Black Eyed Peas (4 stars)
Monkey Business
LA-based Black Eyed Peas is quickly becoming the West Coast version of Atlanta's Outkast, which is both good and bad. Good because Monkey Business, the newest release from Will.i.am., Fergie, apl.de.ap and Taboo (you'll find no stranger names anywhere in rap), continues the hip-hop rebranding begun on 2003's multiplatinum and musically eclectic Elephunk.
BEP mostly hews to its tried-and-true formula of sugary topics ("My Humps" is about Fergie's ass) and sugary hooks ("Dum Diddly" and "Disco Club"—hard to believe the group was signed to Eazy-E's Ruthless Records in 1992). Fortunately, there are some nice surprises.
BEP, Justin Timberlake and super-producer Timbaland (Virginia's version of Kanye West) meld well on the coquettish "My Style." "Like That" gets an A+ for star power alone: Q-Tip, the legendary emcee from A Tribe Called Quest, and Talib Kweli, he of the Ivy League rhymes, lend wordplay while crooner-of-the-moment John Legend, a Kanye West protégé, and Cee-Lo Green, formerly of the Goodie Mob, bless the hook. The best of the collaborations and best song on the album, "They Don't Want Music," is funk-slathered hip-hop made funkier by a liberal dose of James Brown, who admonishes ("You got to rock with the funk"), demands ("Gimme that horn") and disses ("They don't want music, they don't know how to use it").
And now, the bad. "Don't Lie" covers little new ground on the relationship front—guys fib, well, because. "Ba Bump" is a serviceable ode to beats and "Audio Delite" sounds Jurassic 5ive-ish. The lone remnant of the conscious rap BEP used to deliver is the Sting-assisted "Union." Also bad are their outfits: It's like they're competing with Outkast's Andre 3000 for the title of hip-hop's best bohemians.
Sleater-Kinney (5 stars)
The Woods
For more than a decade, Sleater-Kinney have pounded out songs with the power of Hüsker Dü while maintaining the epic grandeur of the Who. Listening to The Woods, it is easy to believe that Sleater-Kinney are the only band that matters, and actually, in the twilight of rock, they might be the last band to matter, too.
Brilliantly produced by Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev) and containing a batch of the trio's sharpest songs ("Modern Girl," "Entertain" and "What's Mine Is Yours"), it is tempting to proclaim this as Sleater-Kinney's masterpiece. Yet, there has been a stunning consistency to every disc this group has released since Call the Doctor (1996), making Sleater-Kinney perhaps the greatest band you never heard.
But even by the measure of its own impressive past, The Woods is something special. Somehow more desperate than past efforts yet every bit as passionate, on the epic, "Let's Call it Love," Carrie Brownstein perfectly captures the spirit of The Woods when she howls: "Show me your darkest side / And you better be my bloody match."
Lucinda Williams (4.5 stars)
Live @ the Filmore
Recorded over three nights in November 2003 at the legendary San Francisco club, Lucinda Williams burns, rages, weeps and wails through the fruits of her labors. Actually, even on "Fruits of My Labor" Williams does not seem to be enjoying herself. In fact, Williams' characters are hard-drinking, doomed and abusive, and throughout these performances Williams seems to see eye to eye with each and every one of them. The result is a live album that pushes to the fore the emotion of the songs on her remarkable string of studio discs that started with her breakthrough, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. In short, this is an intense, no-holds-barred delivery with Williams always putting feeling over perfection, making this disc a better experience for the committed, rather than for the casual fan. But if you can be casual about songs as beautiful, brilliant and passionate as "I Lost It," "Righteously," "Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings" and "Those Three Days," then there is a hole in your soul and you absolutely need to be listening to more Lucinda Williams.
Better Than Ezra (3.5 stars)
Before the Robots
For a band known by many as a one-hit wonder (for "Good," from their 1995 debut, Deluxe), Better Than Ezra have amassed a remarkably dedicated fanbase, and on their fifth album, Before the Robots, they once again prove themselves as one of the most underrated bands in rock. Lead single "A Lifetime" (revisited from their 2001 album Closer) is already garnering radio play, and deservedly so: It's a hauntingly beautiful song with sweet, melancholy lyrics and a soaring, catchy melody.
The rest of the album is not quite as good as "A Lifetime" nor the other songs from Closer, but it cements leader Kevin Griffin's position as one of the most solid songwriters working in rock right now. Although he's written for everyone from Meat Loaf and Blondie to current radio darling Howie Day, Griffin is best when writing for his own band, and warm, infectious rock songs like "Our Finest Year" and the appropriately Southern-flavored "Southern Thing" should have as much chance as "A Lifetime" to gain airplay.
Robots lacks some of the experimentation of Closer, although the funky, falsetto "Juicy" is sufficiently off-kilter. Closer's quirkier moments were a nice departure, but Better Than Ezra are best at old-fashioned, earnest rock n' roll, and on Before the Robots they deliver that with skill far beyond their one-hit wonder status.
Viking Moses (2.5 stars)
Crosses
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The latest from indie-folk singer Viking Moses, a sometime Las Vegas resident and protégé of buzz artist Devendra Banhart, is an occasionally engaging, mostly soporific collection of lo-fi compositions, including some reworkings of traditional songs. Moses loves, loses and whines about it, and does so in a precious, acoustic guitar way.
Porcupine Tree (3 stars)
Deadwing
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Not bad for a band that began as a joke by singer-guitarist Steve Wilson back in 1987. The prog-rock influences are still here, mixed with a hint of hair-metal and a whiff of '70s balladry. Nothing bad but nothing terribly original, either. But what's the deal with the nearly six minutes of silence at the end of "Glass Arm Shattering"?