MUSIC REVIEWS: Pop, country/roots, jazz and classical releases

last updated: October 30, 2007 04:28:14 PM

Pop:

WEEN "La Cucaracha" (Rounder, 3 ½ stars)

They say actors are the ultimate existentialist icons because they get to have many lives, while the rest of us have to settle for just one. Similarly, there is something admirable about Ween's 25-year quest for the ultimate buzz, musical or otherwise, and their Zelig-like ability to utterly inhabit any genre they choose - country, metal, funk, psychedelia, even jazz - and satirize it at the same time. That's again the case with "La Cucaracha," the 11th full-length collection by Dean and Gene Ween. It's yet another peerless revolving-genre spin-cycle that includes but is not limited to: Santana-esque prog; faux-sexist redneck-rock; woozy nitrous-soaked pop; "Looney Tunes" country & western; deep-dish dub reggae; and a couple of baroque-pop charmers. Detractors tend to dismiss Ween as a "South Park" lounge band, making music for people who never got over Mad magazine. But given the size, scope, and authenticity of their put-ons, I'd say Dean and Gene Ween are something closer to Zen tricksters than holy fools.

-Jonathan Valania

ANGIE STONE "The Art of Love & War" (Stax, 3 stars)

It's telling that Angie Stone is one of the first signings to the reconstituted Stax Records. The Mississippi-born R&B label and the South Carolina-raised soul singer were cut from the same raw cloth, with hints of silk within their funky fabric. The confessional lyricist with the powerful pipes (a producer/multi-instrumentalist, too) has always been the creme of old-school soul with just a hint of hip-hop. Yet after two platinum albums, Stone's third (2004's "Stone Love") got lost in the dreaded post-NeoSoul shuffle. She's back to form here. Stone's "Art" plays with jazzy tones bluntly bopping on "Play Wit It" (written with Patrice Rushen) and windingly grand on "These Are the Reasons." Her stormy but buoyant "Baby" (featuring Betty Wright) and smoky "Here We Go Again" are romantic mid-tempo R&B at its most lustrous. There are obvious clunkers, like the bland "My People" with a syrupy James Ingram and a kid choir. There are some lulls here, too. Get it into your head: Stone doesn't trill like the kids and doesn't do drama like Mary J. Then again, she doesn't have to.

-A.D. Amorosi

ROBERT PLANT/ALISON KRAUSS "Raising Sand" (Rounder, 3 ½ stars)

The collaboration between the Golden God of Led Zeppelin and the dulcet-voiced bluegrass fiddler seems unlikely on the surface, but works like a beautifully sorrowful dream. The third finger in the pie belongs to T-Bone Burnett, and, as usual, the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" producer makes everything sound like it was recorded in a Smoky Mountain cabin. The all-covers song selection (the lone exception being the Plant-cowritten "Please Read the Letter") is full up with excellent choices, including a delicately understated reading of Mel Tillis' "Stick With Me Baby," a devilish and almost rocked-out take on Allen Toussaint's "Fortune Teller," and a gorgeously rendered duet on Roly Salley's fabulously melancholy "Killing the Blues." Plant and Krauss' voices twine together effortlessly, and they suffuse everything they sing with mystery. Here's hoping the Zeppelin reunion is this good.

-Dan DeLuca

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Country/roots:

CARRIE UNDERWOOD "Carnival Ride" (Arista, 3 stars)

Carrie Underwood's "Some Hearts" didn't sell an unheard-of (in this downloading age) 6 million copies solely on the strength of her "American Idol" success and girl-next-door appeal. Simon Cowell's favorite heartland honey turned in a well-made debut album that deftly walked the country-pop divide and, in "Before He Cheats," smashed headlights with an expertly delivered blast of girl-done-wrong rage.

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