Wilco
“SKY BLUE SKY”
When Wilco signed up Nels Cline as its guitarist a few years ago, it looked as if the sky was the limit. Wilco’s ability to bend its folk and rock roots with adventurous experimentation had already made it one of the most admired bands, and in Cline it added a musician known for fiercely inventive avant-jazz explorations, as well as more grounded work with rock bands such as Bloc and the Geraldine Fibbers.
Wilco’s first studio album with Cline — and multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone — is the most musically direct and down-to-earth of the band’s six albums.
While the focus is firmly on singer-songwriter Jeff Tweedy, who immediately sets the album’s reflective, philosophical tone on the lilting, folkish “Either Way,” Cline has frequent moments of exquisite guitar work. His agitated interaction with Tweedy’s and/or Sansone’s guitars recall the transcendent architecture of the ’70s band Television.
All this helps compensate for a diminished level of mystery that sometimes leaves the album a little prosaic. Wilco might be down-to-earth, but we don’t want them to be entirely of the earth.
RATING: 3 1/2 SOUND LEVELS
[RICHARD CROMELIN, L.A. TIMES]Rufus Wainwright
“RELEASE THE STARS”
Rufus Wainwright clearly wants his new album, “Release the Stars,” to sound huge. He opens “Do I Disappoint You?” with the not-so-simple question “Do I disappoint you in just being human?” and starts stacking from there. There’s piano tinkling, flute flourishes and a chorus screaming, “Destruction!” Then the strings come in and the horns, and Wainwright’s voice gets louder to face off against the growing din. By the time he reaches the end, “Do I disappoint you?” is no longer a question, it’s a taunt. The grandeur of his surroundings shows that he doesn’t really care how people answer the question. He’s a big enough deal to withstand whatever they throw at him.
RATING: 4 SOUND LEVELS
Gretchen Wilson
“ONE OF THE BOYS”
Don’t give up on Gretchen Wilson’s “One of the Boys” too quickly. Yeah, the first half is frighteningly ordinary, with Wilson packing in a whole lot of average ballads. Once Wilson hits the strutting rocker “There’s a Place in the Whiskey,” she turns up the attitude that made her first two albums such good-time treats. The old-school country-weeper “Pain Killer” holds up well against her best, while “There Goes the Neighborhood” nicely shows off her voice. “Boys” ends up being nice enough, but it doesn’t show any of the spark and wit that Wilson used to become a new country queen.
RATING: 2 SOUND LEVELS
[GLENN GAMBOA, NEWSDAY ]J Dilla
“RUFF DRAFT”
Ruff Draft is J Dilla’s third album since his death 13 months ago. Originally recorded in a one-week session in 2003, “Ruff Draft” was previously released only in Europe. For its U.S. release, it comes with more than a dozen never-heard instrumentals and bonus tracks. It’s a dramatic lunge away from the jazz textures of Dilla’s ’90s work for the Pharcyde, A Tribe Called Quest, Janet Jackson and others. A chaotic spontaneity animates these collisions of ragged drums loops, static-crusted samples and vigorous synthesizer workouts. Accenting those jagged edges is Dilla’s own punctuated flow and flinty baritone.
RATING: 3 SOUND LEVELS
[OLIVER WANG, L.A. TIMES]
