CD Report

Ponies in the Surf
PONIES ON FIRE
Asaurus
Last year's first EP from Ponies in the Surf, ''A Demonstration," turned out to be just that: a mere glimmer of what the brother-sister duo of Alex and Camille McGregor would later accomplish. The genteel acoustic guitar and entrenched sibling harmonies that once buoyed the band's songs no longer feel adequate to support what the pair has created on its stunning full-length debut, ''Ponies on Fire." The album certainly is more fully realized and produced, starting with less emphasis on the band's twee indie-pop leanings and more reliance on strong arrangements for a full band. There are interludes (the parlor ballad ''Piano Intermission") that usher one song to the next, and the McGregors aren't afraid to go it alone on a few tunes. Camille, fully emerging from her big brother's shadow, gets a pair of the album's best songs -- the haunting ''Joe" and the gauzy ''Slow Down Sugar" -- all to herself on vocals, and they're real gems. The McGregors are still interested in gospel songs that aren't so much religious as they are fervent. On the EP it was Linda Rich's ''More to Living"; here it's ''Sing My Lord," replete with its galloping folk guitar. Meanwhile, ''Aviary" is unlike anything the McGregors have ever tried, and it's easily the most complicated and evocative song in their repertoire. Its psych-folk noodlings and cascading overdubs bring to mind the Beach Boys, circa ''Sunflower." It confirms what we suspected all along: These are no one-trick Ponies.
JAMES REED

Dion
BRONX IN BLUE
Dimensional Music Recordings
Dion DiMucci has the blues. And by his own admission, he's had 'em for a while, since he was a kid, in fact, listening to the masters on whatever radio station he could pull in at night, and tuning in for the white man's blues (especially his favorite, Hank Williams) every day after school. Dion went on to play a not insignificant role in the early days of the musical genre produced when the blues and country got together, first as a doo-wopping teen idol, and then with harder-edged rock 'n' roll. Even then, the blues were never entirely absent from his music, whether on hits such as ''The Wanderer" (as the echoes in ''I Let My Baby Do That," one of the two original songs on this release, make clear) or in his occasional full-blown detour in that direction. But with ''Bronx in Blue," the singer circles back to the beginning -- to his beginnings -- for a set of lean (just Dion and his acoustic guitar, with drums added on a few tracks), vibrant country-blues versions of standards from the masters he went to school with -- Robert Johnson and Howling Wolf, Jimmy Reed and Jimmie Rogers, Hank Williams and rock 'n' roll founding father Bo Diddley. This is no vanity- or career-revival project along the lines of the Rod Stewart standards or Michael McDonald Motown releases. Rather, it's a remarkable return to first principles that demonstrates how well Dion learned his lessons 50-plus years ago.
STUART MUNRO

Cabruêra
PROIBIDO COCHILAR>Piranha
Six musicians from northeastern Brazil integrate local musical styles -- forró, coco, maracatú, baião -- into a crazy collage that's as much a lesson on how to preserve traditions as on how to mix them up. This pleasingly agitated collection lives up to its title, which translates as ''sleeping prohibited," and then some. Though the African beats and assorted whoops and hollers evoke late nights on the region's sugar plantations and farms, it's also easy to imagine most of these tracks remixed by a deep-house DJ. Cabruêra means ''group of goats," which well suits this omnivorous crew. Leader Arthur Pessoa, a cultural anthropologist, rubs a ballpoint pen on the strings of his guitar for a hypnotic, propulsive sound inspired by the Guarani indigenous people; on one track, vocalist Zé Guilherme, a Buddhist and art professor, incants excerpts from ''Dialectic of Enlightenment," by the modernist philosophers Horkheimer and Adorno. Critical theory never sounded so good.
SIDDHARTHA MITTER

P.O.D.
TESTIFY
Atlantic
A lot of P.O.D.'s fans have moved away from their spiritually infused rap metal and on to emo, sceamo, and so on. But P.O.D. was always about more than trends, and on their new set the San Diego rockers maintain their pile-driving sound with a few tweaks to help them sustain their vision (and, by extension, their careers). The biggest change is that they're working with hit maker Glen Ballard; he helps shape their chaotic tendencies and bring down the bloat a couple of notches. The guitars are still aggressive but not bludgeoning. This mirrors the growth in their lyrics, which deal with commitment and faith and are more sharply etched and potent than they've been in the past. P.O.D. has always searched out a way to live a vital, impassioned life in a culture that's become comfortably numb. To help out, the band brings in the Hasidic MC Matisyahu. He offers a heady vibe on ''Roots in Stereo" as well as the reggae rocker ''Strength of My Life." It almost feels as if he's an extension of the group. Also aboard are the long-lost Boo Yaa Tribe, and they bring their unique take on the modern world to the proceedings with ''On the Grind." No doubt, the testament according to P.O.D. still has power.
KEN CAPOBIANCO

The Gossip
STANDING IN THE WAY OF CONTROL
Kill Rock Stars
The Gossip just wrapped up quite the year. These dance-punk darlings, who throw down soulful garage rock with a kicking beat, relocated from Olympia, Wash., to Portland, Ore., got a new drummer, and were sidelined when singer Beth Ditto fell ill. Still a diva of the Aretha Franklin school, who sings as if she was raised on gospel and weaned on heartbreak, Ditto shows greater restraint on the band's third full-length release. Produced by Fugazi's Guy Piccioto and Ryan Hadlock at Bear Creek Studios in Seattle (where Lionel Richie recorded ''Dancing on the Ceiling"), the album makes the most of this moderation by revealing nuanced emotion in Ditto's vocals and highlighting the tension between her full-throated style and the band's taut sound. On the album opener, ''Fire With Fire," Ditto hits high notes and struts over Hannah Blilie's drum-corps beat. ''Coal to Diamonds" finds Ditto's raw, torch-song lament gliding over guitarist Brace Paine's sinuous riff. ''Dark Lines" sounds like a bad seed version of Peggy Lee's ''Fever." Having weathered the storms, the Gossip dances on with confidence.
SARAH TOMLINSON