Downloads of the Week
Caleb Johnson
“Only One”
★ ½
The 23-year-old “American Idol” Season 13 winner sings like a Chris Cornell-worshiping ham.
This machine-tooled power ballad from Johnson’s debut album, “Testify,” has all the spontaneity of repainting an apartment, and feels about as arduous, especially when he charges through “Faw me! Faw me!” — that’s “for” — on the chorus.
Kris Allen
“Young Love”
★★ ½
A 2009 “American Idol” winner also returns this week. The opening track of Allen’s new “Horizons,” “Young Love” is a folk-rock song with a lightly Celtic touch via a nicely tangy lead guitar.
He sings with commitment, but the song itself feels slighter than the lean arrangement makes it sound.
Porter Robinson
“Flicker”
★★★
Robinson, a young electronic-dance producer, is both a melodist and a maximalist. This highlight from his debut album, “Worlds,” overloads the tinny synths on the chorus till they buzz like static, but they also have room to breathe.
So does the Japanese vocal sample, which sounds good even if you don’t know a word of Japanese.
FKA twigs
“Two Weeks”
★★★ ½
This Jamaican-British R&B singer-songwriter’s breakout hit from “LP1” has a truly amazing video, with Twigs as a sun goddess in one long, slow shot that reveals new details every few seconds.
The song does much of the same — it seems droning at first, then the details get richer and more fulfilling.
FaltyDL
“Heart & Soul”
★★★
New Yorker Drew Lustman’s dance-music alter ego made a number of lovely electronic records as FaltyDL. “Heart & Soul,” from the new album “In the Wild,” is both mysterious and catchy.
Its high-pitched vocal sample is an enticing blob as strings soar and a crisp breakbeat gives it definition.