Dashboard Confessional
Dusk and Summer (3 stars)
At this point, Dashboard Confessional's Chris Carrabba has very little in common with the emo and post-hardcore bands he inspired when he first left Further Seems Forever and picked up an acoustic guitar in 2000. While his peers are embracing heavy guitars and screaming their hearts out, Carrabba's expanded his sound in a much more lush and traditional direction. He's no longer recording by himself with an acoustic guitar, but Carrabba is still the king of sensitivity and heartache. "My heart is sturdy," he sings on "Reason to Believe," "but it needs you to survive." At least it's a step forward.
Although Carrabba has always been deft at expressing his emotions (and that's what attracted such a dedicated following to his music), Dusk and Summer's full-band arrangements and glossy production show him only one step removed from such wuss-rock titans as the Goo Goo Dolls, Coldplay and Counting Crows (whose Adam Duritz shows up on "So Long, So Long"). There's a thin line between genuine emotion and schmaltz, and Dusk and Summer walks that line very carefully. For Carrabba's fans, the album will be another welcome catharsis, and for pop listeners, it'll be familiar and appealing radio fodder.
Kraak and Smaak
Boogie Angst (4 stars)
The press release wants to make one thing clear: This Dutch trio's name is taken from an old proverb meaning "neither here nor there" and is not, repeat, not a drug reference. But if it were a drug reference, the name of DJ Wim, Mark Kneppers and Oscar de Jong's threesome would be more along the lines of Martinis and Mushrooms. In other words, less urban and more urbane; hip lounge, not hip-hop.
Boogie Angst, a dozen tracks of addictive, funky breaks, is the band's North American debut—and the only question is what took so long? The album sets the mood fast with the opening, Shaftastic track "Money In the Bag," a tongue-in-cheek homage to funk, with sampled moans, electric guitar and percussion. It's followed by "One of These Days," a riff off an old, rural blues number yanked into the modern age with horn stabs and keyboard and drumming arabesques. Bursts of flute and tambourine sound through the house-ish "Keep Me Home." A brass wall of sound is thrown up in "Say Yeah," and hints of the Orient via Harlem filter into "Mambo Solitario."
In the same way Italian duo Gabin breathed new life into '50s era lounge, these three lads from Holland energize '70s-era funk and groove, creating an infectious, hook-filled album as habit-forming as any illicit white substance.
Johnny Cash
American V: A Hundred Highways (3 stars)
Johnny Cash brought everything he knew about aging and dying into his performance of "Hurt," from American IV: The Man Comes Around. The musical equivalent of a hairshirt, Cash's "Hurt" was perfect annunciation of Trent Reznor's song. And it was not a fluke. In his final years, dying was very much Cash's preoccupation and subject as a recording artist.
On American V: A Hundred Highways, Cash clings to his songs as if he is singing each one as his last gasp. At times painful, at times beautiful, the sly gallows humor of "Like the 309," the spiritual embrace of "I'm Free From the Chain Gang Now" and the intimate appeal to God in "Help Me," all demonstrate that on Hundred Highways, Cash is intent on making you partake in his suffering in order to experience the pleasure he takes in his departure.
TONY ALLEN
Lagos No Shaking (3.5 stars)
As drummer and musical right hand to the late, great Fela Kuti throughout the 1970s, Tony Allen stands as the most authentic source—yes, including Fela's heralded son, Femi—of old-school Afrobeat in the world today. If for no other reason, that makes the latest of his infrequent solo albums a must-hear for fans of the Nigerian-born sub-genre.
At times, Lagos No Shaking sounds as if it might have been recorded when Fela ruled the scene. Staccato horns and back-and-forth African vocals bounce atop an ever-thumping bassline on opener "Ise Nla," while "Aye Le" tones down the funk for a trimmer, yet no less playful, sound.
In other places on the 11-track disc, Allen pushes into more contemporary territory, with somewhat mixed results. Female singer Yinka Davies ramps up the fun factor with her Pidgin English on "Morose" (chorus: "Don't morose your face/Stop morose-ing"), but her other lead vocal, "Losun," suffers from over-glossed production, as does poppy '80s throwback "One Tree."
Afrobeat newcomers would, of course, be best served starting with Fela's '70s output, along with Allen's own Jealousy/Progress. Those who've already fallen in love with the classics, however, should find the drummer's latest worthwhile.