Sound check

POP

Jarvis Cocker

Jarvis
(Rough Trade)
Essential: "I Will Kill Again"

He can go his own way
Here is the silver lining to the demise of Britpop’s best band. After Pulp split up in 2002, their lead singer went very much his own way: Jarvis Cocker moved to France, joined members of Radiohead on a ‘‘Harry Potter’’ soundtrack, and donned a skeleton costume to perform with his electronic act, Relaxed Muscle. On his solo debut, Cocker returns to more familiar pop territory at a high point in his long career as a songwriter. The first full track is a masterfully catchy overhaul of ‘‘Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time,’’ which Cocker originally wrote for Nancy Sinatra to croon on her 2004 self-titled album. ‘‘Black Magic’’ cranks up a sample of Tommy James and the Shondells’ ‘‘Crimson and Clover’’ into an improbable glam-rock stomp that only Cocker (or maybe David Bowie) could pull off. But pop hooks are only the point of entry to a collection of songs that proves nearly as personal, as socially aware, and as deft at intertwining the two, as was Pulp’s 1998 opus, ‘‘This Is Hardcore.’’ Cocker is too funny and too bitter to come off as preachy when, in ‘‘A to I,’’ he plays with the rhetoric of the War on Terror: ‘‘They want to take our way of life/ Well, they can take mine any time they like.’’ The same is true when ‘‘I Will Kill Again’’ transforms a domestic scene into one of tranquilized isolation while, in the background, we hear the notes of a laughably serene flute. If the cheap humor of ‘‘Fat Children’’ and the profanity-laced, hidden protest track, ‘‘Running the World,’’ are decidedly over the top, that’s just what keeps all of this worldly opining palatable. Kitsch was always Pulp’s bread and butter, and without it, the very grown-up ‘‘Jarvis’’ would sound too grown-up to be Jarvis.[David Kieley]

ROCK

Joseph Arthur & The Lonely Astronauts

Let's Just Be
(Lonely Astronaut)
Essential: "Good Life"

The warning came when Arthur, a songwriting master who often works alone, raved about recording 80 tunes with his band, the Lonely Astronauts. We’re going to put out two albums this year, he told interviewers. As the laws of quantitative rockology (see: Adams, Ryan) have taught us, more is usually less. And ‘‘Let’s Just Be’’ is no exception. Clocking in at almost 80 minutes, what the record needed was a villainous record company wonk demanding cuts. Those hoping for a disc that matches 2006’s stunning ‘‘Nuclear Daydream’’ or my favorite Arthur album, 2002’s ‘‘Redemption’s Son,’’ will be disappointed. Arthur has checked his Nick Drake at the studio door. He’s thrilled to have a band, and not about to waste it on brooding meditations of love and loss. He’s also proud to have recorded with few, if any, overdubs, the ultimate buzzkill in the jam-band universe. Fair enough. But the result is a wildly uneven record. As you’re drowning in the dreck — at 20 minutes and 33 seconds, ‘‘Lonely Astronaut,’’ which invokes the worst of Primus, the Doors, and Dave Matthews, is a prime offender — it’s easy to lose sight of the deliciously danceable title track and the electric-guitar groove of the record’s opening tracks, ‘‘Diamond Ring’’ and ‘‘Good Life.’’ [Geoff Edgers] Joseph Arthur & the Lonely Astronauts play at the Middle East Downstairs tomorrow night.

EXPERIMENTAL

John Zorn

Six Litanies For Heliogabalus
(Tzadik)
Essential: "Litany V"

Experimental chameleon John Zorn has spent more than 25 years of an eccentric career turning diverse figures like Ennio Morricone and Mickey Spillane into musical oddities. On this album, Zorn’s new target is Heliogabalus, a Roman emperor recognized more for his decadence and lunacy than his four-year reign. Relying heavily on harsh dissonance, Zorn executes his music in the same manner animals are slaughtered. The album itself is fascinating because Heliogabalus is instrumentally depicted as scum, a figure mythology would never touch. Although Trevor Dunn’s crunching bass lines, Jamie Saft’s frenzied organ playing, a trio of harrowing female singers, and Zorn’s alto saxophone — which sounds like 25 cats having their tails stepped on at once — all mesh well, the sadistic vocals of former Faith No More singer Mike Patton better portray Heliogabalus’s character. Patton retches, barks, shrieks, and violently scats; on ‘‘Litany I’’ and ‘‘Litany IV,’’ especially, his throat sounds like it’s being marvelously ripped to shreds. As a whole, though, this is arguably the most adventurous and depraved album since King Crimson’s 1973 classic, ‘‘Larks’ Tongues in Aspic.’’[Ira Kantor]

HIP-HOP

Mims

Music Is My Savior
(Capitol)
Essential: "This Is Why I'm Hot"

Mims is one smart MC. He’s been ubiquitous thanks to the blockbuster ‘‘This Is Why I’m Hot.’’ He’s on top because he makes sure that his music appeals to the widest demographic possible. The New York rapper references Biggie Smalls as an idol to keep the East Coast cred, but throughout this fluid, likable disc, he sounds like he cut his teeth on the Houston hip-hop scene while maintaining the melodic songsavvy flavor of the Midwest rap game. Mims slows down his flow and elongates his syllables like his Southern peers over deep bass lines and swaths of synth, and sometimes you expect him to break out in a drawl. So he’s hot because he’s unafraid to cross boundaries and roll with whatever style is going to bring the women and money. The songs make clear that music may be his savior, but money is his lord. He cites MCs like Tupac, but danger isn’t Mims’ game. It’s playing it safe and turning out extremely catchy tunes like his smashing single or ‘‘Without You,’’ with its soaring female vocal hook, and ‘‘Superman,’’ in which Mims shamelessly claims to be ‘‘fly’’ like the Man of Steel. [Ken Capobianco]

ROCK

Fountains of Wayne

Traffic and Weather
(Virgin)
Essential: "Yolanda Hayes"

We don’t know why it takes so long for Fountains of Wayne to make new records — typically three or four years — but we’ll suffer the breaks for the now typically terrific payoff. On its fourth album, the quartet continues to craft tracks that veer from silly to sublime, from power-pop guitar anthems to country rock with lyrical wit, musical panache, and equal measures of sincerity and irony. The delight is, as usual, in the tiny details and the twists of tongue: the ‘‘Virginia is for Lovers’’ T-shirts on sale at the rest-stop gift shop on the melancholy ‘‘I-95’’; two coots telling each other ‘‘jokes that they both know that they both know’’ in the restless ‘‘New Routine.’’ If ‘‘Traffic and Weather,’’ doesn’t as frequently pack the knock-out punch of 2003’s superb ‘‘Welcome Interstate Managers,’’ it still more than holds its own in the fight for pop music that is both catchy and canny. [Sarah Rodman] Fountains of Wayne plays at the Paradise Rock Club

Sunday.

FOLK

Uncle Earl

Waterloo, Tennessee
(Rounder)
Essential: "The Last Goodbye"

Uncle Earl, a fierce female foursome, is part of the old-time, string-band renaissance, a movement inspired by countrymusic pioneers of the 1920s. ‘‘Waterloo, Tennessee’’ follows up Uncle Earl’s 2005 debut on Rounder Records, ‘‘She Waits for Night.’’ Produced by former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, the album is gritty and achingly emotional, coated with the dust of a summertime hoedown and gorgeous vocal harmonies. There are some odd amalgams: On ‘‘Streak O’ Lean, Streak O’ Fat,’’ Abigail Washburn shouts lyrics in Mandarin Chinese, backed by the fervent combination of violin and banjo, and two tracks consider Napoleon’s last days on the Isle of St. Helena. But ‘‘The Last Goodbye,’’ ‘‘Wallflower,’’ and ‘‘Easy in the Early (’Til Sundown),’’ which isolates harmonies accompanied only by handclaps and foot stomps, compensate with stunning displays of versatility and melodic sublimity.[Caitlin E. Curran]

Free loading

Feist

"1234"
Feist’s new collection of woebegone, wispy indie-folk ditties twists the knife further into the broken hearts of her besotted following of hipsters and martini-lounge denizens everywhere. The piano jaunt ‘‘1234’’ brings the pain with banjo, stately horns and, of course, Feist’s breathy, brilliant cooing. Listen at myspace.com/feist [Luke O'Neil]

ONE MORE TIME

I say Dolly Parton, you say . . .

Well, we probably can't print what you'd say, but I'm guessing it's a testament to the fact that the country legend has long been more famous for her physique and persona than her music and songwriting.

But a trio of new reissues -- "Coat of Many Colors," "My Tennessee Mountain Home," and "Jolene" -- is a stunning reminder of the sophisticated country-pop Parton recorded in the early '70s, a good decade before "9 to 5" made her an international crossover sensation.

Originally released in 1971, "Coat of Many Colors," whose title track is still the blueprint for a classic story song, adds four previously unreleased songs, including an acoustic demo of "My Blue Tears." A few years later, Parton recorded "My Tennessee Mountain Home," her musical valentine to her rags-to-riches upbringing, now augmented with "Sacred Memories." And "Jolene," which includes four extra songs, sounds even better with the country-rockin' "Last Night's Lovin' " closing out the album.

Meanwhile, Leonard Cohen gets the same redux treatment this month, with reissues of his first three albums -- "Songs of Leonard Cohen" (1967), "Songs From a Room" (1969) , and "Songs of Love and Hate" (1971 ) .

Coinciding with his 40th anniversary with Columbia Records, the expanded editions tack on a few bonus and alternate tracks, for a total of five spread out over three albums. Forty years on, Cohen's early albums are as evergreen as ever. [James Reed]