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Among the current crop of sensitive male singer-songwriters, Ireland's Damien Rice has made a name for himself as a coffee shop troubadour for the Starbucks generation. His second album, 9 (Heffa/Vector), expands his sound while never straying too far from the introspective folk he does best. Rice shines in emotionally raw, spare settings such as the opener “9 Crimes” — but his efforts at rocking out ring false. The resulting collection contains a few outright missteps, a handful of forgettable throwaways, and a pair of quietly powerful gems (“The Animals Were Gone”, “Coconut Skins”).

Fantasia Barrino is blessed with a timelessly soulful voice, but can she escape the ghetto of American Idol? With the simply titled Fantasia (J/Arista), she takes a confident step forward from the cookie-cutter R&B on her 2004 debut. Lead-off single “Hood Boy” smashes through with streetwise hooks and an unexpectedly cool sample of the campy Supremes oldie “The Happening”. She also delivers on the frisky “Baby Makin’ Hips” and the inevitable Diane Warren ballad “I Feel Beautiful”. Though the other songs here don't measure up to the highlights, it's still an enjoyably state-of-the-art set. We're still waiting for her to make an Aretha-style album of stripped down Soul — but in the meantime this'll do.

When part of the late ’90s Elephant Six collective, Athens, Georgia’s of Montreal started as straightforward ’60s revivalists with an predilection for the cute and whimsical side of indie pop. Nearly ten years on, they've moved their frame of reference up a decade and now sound like a lost New Wave dance-pop outfit on their latest effort, Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (Polyvinyl). While the band may still be considered an acquired taste, they display enough nifty synth melodies and herky-jerky rhythms here to make one regret throwing out those old Flock of Seagulls albums.

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Natalie Portman endorsement or no, a few listens to Wincing has convinced me that these New Mexicans might be the closest thing we have to a Beatles. Not in terms of uniform brilliance, mind you, but I can’t think of another current band (and a band they are, thankfully lacking in a flashy frontperson) so adept in eclectic and engaging pop music that works on so many levels. This is never more evident than on the chiming and melodic “Australia”. A friend described this irresistible cut as “Smiths-like”, and I’d have to agree. “Pam Berry”, a spacey throwaway, gives way to “Phantom Limb,” the album’s shimmering, gorgeous highlight. If you haven’t downloaded the single at Sub Pop’s Shins page, do so now (go ahead, I’ll wait). With a song that magnificent, the rest of the album can’t help but be something of a letdown. Indeed a stretch of samey, navel-gazing songs characterize the album’s middle — but even then we have a few gems (“Red Rabbits”). By the time the album winds up, you end up feeling as if in the presence of a band that’s maturing and channeling their indie obtusiveness into a more coherent (but no less delightful) vision. Can’t wait to see what they do next.

Oh, in case you’d like to buy Wincing The Night Away at Amazon, here you are.

5:22 PM | Comments (1)

Pernice Brothers’ beautifully crafted pop has gotten play on TV fare such as Six Feet Under and The Gilmore Girls. The group’s music nicely complements the tone of both shows: sweet on the outside, bitter and ironic on the inside. The sixth and latest Pernice album, Live a Little (Ashmont), augments the creamy melodies of previous efforts with a string section (not heard since 1998's Overcome by Happiness). They’re not reinventing the wheel here, but on the other hand why mess with brilliance? Worth getting for the caustic lyrics and Joe Pernice’s fascinating voice, as light and ethereal as an extended sigh.

Nanci Griffith has always been a singer-songwriter proudly unbound by categories (Is she Country? Pop? Folk?), which makes whatever she's currently involved in all the more intriguing. With her all-covers collection Ruby's Torch (Rounder), Griffith saunters through compositions by Tom Waits and Jimmy Webb, Frank Sinatra’s “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” and even the ’70s MOR standby “Bluer than Blue”. She creates a consistent mood with her smoky, authoritative voice — making this effort a perfect “nighttime wine sipping on the veranda” disc.

Brooklyn's The Hold Steady emerged from obscurity and delivered one of 2006’s most critically acclaimed albums with the unapologetically fun Boys and Girls in America (Vagrant). The band strikes just the right combination of tight and rowdy rock ’n roll and evocative lyrics on barflies, bad girlfriends, and disillusioned youth just aching to have a good time. If that description sounds like the Bruce Springsteen of thirty years ago, you have the right idea. Proving their depth, the group supplements this mostly upbeat set with a couple of first-rate ballads (“First Night” and “Citrus”).

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On a more positive note, I recently bought a couple of excellent “Free” releases for entirely personal, not professional, reasons. The first was the re-release of The Free Design’s trippy 1970 masterpiece Stars/Time/Bubbles/Love by Light In The Attic Records. My friend Ion tipped me that all of the F.D. reissues were just made available for download on eMusic, so I immediately signed up and snatched this one. For those who don’t know, The Free Design was a brilliant but hitless easy-pop combo who plied original songs (courtesy of founding member Chris Dedrick) and gorgeous harmonies on several 1967-73 albums. Part of their appeal was in how the jewel-perfect, swingin’ ’60s production of Enoch Light often masked the imperfect underbelly of the songs. For example, the magificently dense “Bubbles” seems bouncy and cute enough on the surface, but it also revolves around the lyrics “Bubblegum kinda keeps my heart from gettin’ heavy and crying.” The tears of a clown, indeed!

My second purchase was an expensive impulse buy of the 1996 Japanese compilation Free Soul: Vibes. The Free Soul collections were put together by Toru Hashimoto (who also did the wonderful Cafe Apres Midi discs) with an accent on smooth ’n funky ’70s obscurities. We’re talking really obscure here, with some songs that have never appeared on CD anywhere else. For instance, this edition leads off with a track by girl group The Fuzz. Logically it would have been their only hit (the dreamy “I Love You For All Seasons”) represented here, but instead we have a cut buried on side 2 of their one album (“Search Your Mind”). And it’s excellent! Note that this disc contains two tracks from one-hit-wonders Blue Swede, and yet it never sounds cheezy. Lots of goodies here and considering its 77-minute length, a bargain. Check this Japanese fansite for the other Free Souls.

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Typical of the mix is the theme song from TV’s Nanny and the Professor performed by The Addrisi Brothers (who scored a hit with the soft-rockin’ “We’ve Got To Get It On Again” around that same time). Although I’m too young to have seen Nanny during its 1970-71 run, I did manage to watch this show a few times when it reran on the FX cable channel in its early days. It was cutely forgettable, with star Juliet Mills having a distinct “Elizabeth Montgomery in Bewitched“ vibe. Interesting that Mills went from playing a magical nanny to playing a magical witch in Passions several years later. Typecasting at its best! Check out the groovy Nanny opening credits here.

The Addrisi Brothers — “Nanny” (1970).

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