Albums of the Week
Miranda Lambert
“Platinum”
★★★½
Nashville star Lambert’s fifth album is her most ostentatiously wide-ranging. It’s also long (16 songs, and an hour) and therefore doesn’t pack the sustained punch of 2007’s “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” or 2009’s “Revolution.” But it’s still one of the most assured collections anyone will make this year.
Think country music is limited? Lambert tries on more styles than Rihanna during Fashion Week: quoting Jane’s Addiction (“Little Red Wagon” cribs from “Been Caught Stealin’ ”), veers into Western swing (“All That’s Left,” with the Time Jumpers), and on “Smokin’ and Drinkin’ ” (with Little Big Town), crafting the soft-rock Fleetwood Mac summer jam of your dreams.
Parquet Courts
“Sunbathing Animal”
★★★★
Parquet Courts hold the sharpest appeal to fans of ’90s indie rock — their songs make overt winks at bands such as Pavement and Silkworm. But they’re not just tricks — the Brooklyn quartet’s songs are sharp, tight and feel utterly theirs even if you recognize the referents.
On their second widely available album, Austin Brown and Andrew Savage’s flat everyguy vocals and frayed guitars zigzag without seeming haphazard — even the songs that are shorter than two minutes feel fully fleshed out. On “Black and White,” Savage’s vocal tone is so exasperated it’s funny; on the beautiful “Instant Disassembly,” it can break your heart.
Downloads of the Week
Drake
“0 to 100/The Catch Up”
★★½
This new SoundCloud upload offers two sides of the same coin via its two-songs-in-one structure. Both the quick “0 to 100” and the slower “The Catch Up” are state-of-Drake’s-ego addresses, the latter promising: “I’m only 27, and I’m only getting better/Watch me catch up now.” The words, as ever, are better than the voice.
Warning: Graphic language
Bob Mould
“I Don’t Know You Anymore”
★★★
Bob Mould has made lots of kinds of music, but he really does sound best when he’s getting annoyed about a broken heart via a bouncy melody and noisy guitars. From his 10th solo album, this fits that bill handily — the tune catches quickly through cloudy six-strings.
Meshell Ndegeocello
“Friends”
★★½
From the bassist-singer’s 11th album, “Comet, Come To Me,” this is one of the oddest cover versions of recent years — Whodini’s mid-’80s R&B-rap crossover hit turned into a shifting backdrop for a handful of vocal styles (whispering, deadpan, sped-up). It’s hard to love, but it’s definitely original and arresting.
Lucy Hale
“You Sound Good to Me”
★★
Young TV actress Hale — she competed on Fox’s “American Juniors” in 2003 and co-starred on “Pretty Little Liars” — goes country on her debut album, “Road Between.” She sings this sprightly advance single convincingly — but that isn’t saying much, because this is as generic as feel-good country gets.
50 Cent feat. Jadakiss & Kidd Kidd
“Irregular Heartbeat”
★★
Teasing his fifth album, “Animal Ambition,” out Tuesday, with this very quiet, very minimal track on which the rapper practically whispers his threats — making them all the more effective — is a bold move. The track clips along nicely and the rhymes about social-media cowards have snap, but mainly it’s just more boasting.
Warning: Graphic language
F–ked Up
“Sun Glass”
★★½
The Toronto hardcore punk group, led by the charismatic screamer (and Fox News regular) Damian Abraham, makes sprawling music, with multiple guitars thickening a sound already heavy with Abraham’s voice. The lead single from their fourth album, “Glass Boys,” is almost carefree and sunny sounding, screams aside.