SOUNDCHECK

The Wreckers; Mobb Deep; Mission of Burma


The Wreckers


Stand Still, Look Pretty (3.5 stars)


It's not until "My, Oh My," the fifth song on the Wreckers' debut, that it sounds like a real, honest-to-goodness country album. The project has been touted as a departure for singer-songwriter Michelle Branch, who teams up with friend Jessica Harp after two relatively successful solo albums of tasteful acoustic pop. But for all the trouble Branch had getting her label to accept her change in direction, as well as her conversion to one half of a duo, Stand Still, Look Pretty sounds much of the time like a looser, more organic and slightly countrified version of a Michelle Branch album.


Sure, there are some fiddles and banjos on most of the songs, but they're often muted and relegated to the background, with Branch and Harp's vocal harmonies and acoustic guitars at the forefront. The duo split the songwriting duties fairly evenly, collaborating on most of the tracks and throwing in a few contributions from professional songsmiths. Most of the material continues Branch's tradition of earnest, confessional pop songs, but the best, including the unabashed honky-tonk of "My, Oh My" and the twangy, tongue-in-cheek "Crazy People," fully embrace the country sound the duo dances around on most of the album.


There's little here to alienate Branch's fans, and by straddling the same pop/country divide as Sheryl Crow and the Dixie Chicks, the Wreckers are likely to attract a diverse following. Given how much Branch put on the line to make this album, though, it'd be great to hear her and Harp go even more country on their next effort.




Josh Bell




Mobb Deep


Blood Money (2.5 stars)


The back cover of Blood Money tells you all you need to know about Mobb Deep's first effort on rap-label-of-the-moment G-Unit Records: Half of the 16 tracks co-feature members of the New York clique—either 50 Cent, Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo or Young Buck. (Might as well include hip-hop soul queen Mary J. Blige in the G-Unit-ed Nations with her collabos with 50).


So this wouldn't be classic Mobb Deep: grimy lyrics matched with sullen, hopeless beats producing some of the most thorough thug-core rap of the last decade. What it figured to be was a (hoped-for) multiplatinum melding of the Queens duo's street cred with 50's chart-topping Midas touch.


Both descriptions are half-right. Things get off to a Mobb Deepish start with the first two tracks, the Sha Money XL burner "Smoke It" and the you-got-guns-we-got-bigger-guns "Put 'Em In Their Place." From there, glimpses of past glory are too brief ("Click Clack" and "Capital P, Capital H."), and give way to the degradation/G-Unification of Mobb's sound.


As if on command by 50 Cent, Prodigy, a C-minus lyricist at best, and the very capable Havoc dumb down their music. The third-grade hook on "Stole Something" is incongruous with the song's Quentin Tarantino gore. "Backstage Pass," an ode to groupies, should've never made it to wax. And "Pearly Gates" is Mobb Deep at its 50 Cent best, the trio bragging boringly and unconvincingly about talking their way into heaven.


It makes you wonder what Blood Money would've sounded like if Mobb Deep had taken a page from Nas, a fellow Queens emcee who, like them, once battled Jay-Z and is now signed to Jay-Z's Def Jam label.




Damon Hodge




MISSION OF BURMA


The Obliterati (4 stars)


Who hasn't daydreamed about what a treasured, short-lived band might have achieved had a key member not perished, gone AWOL or, in the case of Mission of Burma, blew out his hearing? Some 23 years after severe tinnitus forced Roger Miller to shelve his guitar, Burma fans can finally stop imagining.


Where 2004 comeback album OnOffOn re-established the group's tough, post-punk attitude, its follow-up feels more like a progressive next chapter for bassist Clint Conley, drummer Peter Prescott and the now-headphoned Miller. Though the trio—augmented again by new tape manipulator Bob Weston—takes a few lyrical trips back to the '80s ("I'm haunted by the freakish size of Nancy Reagan's head"), The Obliterati sounds content to live in the present, while keeping one eye toward the future.


Though unexpectedly bouncy third cut "Donna Sumeria" may be the finest individual moment, the disc's meat is its middle, with tracks like "1001 Pleasant Dreams," "13" and "Careening With Conviction" showing off the diversity of the band's noisy, heavy-rock style. By sanding the rough edges, smoothing out the vocals and playing up the hooks, the Bostonites might even have a Pearl Jam-type hit or two in there, but then again, that's not exactly why Burma reconvened.




Spencer Patterson


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