There’s no pop in Demi Lovato’s latest teeny-bopper effort, titled “Demi.” (Rankin)
NYC band Vampire Weekend — Chris Baio (from left), Rostam Batmanglij, Ezra Koenig and Chris Tomson — turns in a rich third album, “Modern Vampires of the City,” but the results lack the rawness and jittery energy of their earlier work. (
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Albums of the Week
Vampire Weekend
“Modern Vampires of the City”
★★ 1/2
THE first two Vampire Weekend albums were jittery, to their benefit — it made the music jump. “Modern Vampires of the City,” their third, expands the group’s sonic palette: opener “Obvious Bicycle,” for example, is full of studio phasing.
Vocalist and lyricist Ezra Koenig is still channeling Paul Simon through music that touches on Simon’s affection for ’50s rock — e.g., the Elvis-style rockabilly of “Diane Young” — and the band are cheeky enough to directly ape Talking Heads’ “Thank You for Sending Me an Angel” on “Worship You.” The end result is rich and rewarding — just not as exciting as before.
Demi Lovato
“Demi”
★ 1/2
THE first few songs on the Disney Channel-bred teen-pop star’s fourth album aren’t completely terrible — “Heart Attack” is both catchy and funny (“Why you want to make me act like a girl?”). But the 20-year-old Lovato needs better supervision: “Nightingale” and “In Case” are two of the worst ballads ever recorded, period — the latter features a hook so grating it’s amazing it got past the demo stage, while the former offers what we can only hope will be 2013’s most God-awful rhyme: “You could be/My sanity.” She’s better off with snappy kiss-offs such as “Something That We’re Not.”
Downloads of the Week
Alice in Chains
“Hollow”
★★
“THE Devil Put Dinosaurs Here” is the grunge band’s second album following the late Layne Staley’s replacement by William DuVall; this cut sounds eerily like vintage Chains. Lines like “All of the colors turn to gray” indicate that if the sound hasn’t changed since the ’90s, why should the lyrics?
John Legend Feat. Rick Ross
“Who Do We Think We Are”
★★ 1/2
THIS opulent slow R&B jam from Legend’s fourth album, “Love in the Future,” is more memorable for the track — ultra-crisp drums, languid wah-wah guitar, female “Oh yeah!” backing vocals — than the song itself. Still, it’s nice to hear Legend stretch his voice, though he strains when he goes super-high.
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
“Retreat!”
★★★
AHEAD of the August release of their fifth album, “Give the People What They Want,” these old-school Brooklyn funkateers come back sounding more Motown than James Brown, thanks to nagging guitar out of the Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hangin’ On.” The 57-year-old Jones shouts engagingly over bold horns.
Mat Zo & Porter Robinson
“Easy”
★★★
OFTEN, the term “EDM” (electronic dance music) refers to stuff like this — gooey synth chords, a gauzy vocal sample (“ ’Cause loving you is easy”) and big, bombastic beats with no syncopation. But Londoner Zo and Chapel Hill, NC’s Porter Robinson make the cheesiness work with sheer stomping enthusiasm.
12th Planet & Mayhem
“Murdaaa”
★★
LONGTIME dubstep producers 12th Planet (from LA) and Mayhem (Atlanta) put together this raging dance track, with dark-cloud synthesizers dotting a broad sonic landscape while allowing the listener some breathing room. There’s less of that than you’d hope at the big outdoor dance festivals — where this OK track may yet prove itself.