Adrianne Lenker - Bright Future
There’s a noble tradition of demos-released-as-albums, records that use their lack of varnish to convey emotional rawness and acuity— think Springsteen’s Nebraska, Joe Henry’s The Gospel According to Water. Add Bright Future to the list. This straight-to-tape treasury captures the lead singer of Big Thief in a state of reflection, but also a state of play. She is unbound from the expectation to make the quote-unqoute definitive version of any of these songs, allowing the childhood memories of “Real House” to proceed as a rueful murmur, revisiting her main band’s “Vampire Empire” as a raucous construction of fiddle, acoustic guitar strumming, and clanking percussion. There’s linguistic playfulness, too— “Evol” is about love in reverse, and “Donut Seam” isn’t what it seems. But for all of the album’s appealing open-endedness, it’s hard to imagine a more “finished” version of “Ruined,” gorgeously, definitively lovesick. My rating: 8 out of 10.
Barry Adamson - Cut to Black
“I’m a certain kind of man with a certain kind of wound,” Barry Adamson sings on Cut to Black, as concise a summary as you’ll find of the self-aware archetypes who populate his noir-ish albums. Every Adamson record feels like the soundtrack to some lost cinematic underworld, as narrated by a gruff-yet-tenderhearted drifter straight out of the nearest sinister alley or dive bar. This new one offers the same knowing evocations of social, sexual, and psychological darkness that Adamson is known for— “Demon Lover” is meant to be taken literally, and his reckonings with racism include a period piece (“The Last Words of Sam Cooke”) and a gospel send-up (“Amen White Jesus”). Musically, this is one of the punchier albums in the Adamson catalog, its John Barry soundtrack aesthetic enlivened by swaggering rock, blues, and R&B. Back to the Cat is still his masterwork, but this is a welcoming entry point for newcomers; if you’re on the fence, skip ahead to “Manhattan Satin,” the most addictively funky thing Adamson has ever recorded. My rating: 7 out of 10.
Willie Nelson - The Border
91 years old and seemingly unstoppable, Willie Nelson has spent the last decade or so cranking out casual masterworks with an astonishing frequency— maintaining a standard of quality so high, it’s increasingly difficult to discern which of these latter-day releases stand out from the rest. The Border is distinguished by its Rodney Crowell-penned title song, which humanizes the various sociopolitical crises piled up along America’s southern flank. Beyond that, it’s nothing more or less than another very good Willie Nelson album, produced with warmth by Buddy Cannon, filled with inimitable phrasing and fleet-fingered playing on trusty Trigger. There are weepy ballads, good-natured jokes, and welcome forays into Western swing, a genre for which Willie remains our most vocal proponent and most capable practitioner. Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t as good as Last Man Standing; at this point, it’s enough to say that Willie’s body of work offers a lifetime of pleasures. My rating: 7 out of 10.
Aoife O’Donovan - All My Friends
Aoife O’Donovan’s Age of Apathy is one of the most satisfying singer/songwriter records in recent memory— perfectly intimate, poetic, and mysterious. Her latest, All My Friends, finds her working a completely different set of songwriting muscles, veering away from memoir and character studies into songs that are historic in their sweep, commemorative in their intentions. This is nothing less than an extended suite chronicling the social and political battles waged by the women’s suffrage movement, ornamented with an appropriate level of pomp: Here O’Donovan sings over the razzle-dazzle of strings, horns, and choirs, all while elegantly working phrases like “amendment to our constitution” and “the Senate will give us an answer” into some surprisingly tuneful songs. If that all sounds a little Schoolhouse Rock— if not a little Lin-Manuel Miranda— the triumph of All My Friends is how it feels so heartfelt, both as a celebration of our foremothers and a promise to our daughters. It’s not the kind of thing you’d play every day, but as a musical mile marker, its accomplished, good-hearted, and resonant. My rating: 7 out of 10.
Rod Stewart with Jools Holland - Swing Fever
On his landmark albums from the 1970s— Every Picture Tells a Story, Never a Dull Moment— Rod Stewart wielded an uncanny ability to make rock-and-roll oldies sound cutting-edge, and cutting-edge folk songs sound like ancient treasures. These gifts failed him on his seemingly endless set of Great American Songbook records, which settled for recitation over reinvention. He’s much more inspired on this set of pre-rock standards, partnering with barrelhouse piano player Jools Holland and a full backing band for a rompin’ revue that’s high on energy, charisma, and wit. Stewart and Holland don’t take any big chances with these familiar tunes, but they do imbue them with showmanship, singing and playing with rugged abandon and plenty of heart. It’s distressing to hear the state of Rod’s voice, significantly compromised in its power and range— but it’s comforting to hear how he retains his unparalleled gifts at phrasing, delivering each song with a wink and a grin. My rating: 6 out of 10.
Kamasi Washington - Fearless Movement
On Fearless Movement, the composer, bandleader, and saxophonist Kamasi Washington makes a deliberate effort to enliven his politically-engaged, spiritually-questing jazz with the sounds of hip-hop and R&B, fashioning something like a party record. But frivolity feels alien to this most earnest of performers, an awkward incursion into what’s otherwise another full-force epic. As ever, it’s the sheer scale of Washington’s music that makes the greatest impact; to invoke Bob Dylan’s distinction between painting landscapes and painting nudes, Washington is a landscape guy through-and-through. That’s not to say there are’t winsome moments of texture and groove: Listen to Thundercat scaling his electric bass on “Asha the First,” or to the evocative turn from Andre 3000 on the ambient cool-down piece “Dream State.” Other moments feel tedious: George Clinton does his best to bring the funk in “Get Lit,” but he’s undercut by the glum lyrics in D Smoke’s guest raps. That’s an issue throughout Fearless Movement, where the fun feels a little too forced, the cross-genre integrations a little too rigid. My rating: 6 out of 10.
The Avett Brothers - The Avett Brothers
The Avett Brothers made close to a dozen albums before finally deciding to name one after themselves— perhaps an acknowledgement that they needed to reassert their identity following the poorly-received, politically-minded Closer Than Together from 2019. That means topical songwriting is mostly avoided here— though there is a song called “2020 Regret,” about as dreadful a title as I can imagine—in favor of the heart-on-sleeve earnestness that has long been the group’s stock in trade. This back-to-basics instinct results in a few gems— the cheerful cornpone "of “Country Kid” is sure to be a live concert highlight, while “Orion’s Belt” is animated country-rock. It also results in more than a few mawkish lyrics about love and death— representative song title: “Never Apart”— and some notable classic rock reference points: An a cappella vocal prelude in the vein of The Beach Boys, a motor-mouthed rave-up in the style of R.E.M. (“Love of a Girl”). Thanks to Rick Rubin’s too-tidy production, these moves don’t quite feel organic. Instead, The Avett Brothers often feels desperate to reset the band’s career, even as it lacks songs strong enough to do so persuasively. My rating: 5 out of 10.
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