CD reviews

R&B

Airpushers

Themes for

the Ordinarily Strange

(Sarathan) ESSENTIAL

With a song title like “Who Goes to Hooters on Easter?” one might mistake this West Coast duo for some “Weird Al” Yankovic knockoff. And while there is a fair bit of quirkiness here, the true influences for this eclectic twosome are such funky groups as Booker T. & the MGs and the Average White Band. Multi-instrumentalists Printz Board and Tim Izo Orindgreff made their bones as members of the Black Eyed Peas’ band as well as working with such artists as Mariah Carey, Macy Gray, and Christina Aguilera. For their debut, they’ve designed every track for the dance floor, relying more on real instruments than canned samples. And that gives their music a spontaneous sizzle, whether it’s the Latin-meets-Bollywood thump of “Pollo Masala Disco Express” or the blue-light cool of “Hold the Onions.” Vocalist MoZella adds a breezy vintage sound to the understated “Music Fight,” while “Push That Air” is a horn-driven rap jam that recalls the heyday of A Tribe Called Quest, especially that classic hip-hop trio’s “Jazz (We’ve Got).” With a giddy musicality flowing from hip-hop to jazz , from soul to dub, Airpushers manage to show off their considerable skills without, thankfully, taking themselves too seriously.

[Renée Graham]

DANCE

The Whitest Boy Alive

Dreams

(Asound/Bubbles)

This latest take on 1980s dance rock is the work of hyperactive Norwegian Erlend Oye , the same gent who is one-half of Kings of Convenience and who has crafted an alternative musical personality serving tech-pop hors d'oeuvres to the indie-rock crowd. The Whitest Boy Alive falls somewhere between the two. It's Kings of Convenience after a latte. Oye plays guitar and fronts the German-based TWBA, singing in a melancholy voice that perpetually sounds like a university librarian lamenting the final days of summer vacation. When that voice harmonizes with Erik Glambek Boe (from Kings of Convenience), it's like a glorious Scandinavian rebirth of Simon and Garfunkel. But with the Whitest Boy Alive, Oye simply sounds maudlin. The occasional moments when he and his band tighten the sagging mood, such as "Fireworks," show what the Whitest Boy Alive doesn't need to be so pale.

ESSENTIAL "Burning"

[Christopher Muther]

COUNTRY SOUL

Solomon Burke

Nashville

(Shout! Factory) Solomon Burke isn't exactly a stranger to country music. His first big hit, 1961's "Just Out of Reach ( Of My Two Empty Arms)," was a cover of a song by Bakersfield honky-tonker Wynn Stewart. But, as Burke himself has noted, it didn't sound like country music. Nor did his subsequent forays into similar country-soul territory. So "Nashville" is something entirely new. The Nashville he is visiting isn't mainstream Music City; Burke's primary collaborator, producer Buddy Miller , has assembled a cast of cohorts from the alternative side of the country aisle to support him. It isn't Burke doing country standards, either. The closest thing to that is his jaw-dropping, stripped-down take on Tom T. Hall's "That's How I Got to Memphis." Instead, he draws material mainly from contemporary songwriters such as Gillian Welch , Patty Griffin , Jim Lauderdale , and Miller. The results -- one of the greatest soul men singing contemporary country and classic honky- tonk, bluegrassy acoustic country and bluesy Americana, gospelized country-soul , and even some dreamy countrypolitan -- add another chapter to a musical career that is evidently far from finished.

ESSENTIAL "That's How I Got to Memphis"

[Stuart Munro]

METAL

Mastodon

Blood Mountain

Reprise "Blood Mountain," the major-label debut of prog-metal emperors Mastodon , takes the concept album to a new level, literally. It's a mythic, fantastical journey to the top of an icy mountain to secure a magical crystal that will transport the band to the next stage of evolution. (Now , stay with me.) Renowned for its consummate musicianship and fanatical following, Mastodon has been credited with creating a new brand of metal that satisfies and provokes both metalheads and alt-rock aficionados: heavy metal that has an impact on both sides of the brain, if you will. The band begins the voyage with "The Wolf Is Loose," propelled by Brann Dailor's intricate drumming and a colossal, rolling wall of guitars. It flexes some muscle on "Capillarian Crest ," welding unconventional time changes with staccato rhythms, forging a disconcerting, dominating sound. Finally, the album peaks with the triumphant "Siberian Divide," as the thrashing lyrics and music vividly illustrate the group's voyage ending in a whirlwind of anger, violence, and horror.

ESSENTIAL "Siberian Divide"

[Matt Landry]

HIP-HOP

Method Man

4:21 . . . The Day After

Def Jam If nothing else, the one thing you learn from listening to this strong return to form from the Wu-Tang Clan's Method Man is that the MC reads his press. The whole record is basically dedicated to Meth's declaration that he hasn't lost his game and that he's still a splendid spitter. "Ya'll dumb enough to think that Meth's number's up" he snarls on the opener, "Intro," and most of the track s are a reiteration of that idea. For the most part, the songs work as Meth displays all the grimy charm and gritty, witty wordplay that once made him one of hip-hop's most celebrated MCs. He has taken a critical drubbing in recent years, but the truth is that he has indeed been spinning his wheels with sloppy songs, meanwhile turning his persona into a cartoon with his extracurricular media exploits. Here the rhymes are taut and vivid, most especially when he is goosed by his fellow Wu-Tangers Raekwon and RZA on "Presidential MC" and Raekwon again with LA the Darkman on the disc's best track, "The Glide." Redman , whose reputation has taken a hit similar to Meth's, appears on the hot-wired "Walk On," which reminds you of the great chemistry these two have. The most resonant cameo is from the glorious Lauryn Hill , who adds gravity and grace to "Say," on which Meth offers up some of his sharpest one-liners. One real misfire is the gloppy ballad "Let's Ride" with Ginuwine . The all-star production throughout is first rate, as folks like Erick Sermon return the MC to the dirty soundscapes of his heyday. Meth clearly has an ax to grind, and some of this cuts pretty deeply. The anger sounds genuine once again. Method Man plays at Avalon on Nov. 7.

ESSENTIAL "Say"

[Ken Capobianco]

AMERICANA

Hazmat Modine

Bahamut

Barbès/Geckophonic

Klezmer, New Orleans brass, Jamaican rocksteady, Southern blues, and maybe a dozen other direct influences bounce happily along together in the debut album from Brooklyn ensemble Hazmat Modine, a band of joyous pranksters who are also whip-smart musical historians. The harmonicas of leader Wade Schuman and Randy Weinstein front the operation, backed by everything from steel guitar to the rare claviola and contrabass saxophone. The evolving cast of "Hazmaticians," who ' ve been at this for seven years, think of their work as a celebration of American music and its ramshackle history of constantly melding influences. This statement of opposition to the tyranny of genre works -- partly because the story it tells is true and mostly because this is one tight, kicking band that has infused its recording with the energy of live performance. Unlike some other products of the hotbed of hipness that is Brooklyn, Hazmat doesn't trade on retro-chic but does the hard work of investigating how we came to swing the way we do. (Having a tuba helps.) And the appearance on three songs of the Tuvan throat singers Huun-Huur-Tu , whose contribution to Americana is nascent at best, mischievously subverts the whole enterprise.

ESSENTIAL "Everybody Loves You"

[Siddhartha Mitter]