India.Arie

Testimony: Vol.2, Love & Politics
Universal Republic

Being neither the concept album nor the song cycle I imagine it was intended to be, this is actually a mixed bag of self-help mantras put to music, odes to love from creation to crumble, with a wealth of worldview observations thrown in for good measure. That's a big order to fill, but the talented India.Arie dexterously meets the reach. Set to a Marvin Gaye-meets-Roberta Flack simmer, the forlorn “Long Goodbye” should strike a chord with anyone who has had an “I love you” reciprocated with an uncomfortable “thank you”; more or less the co-dependent's anthem, really. Elsewhere is the world music-influenced “Ghetto,” which spells out the direness of the human condition just about everywhere on the planet, but you start to wonder if rhyming Morocco with Chicago was clever word play, or just lazy. Midway through the album's go-round we finally get some anti-balladry relief in the form of “Better Way,” a roof-raising, killer stomp that easily transcends the slow boil that had been leading up to it. Although the album gets bogged down with a few too many lyrics that sound like one-day-at-a-time calendar mottos, India.Arie's testimony is good stuff, indeed. —Bob Werner

Morrissey

Years Of Refusal
Lost Highway

Don’t freak out, but the King of Mope might be feeling kind of happy lately. At least that’s how it seems taking in Morrissey’s excellent new disc. Everything he releases is dissected with a thoroughness that would make a vegan bristle, and this particular collection is decidedly upbeat, energetic, urgent and full of Moz pizazz. It’s an album bursting at the seams with rocking guitars, ambitious flourishes and the most lovelorn lyrics he’s written in years. The opening track is the big, gutsy U2-esque jam, “Something Is Squeezing My Skull,” in which our boy boldly claims he's doing “very well,” before rambling about diazepam, temazepam and lithium; first single, “I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris” (its sleeve art shows him and the band nearly buck naked!) is as sweeping, infectious and grand as anything he’s ever done; “When Last I Spoke To Carol” finds him delving into the sounds of mariachi and Morricone; and he shows just a tad more emotion in the elegiac “You Were Good In Your Time,” even if the deceased’s accomplishments are measured by how they affected him—“You made me feel not quite so deformed, uniformed, and hunchbacked.” Not your typical parting praise, but it’s extra powerful delivered over a haunting string arrangement. All told, Years of Refusal captures Moz in fine form, with winning commentaries, big power chords, angular melodies and that ever-yearning voice packing an emotional wallop.—Paul V.

Plushgun

Pins & Panzers
Tommy Boy

This Brooklyn quartet's debut is as breezy as a lazy afternoon. “Union Pool,” “Just Impolite” and “How We Roll” are obsessed with high-school indignities—ah, the follies of youth!—set against the herky-jerky soundtrack of keyboards and programmed drums. Frontman Dan Ingala released an eponymous EP he put together in his bedroom on ProTools before deciding to beef up the sound with an actual band. And the difference is palpable—what were once New Wave tropes now have an added sheen of emo-heft. Their twinkly little tunes limn adolescent obsessions with empathy if not always wit; and Ingala's thin voice approximates Neil Tennant's ironic knowingness. Plus it warms a gay boy's heart to hear lyrics like, “We were making noise with electric toys/and there were boys kissing boys at the moment when the cops came./They said 'hey, we won't run away.'/And they pushed us back, and we pushed them back/Yeah, we held our ground in their morality police state./Kick us out and we'll be back again, tonight if not today.'” That's from tough-and-twee opener “Dancing in a Minefield,” an anthemic pop-tune that deserves your love. I only wish their name didn't make me think of a soft dildo. —Dan Loughry

Various Artists

War Child presents Heroes
Astralwerks

Another week; another charity compilation. (February's already seen the Red Hot comp Dark Was the Night, which indie-lovers should buy immediately.) This release from the War Child foundation—which provides humanitarian assistance for war-torn areas—comprises 16 relatively excellent covers from some alt-leaning popsters. The standouts are Elbow's beautifully ruminative version of U2's “Running to Stand Still;” the calypso-brushed hues of Lily Allen's homage to her godfather Joe Strummer's “Straight to Hell;” and Beck's glammy transformation of Dylan's “Leopard-Skin Pill Box Hat.” Covers that are good but nothing special: the Kooks' rather pedestrian version of the Kinks' “Victoria” and the Like's reproduction of Elvis Costello's “You Belong to Me.” Weird, weird, weird: Joy Division's “Transmission” fed through Hot Chip's keyboards and Scissor Sisters' rave-romp through Roxy Music's “Do the Strand.” Why rock and roll was invented: Franz Ferdinand's smoking live tear through Blondie's “Call Me” and TV On the Radio not screwing up David Bowie's title track, a song that always seemed unimaginable in any other form. —D.L.