ADELE “21”
4 STARS
Adele Adkins swept onto the scene in 2008, when she was just 19, and made England swoon with the power of her husky, soulful voice. On her second album, Adele’s soul skills are just as keen, and are tempered with enough country and blues to channel Bonnie Raitt. It’s a wonderfully organic album that makes zero concessions to current Auto-Tuned pop trends, and includes no gimmicky duets. The 11-song record opens with a stomp called “Rolling in the Deep” — its Gothic country melody intensified by a solid, simple drum line, and Adele’s singing as if she’s a force of nature. For the tune in which Adele most resembles Raitt, check out the slow-jam blues of the heartfelt “Take It All.”
PJ HARVEY “Let England Shake”
3 1/2 STARS
Maybe you have to be a Brit for maximum appreciation of Polly Jean Harvey’s new record, a concept album that plays like a love letter to England. But we who don’t know our bangers from our mash can still appreciate the intense, haunting beauty of the music. The title-track opener, with its marimba percussion, sounds as if she’s trying to conjure ghosts in a castle. Then, with a flip of attitude, she toys with a Nirvana-like arrangement on “The Last Living Rose” — an anglophile’s anthem that opens with the line “God damn Europeans, take me back to beautiful England.” The blues- and folk-tinted rock contains a melancholy that seeps into almost all the songs like the damp cold of an English winter. But don’t let PJ’s sadness hold you back. “Let England Shake” ranks among her finest work.
THE STROKES “Under Cover of Darkness” (single)
3 1/2 STARS
If “Under Cover of Darkness” — the first peek at the Strokes’ new record — is telling, this hometown band has rediscovered the magic that made the group’s 2001 debut, “Is This It,” one of the most memorable of the last decade. “Darkness” is infused with the classic Strokes sound: Julian Casablancas’ rock-anthem vocals spitting lyrics such as “We got the right to live/fight to use it” while Albert Hammond’s jangly electric guitar tests the boundaries of traditional rock with quirky riffs. This is a terrific tease for the full album, “Angles,” due next month.
BRIGHT EYES “The People’s Key”
3 STARS
“If there’s no such thing as time, then you’re already there” are the opening spoken words to Conor Oberst’s new record. The cryptic language reflects a psychotic paranoia, with which the narrator lets us in on the secret that in ancient times, the lizard people came to Earth and tried to take over. Huh? Bizarre chatter and rants aside, Bright Eyes has made a very good 10-song listen that’s melodic in a Fountains of Wayne way. More radio-friendly than anything else in Oberst’s songbook, this record finds its highs in songs including “Shell Games,” as well as the Bowie-esque ballad “Approximate Sunlight” and the breezy rock song “Triple Spiral.”