New Recordings

Weather

(Naïve ***)

nolead ends The mercurial singer / songwriter / bassist Meshell Ndegeocello has moved from pop to jazz to funk with abandon; her albums have been unpredictable, and she long ago ceased attempting to repeat the top-40 success she had back in 1993 dueting with John Mellencamp on a cover of Van Morrison's "Wild Night." Weather, her ninth album, is another twist: It's understated and soulful, a quiet storm of moodiness and atmosphere.

Credit in part goes to producer Joe Henry, who has a knack for dusky soul and creeping tension (heard also on his own excellent new record, Reverie). Credit also to the focus on her gentle singing, often in her upper register, that gives Weather a brooding intimacy, whether on covers from Leonard Cohen or the '70s Stax band the Soul Children or on songs she's cowritten (including one, surprisingly, with industrial rocker Chris Connelly).

- Steve Klinge

nolead begins El Rego
nolead ends nolead begins El Rego
nolead ends nolead begins (Daptone ***1/2)

nolead ends In addition to keeping old-school R&B funk alive via such hardworking contemporary acts as Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley, Brooklyn's Daptone Records has an excellent sideline going as a reissue label, doing particularly estimable work when it comes to unearthing long-lost African musical treasures. Exhibit A was the 2009 release by former Fela band member Pax Nicholas and the Nettey Family, and even more intoxicatingly impressive is this 12-song set by 1960s Beninese soulman Theophile Do Rego, a.k.a. El Rego, a fedora-wearing bandleader who dressed like Tom Landry but made it funky like James Brown. On the most Brownian track, and the only one sung in English, "Feeling You Got," that's guest singer Eddy Black Power grunting like the Godfather of Soul. On the more hypnotic, trance-inducing, John Lee Hooker-simpatico grooves such as "Vive Le Renouveau" or the organ- and horn-fired punchy party track "Achuta," that's El Rego himself singing in a mixture of French and Beninese tribal tongues, and wordlessly shouting out in the global language of irresistible rhythm.

- Dan DeLuca

nolead begins Justice
nolead ends nolead begins Audio Video Disco
nolead ends nolead begins (Elektra ***)

nolead ends France's other arena-rocking electronic duo (the one that isn't Daft Punk), Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay, defined itself on its self-titled debut with a cluttered kitchen-sink full of sound: choppily edited bass lines, distorted synth skronks, and crunching guitar samples. That album was cheesy, but it was good cheese, triple-cream Brie good.

Justice's new album is still luxuriant though not too campy, choppy and fresh with its rococo ripples of Italian disco (the delicious "Helix"), tacky New Wave (the clacking "New Lands") and progressive rock throughout. Big hints of King Crimson, Yes, and Rush are found everywhere on Audio Video Disco, from its blustery guitar riffs to its insistent jagged rhythms to its complex bridges. The epic "Civilization" is the best proof of prog rock dominance here. Most of all, though, there is a new-found sunny spaciousness to the preciously contagious melodies, an openness that allows singers such as Vincent Vendetta of Midnight Juggernauts room to roam.

- A.D. Amorosi

nolead begins Terry Anderson and the Olympic Ass Kickin' Team
nolead ends nolead begins More Smooth Jazz
and Sweet Sweet Jams
nolead ends nolead begins (Doublenaught ****)

nolead ends "I've got every sound that makes you glad to be alive," Terry Anderson declares on "I'm Your Radio." The North Carolinian has been evoking that feeling in us for years. He does it again here - but no, not really with jazz and jams (talk about misleading titles).

Rather, the singer and drummer, with the help of his versatile and increasingly powerful Olympic Ass Kickin' Team, sounds like the disparate but complementary elements of vintage NRBQ all rolled into one - the wild-abandon rock-and-roll of Big Al Anderson (no relation), the sweet pop of Joey Spampinato, and the mad-genius wit of Terry Adams.

He does that, however, while always bringing the bright spark of originality. He's a thoroughly unpretentious lyricist who writes with the color and concision of Chuck Berry and a hook-happy flair. But in some of these new songs, such as "Gambled and Lost," "Not Turning Around," and "I'm Your Radio," you also sense a stronger emotional undertow that gives them a deeper pull amid all the usual fun.

This is music that should be blasting from radios everywhere, but that's another story. In the meantime, as Anderson puts it, again in "I'm Your Radio" - "I know what you want to hear." Does he ever.

- Nick Cristiano

Four the Record

(RCA Nashville ***)

nolead ends "Baggage Claim," the first single from Miranda Lambert's fourth album, finds the 27-year-old Texas native at her feisty best, delivering a kiss-off to her cheating man with a tart vocal that's as tough as the music accompanying it.

That spitfire side of Lambert shows up elsewhere on Four the Record, her fourth solo album, sometimes to good effect ("Same Old You," another kiss-off) and sometimes not (the femme-fatale cliches of "Fastest Girl in Town"). It's a style that flirts with redneck cartoonishness, but Lambert has always been careful not to let it totally define her, and she does it again here.

Not that everything hits the mark: "Fine Tune" trades on automotive double entendres that are as tired as the song's tempo, and "Safe" sounds like generic rock. But "Dear Diamond" and "Nobody's Fool" show Lambert can be as vulnerable as she is combative; "Better in the Long Run," her duet with her husband, fellow country star Blake Shelton, is a rarity - a decent power ballad; and "Easy Living" is a tangy slice of country blues whose spare, acoustic-based arrangement recalls those on Lambert's excellent side project from earlier this year, the Pistol Annies.

- N.C.

The Moon Is Waiting

(Palmetto ***)

nolead ends Trumpeter Tim Hagans says his music is "tightly structured" to achieve "the wildest playing possible."

That's a fair description of this quartet recording, where challenging lines tease and entrance while rockish and searing moments come and go. It's free jazz with constant drive and passion.

Hagans, who used to live in Bucks County, was artistic director of the Norrbotten Big Band in Sweden for 15 years. After leaving that post, he has veered here into small-group territory with cool results.

Guitarist Vic Juris provides some beautiful fills throughout, especially on the bluesy "Boo," where Hagans punctuates his licks with raspy wails. Finnish drummer Jukkis Uotila and bassist Rufus Reid lay down the artistic haze that fuels this eight-cut session. "Wailing Trees," Hagans' tribute to the first day of Hurricane Katrina, is full of gnarly melody and real heat. - Karl Stark

Homage to Maria Callas
Gheorghiu, soprano; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Marc Armiliato conducting.

(EMI Classics ***1/2)

nolead ends At times, Angela Gheorghiu's career has seemed like one big homage to Maria Callas, given that the two singers have several of the same signature roles in common and that Gheorghiu favors 1950s Callas-esque fashions on her album covers. In this disc, Gheorghiu's Callas preoccupation is out in the open, resulting in a hugely inviting album of greatest-hits arias from La Boheme, Faust, Carmen, La Traviata, and others, interpreted at an extremely high level.

Though aria anthologies usually contain a few items learned specifically for the recording, these new recordings have Gheorghiu returning to roles she has sung for years. Her voice is showing its age, but her performances are now deeply considered, maybe not with Callas' intuitive genius, but with her own way of using words, much like Callas' German contemporary, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Whether paying tribute to Callas or not, Gheorghiu has never been more herself, using her lighter, lyrical voice to convey her own kind of vulnerability.

- David Patrick Stearns