SOUNDCHECK

Yusuf


An Other Cup (4 stars)

When I first heard the sweet-sounding chorus, "I go where true love goes/I go where true love goes" from "Heaven/Where True Love Goes" on the new album from Yusuf, I thought, This song is as good as "Peace Train" or "Wild World."

That's right.

In the 1970s, Yusuf Islam went by Cat Stevens. An Other Cup is Yusuf's first pop album in almost 30 years. It's almost as if he picked right up from 1970's Tea for the Tillerman—Yusuf still writes and sings catchy folk-pop songs that brim with emotion and glow with seductive vocal tones and textural colors. There is a Koran-like religious bent to the lyrics, but Cat Stevens always favored songs that sprang from mellow hope, faith and love.

Yusuf's strength has always been his voice. It's a gorgeous tenor that's the aural equivalent of a cup of steaming green tea on a snowy English afternoon. Think Steve Winwood ditching the soul for Peter, Paul and Mary.

The songs on An Other Cup range from the spoken word of "When Butterflies Leave" to the glorious pop of "I Think I See the Light," a song so rhythmic and dynamic, it easily mixes soul, folk, world music, jazz, ragtime and '60s garage Farfisa organ.

Yusuf returns to pop music with a mature, memorable and thoughtful collection of melodic songs.

Incubus


Light Grenades (3 stars)

After taking on politics on their last album, 2004's A Crow Left of the Murder, SoCal rockers Incubus return to the laid-back grooves and feel-good lyrics they're most known for on Light Grenades. A mostly straightforward rock album, Grenades isn't as adventurous as the funky, jazzy rock hybrid of the band's earlier days, but it finds them sounding more confident than ever in their place in the rock pantheon.

That place looks increasingly similar to the one occupied by Pearl Jam, whose longtime producer, Brendan O'Brien, collaborates again with Incubus on this album. Incubus' rock is hard without really approaching metal (the genre they're still often lumped into), with lyrics sometimes obtuse and a little dopey, but often sweet and optimistic ("In spite of this we're doing fine/Even diamonds start as coal," sings Brandon Boyd on "Diamonds and Coal," the album's best track).

The companion pieces "Earth to Bella Part 1" and "Earth to Bella Part 2" contain some of the free-form jamming that Incubus fans have come to expect, but mostly the songs are simple, low-key rockers that showcase the band's songwriting chops and guitarist Mike Einziger's versatility. Even if the title track flirts with politics again, the album overall is as pleasant and easy to take in as Boyd's renowned surfer-dude good looks.

The Game


Doctor's Advocate (3 1/2 stars)

No doubt The Game has the right tools to spit off some of the more stellar albums in hip-hop today—he's skilled, he's learned, and he has a remarkable ability to adopt lyrical styles—but on Doctor's Advocate, he tries much too hard to be his idol, Dr. Dre.

To the point where the album becomes little more than an over-veneration of the man who launched Game's career into the celestial sphere in which it now balances, halfway between superstardom and mundanity. He emulates Dre, he glorifies Dre, he rehashes Dre's lyrics, he says (on "Lookin at You") that "he's a reflection of Dr. Dre in his heyday in the worst way," he laments that Dre is no longer working with him, he features a lineup of guest stars on the album to make up for Dre's absence, he reaches out to Dre in a sentimental track called "Doctor's Advocate" and, in one instance, he raps:

"You would say I was the new Dre/Same Impala, different spokes/Same chronic, just different smoke."

But one thing The Game does—and this in reality makes his sophomore album a good listen—is to invoke the days when rappers kept their work grimy, from beginning to end. Throughout Doctor's Advocate, Game is rough, truculent, unconquerable, and he shows implicit disdain for his contemporaries who glitter their albums with cute songs that are sung more than rapped and that club DJs love to spin. As if Game had taken Eminem to heart when the preeminent rapper of the 21st century said, on The Marshall Mathers LP, "All I see is sissies in magazines smilin'/Whatever happen to wilin' out and bein' violent?"

Moreover, the talent, the musical knowledge, the adaptability—it's all there in The Game's new album, and it's enough to prove that he could create some great work if he'd just concentrate on himself and no one else

JOANNA NEWSOM


YS (3 1/2 stars)

Music isn't normally a game of statistics, but you can tell a lot about Joanna Newsom's second album simply by examining its track total and the timings of its tunes. Comprising only five songs—ranging from seven to nearly 17 minutes in length—Ys barely resembles her 2004 debut The Milk-Eyed Mender, a conventionally structured set of 12 three- to five-minute numbers.

Spin the new disc, and the indie songstress' sophomore effort distances itself even further from its predecessor. Yes, Newsom's gentle harp work remains the instrumental fulcrum, and her baby-girl vocals—though slightly toned down—will still cleave a sizeable aisle between cynics and believers. But lyrically, twisting narratives have replaced quirky witticisms, and string-heavy scores—courtesy of Van Dyke Parks, Brian Wilson's songwriting partner on Smile—have supplanted quiet folk arrangements.

Though the end result feels expectedly fuller than Newsom's earlier work, a distracting Peter and the Wolf quality pervades the four string-aided tracks, while unaugmented song "Sawdust & Diamonds" suggests the project might have been better without Parks' contributions. Even as it is, though, there are more than enough fascinating moments to eclipse the overreaching stretches and command attention from anyone willing to spend a bit of extra time sifting through the arty endeavor.