Merle sounds none too Haggard at 74.
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Album of the week
FEIST
“Metals”
***1/2
Leslie Feist, who rocketed to stardom on the wings of the iPod ad tune “1234,” returns today with “Metals,” a dozen tracks of diverse iPop set on shuffle.
While none of these songs instantly latches onto your ear like her 2007 counting classic, the album is consistently pretty, featuring mid-tempo melodies that favor the female alt-folk movement. Feist is a Canadian musical chameleon. On the song “Comfort Me,” she reminds you of Tori Amos — thoughtful in lyrics, poised in delivery and vocally precise. The song “A Commotion” is from the PJ Harvey school of rock, edgy and bottom heavy. And there is a Judy Collins-style gentleness in her technique on the final track, “Get It Wrong, Get It Right.”
The arrangements are pleasantly atmospheric — almost Enya-esque at times — peppered with harp-like string plucks, echo-y backup harmonies and sparse and dynamic percussion.
As beautiful as the melodies are, there is a thread of lyrical sadness from the first tune, “The Bad in Each Other,” through the last. In “Bad,” one of the album’s best tracks, Feist sings about a self-destructive relationship.
Without listening to the words too closely, this is an album of uplifting and inspired compositions that could accompany a bottle of hearty red and a deep orange sunset. But those who are ready to plumb the lovelorn despair of the lyrics will enjoy the built-in boo-hoo.
Download of the week
MERLE HAGGARD
“Working in Tennessee”
****
DEFYING time, Merle Haggard, 74, is in his prime on his latest album, “Working in Tennessee.” On the disc’s title track and top tune, about a guitar picker trying to make it in Nashville, the Hag sings in his smooth Bakersfield baritone, “I went down to be a star/and wound up hocking my old guitar.” Despite the loser lyrics, the song is pure optimism, saying you never win if you don’t take a chance. The melody mirrors that upbeat notion, with a bright country swing so fat with fiddle breaks and brushed drums that it sounds as if Haggard is channeling Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.