Eric Clapton
Back Home (1 star)
It seems Eric Clapton is looking to knock Raffi off his throne. The inside album art on his new Back Home is full of the typical candid shots of Clapton and others at work, peppered with photos of his kids (and one of his sports car, which he presumably loves just as much as a real person), the center photo shows the Clapton clan happy in a play room the size of a small condo, and the first track, "So Tired," praises his wife for doing such a good job with the child-rearin' (and yes, that's a baby crying in the background). This from the man who once brought us songs about drugs ("Cocaine") and murder ("I Shot the Sheriff").
The rest is as schmaltzy, with simpering lyrics ("I'm going left/ Til you lead me to the right") and overproduced compositions that would be more at home in a Jehovah's Witness service than on a rock album. The flip side is a DVD of interviews and performances, and buyers get four guitar picks.
Queen PLUS Paul Rodgers
Return of the Champions (2.5 stars)
Queen guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor have done their best to lend an air of legitimacy to their reunion by getting former Free and Bad Company vocalist Paul Rodgers to sing with them. They're even billing the act as "Queen plus Paul Rodgers" and performing some of Rodgers' own songs live to emphasize that they're not in any way disrespecting late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury.
It doesn't quite work. Return of the Champions, the live album from May, Taylor and Rodgers, is, from its title on down, an obvious nostalgia trip, with its parade of Queen's greatest hits. Although the band (which includes three additional musicians) sounds tight and energetic, Rodgers' voice, which is rich and bluesy, is ill-suited for the material. This isn't Paul Rodgers covering Queen, which might have been interesting; It's Queen played straight with Rodgers singing, and all it does is remind you of how much better Mercury was at it.
Paul van Dyk
The Politics of Dancing 2 (4.5 stars)
Paul van Dyk's first mix compilation in four years once again demonstrates why he is one of the reigning leaders of the electronic-dance world. The two-disc set, a follow-up to his 2001 release, The Politics of Dancing, comprises 32 tracks of seamless songs.
Disc one opens with Alex Gold's dreamy "String Theory" (whose own Backfromabreak—a reference to his near-fatal paragliding accident in 2002—is due out September 20), with Kelly Jones providing backing vocals. From there, unless your eyes are glued to your stereo readout, you'll find it impossible to tell when one song ends and another begins. Instead, the changes creep up on you, nudging your subconcious to say a subtle shift has occurred.
The less trancey and more dancey second disc opens with the single "The Other Side," with Wayne Jackson, formerly of the Dostoyevskys, singing overtop anchoring strings for the eight-plus minutes. The disc is as smooth as the first, and both show van Dyk's constant artistic progression.
Death Cab For Cutie
Plans (4.5 stars)
Death Cab for Cutie create a sound that captures a child's wonder with a tincture of melancholy that is oh-so-very painfully adult.
Unlike Transatlanticism, Plans, the band's major-label debut, succeeds in shedding those rare moments when Death Cab sounded a bit too much like Smashing Pumpkins. Yet, Transatlanticism remains the group's most alluring effort.
This isn't to say Plans is a disappointment; indeed, it is as close to a worthy encore as this fan could hope. Opener "Marching Bands of Manhattan" offers guitarist Christopher Walla's beauteous production that manages to create mysteries and shades worthy of Gibbard's odd lyric flair, which includes repeated imagery and wordplay such as, "Sorrow drips into your life through a pinhole."
Their collaboration has many high points on Plans, including the showstopper "Someday You Will Be Loved." But Walla also knows how to back off, as on "I Will Follow You into the Dark," where a simple acoustic guitar is all that is needed to capture the loving ache of the lyric.