Albums of the Week
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
“Mosquito”
★★★
YEAH Yeah Yeahs seemed limited when they emerged in the early 2000s, but they’ve become one of the widest-ranging bands from that period’s NYC rock explosion. On “Mosquito,” their fourth album, they try some reggae (“Under the Earth”), throw a choir onto “Sacrilege,” and feature rapper Dr. Octagon on “Buried Alive.”
Everything may not work, but none of it (not even a guest MC) gets in the way of a solidly listenable album. It isn’t as galvanizing as their 2003 debut, “Fever To Tell,” or as graceful as 2009’s “It’s Blitz!” — but it’s deep enough to hide its best track, “Despair,” near the end.
The Flaming Lips
“The Terror”
★★
SAY this much for the Flaming Lips: Most bands at their level would play it a lot safer. “The Terror,” the Oklahoma psych-rockers’ 13th album, is as willfully weird as any of their scrappy early work, though given the sentiment of songs such as the title track and “You Are Alone,” it’s also a lot less pleasant.
The music is menacing and creepy: a bad-trip sci-fi soundtrack, with repetitive grooves that eventually grow claustrophobic through layered synths and guitar, with charismatic lead singer Wayne Coyne mostly buried in the static. Curiously, he sounds as if he enjoys it there.
Downloads of the Week
Daft Punk Feat. Pharrell Williams
“Get Lucky”
★★★★
AFTER months of teases — 15-second snippets here, a billboard there — the French dance giants unveil the first single from May’s “Random Access Memories.” It’s a jewel: Pharrell croons more fetchingly than usual over a groove that’s pure futurist “Thriller,” while Jersey native (and production genius) Todd Edwards cuts up the chorus.
Psy
“Gentleman”
★★★
THE Korean star follows “Gangnam Style” with another instant YouTube phenomenon (more than 70 million views and counting), in which he pulls chairs from under people, cavorts poolside with a line of bikini-clad dancers and ultimately meets his feminine match, wiggling hips all the while. The song is just as silly — and ultimately just as likable.
Kid Cudi Feat. Too Short
“Girls”
★
WHAT’S worst about this track from Cleveland rapper Cudi’s third album, “Indicud”? The nothing beat? Guest Too Short telling a half-black, half-Thai girl to “open up those exotic thighs”? Nope, it’s a monotonous chorus (“I see pretty girls everywhere I go, every-everywhere I go”) that sounds even lazier than it reads.
Fall Out Boy
“The Phoenix”
★★
COMING off a four-year hiatus, these arena-emo rockers offer a clever chorus: “I’m going to change you like a remix/And I’ll raise you, like a phoenix.” But guitarist-singer Patrick Stump’s theater-kid over-enunciation — not to mention the over-the-top music — render it, and the rest, cumbersome.
Ghostface Killah and Adrian Younge
“Murder Spree”
★★ 1/2
TEAMING with soundtrack composer Adrian Younge for a conceptual album, “12 Ways To Die,” the Wu-Tang Clan’s finest MC assembles a handful of Wu associates for a taut but not terrifically memorable threat of bodily harm. Younge’s tense piano and fizzing beat are the draw here.
Carla Bruni
“Chez Keith et Anita”
★★★
HONESTLY, if you didn’t know Carla Bruni was an ex-supermodel and the wife of one-time French president Nicolas Sarkozy, this lilting tune would catch your ear anyway — even if you don’t speak a word of French. Start-stop horns subtly wind through acoustic guitar strumming and Bruni’s dryly understated voice.
Charli XCX
“What I Like”
★★★
THIS 20-year-old London pop singer-songwriter’s debut album, “True Romance,” comes after a bunch of appealing singles, including her hit Icona Pop collaboration “I Love It.” This ode to smoking weed on the bedroom floor with her mate feels offhanded, despite the vocal effects and moody synths.
Jessie Ware
“Imagine It Was Us”
★★★
THIS young UK soul-pop star, whose music leans heavily on sleek dance beats provided by an array of underground production stars — in this case, Julio Bashmore — added a couple of extras to the long-delayed US edition of her superb debut, “Devotion.” This one’s sharp-edged disco with huge drums.
Willie Nelson and Family
“I Wish I Didn’t Love You So”
★★ 1/2
WILLIE Nelson singing a standard tends to be a surefire formula. The country legend tackles a few more on the new “Let’s Face the Music and Dance,” and this tune, a ’40s hit for Betty Hutton, is elegant and charming, if a little creaky vocally (well, of course — he’s nearly 80).