anybody else. (TOM MOON)
Pulp We Love Life (Sanctuary/Rough Trade)
Closing in on forty, Pulp singer Jarvis Cocker turns his eye from society's foibles to the subject he understands least: Himself. Cocker won't expose his feelings, but he has fun pretending. He enjoys nothing like taking the existential joke and twisting it. He sings "I Love Life" in full-blown mid-life crisis mode, spitting out the daily affirmation with bitter queasiness. He attacks nature with two songs about "Weeds" before tackling "The Trees," which quickly become "those useless trees." The giddiness of Sixties' folk troubadour Bob "Elusive Butterfly" Lind is transformed into a dark paean subtitled "The Only Way Is Down." Even Pulp's producer, Sixties cult-icon Scott Walker, who admirably tunes things into a minimalist rumble with orchestral touches for the band's seventh studio album, gets hit with Cocker's backhand in "Bad Cover Version." Cocker, making a list of subpar albums that infuriate him, adds Walker's 1970 album Til the Band Comes In for good measure. What are friends for, anyway? (ROB O'CONNOR)
Trust Company The Lonely Position of Neutral (Geffen)
This hard-rock foursome from the unlikely town of Montgomery, Alabama, looks like Linkin Park but defies expectations by mixing aggressive grunge metal with wispy vocals, inward-looking lyrics and cotton-candy harmonies. Singer-guitarist Kevin Palmer gets as pissed as his wound-baring peers but more often does it with a whisper than with a scream. The instrumental stuff adheres to modern-rock-radio conventions: Linkin Park/Lit/Eve 6 producer Don Gilmore oversees Neutral's eleven catchy but sound-alike tracks. Yet the singing's understatement and harmonic sophistication help the band transcend overblown corporate rock and embrace sensitive emo pop. A little more trust and a lot less company would make a good thing better. (BARRY WALTERS)
Bree Sharp More B.S. (Ahimsa/Union)
NYC singer/songwriter Bree Sharp scored a minor hit with her aural mash note to X-Files hunk David Duchovny on 1999's promising A Cheap and Evil Girl. Sharp's cleverly-titled follow-up More B.S. presents a mixed bag of exceptional folk-tinged pop tunes, and the maturity of her new material suggests this twenty-something Joan Jett disciple is exploring her Fiona Apple-meets-Sheryl Crow side. Among many standout tracks are a thoughtful new age lullaby, "Galaxy Song;" "Dirty Magazine"'s understated hilarity; and an engaging Bonnie and Clyde style tale of two doomed outlaws -- "The Ballad of Grim & Lily" -- which mixes woozy trip-hop beats with lyrical fatalism, revealing Sharp's exceptional flair for storytelling, a cornerstone of great songwriting. It's on "The Last of Me," a hauntingly direct, disarmingly catchy tune about the promise of revenge in the aftermath of a failed relationship, however, that she really hits her stride. (GAIL WORLEY)
Alex Lloyd Watching Angels Mend (Nettwerk)
With its whispery vocals, drum programming and heart-on-the-sleeve lyrics, Alex Lloyd's second full-length and U.S. debut, Watching Angels Mend, could become 2002's White Ladder. The Australian singer-songwriter -- hailed as Down Under's "King of Pop" by local press -- delivers U2-like melodies over acoustic guitars and studio intricacies, a mix that is equally irresistible and frustrating. On the one hand, Lloyd's five months in the studio with co-producer Magnus Fiennes (Pulp, Morcheeba and brother to actors Ralph and Joseph) has resulted in a layered, lush sound complete with hidden harmonies ("Lost in the Rain"), distant pianos ("Sleep") and faint backing-vocals ("Everybody's Laughing"). Big choruses, like in the upbeat "My Friend" -- the album's best -- or in "Downtown," Angels' first single, beg for road trip sing-a-longs. But, on the other hand, the slick production and his, at times, contrived singing prevent Lloyd from captivating the way Elliott Smith or Thom Yorke -- both definite influences -- can. Still, Lloyd's melodies linger, and with lyrics about love and loneliness -- as well as an opening slot on Beth Orton's current tour -- the songwriter may take America like he has his homeland. (BENJAMIN L. FRIEDLAND)
The Crystal Method Community Service (Ultra)
While DJ mix CDs are intended to simulate the club experience -- whimsical, spontaneous, everything but the $20 drinks -- even the best mixes become predictable with repeated listening. A few rare cuts or choice remixes can give mix CDs shelf-life, and the Crystal Method's Community Service has plenty: Six of the disc's sixteen tracks are either other artists' mixes of Crystal Method originals, or TCM's own remixes of rock acts like P.O.D. and Garbage (they even salvage Rage Against the Machine's previously unbearable "Renegades of Funk"). That kind of star power helps, but Community Service's real appeal is as a seventy-six-minute tutorial in crescendo. It morphs seamlessly from benign grooves to kinetic rock into an all-out dance party, ending just as it peaks. Any competent DJ can synch beats; the rarer skill is in setting the mood. For the Crystal Method, it's child's play. (MIKE MAGNUSON)
Toby Keith Unleashed (Dreamworks)
Toby Keith's latest CD Unleashed arrives on a wave of controversy, kicked up by his song "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)." The song, written in response to 9/11, made headlines when newsman Peter Jennings' objection to its lyrics allegedly got Keith kicked off ABC's Fourth of July special. Well, a song vowing that the U.S. will "put a boot in your ass -- it's the American Way" is a bit extreme. And while screaming for vengeance may be cathartic, it's also embarrassingly jingoistic -- "The Ugly American" might be a better subtitle. Keith can do better, and he does, elsewhere on Unleashed. His image as an outspoken rabble-rouser belies his true forte, which is writing -- and singing -- about relationships. He turns in some wonderful performances here, especially on the soulful "Ain't It Just Like You" and the barroom lament "Losing My Touch." The lovely cowboy waltz "Rodeo Moon" is another highlight, while "It Works for Me," in which he spells out his personal code of ethics, manages to be simultaneously brash and thoughtful. It seems Keith's considerable talents are only truly "unleashed" when he drops the big-dog posturing and gets in touch with his inner puppy. (ANDREA DRESDALE)
Boyz II Men Full Circle (Arista)
The Boyz are back. All grown up, their harmonies weave tight spells, and the control and range of each singer -- Nathan Morris, Michael McCary, Shawn Stockman and Wanya Morris -- only deepens the impact of the four-part arrangements. Full Circle doesn't stray from the big-selling formula of Boyz II Men's past hits like "End of the Road" or "One Sweet Day," but it's solid and satisfying because the Boyz confidently stick to the R&B ballads and midtempo movers they've always done so well. The album begins unevenly: Faith Evans and the quartet team up for "Relax Your Mind," the satisfying beat-driven opener, but there's no excuse for the lame pairing with Rob Jackson for the hip-hop "Ain't a Thang Wrong." Things soon settle down nicely, and Boyz serve up the infectious mover "Howz About It," "On the Road Again" -- the album's requisite Latin-tinged ballad -- and "The Color of Love," made in the mold of the popular wedding anthem "On Bended Knee," with aplomb. (MARIE ELSIE ST. LEGER)
Trendroid Transport 6 (Kinetic Records)
New York's Trendroid -- the doctors-by-day, DJs/producers-by-night duo of Pankaj and Matt Edwards -- are the rare act to gain global dance community respect for skills on and behind decks simultaneously. While many producers began DJing, and many DJs jumped into production, both DJs and producers jumped on Trendroid. Trendroid's genre-jumping productions -- tribal to techy, deep trance to gritty Gotham hard house, dirty to dubby -- have been caned by top tastemakers, so its appropriate Trendroid showcase a representatively varied volume in label Kinetic Record's Transport series (renamed from Tranceport to de-emphasize the no longer progressive trance genre). The only constant to Transport 6 is deep, wide beats and sawing bass, as Trendroid build from pounding producers as wide-ranging as Ralphi Rosario and Martin Fry, Datar, Akadoma, Riot Society, Stephane K, Jimmy Van M, Valentino and Forbidden Planet. Transport 6 is two discs of futuristic house that should appeal to fans of Danny Tenaglia to Satoshi Tomiie to Trendroid's own fifteen-plus productions. (TONY WARE)
(July 22, 2002)