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 Chrisette Michele
Epiphany (Def Jam/Universal)
Michele’s outstanding, Grammy-winning 2007 debut, I Am, set the bar high for the New York-based soul singer. Yet, once again, she clears the bar with practised ease here. Jazz inflections still colour many of her songs, while her slightly raspy voice continues to give tracks like “Fragile” an edge, and is particularly effective on bittersweet love songs like “Notebook.” 9/10 Trial Track: “Epiphany (I’m Leaving)” (Gerard Dee)
 My People Sleeping
Feye (independent)
Like pop music filtered through an opium den, this local quartet’s beautiful debut LP lets listeners drift along to its soft vocals, reverb-swathed guitars and cooing keys. Sinister undercurrents haunt this tranquil scene, influenced, they say, by “horrors we have not seen.” But “Take Anything” lightens the mood, with punchy guitars and Cocteau Twins vocals care of keyboardist/singer Ruby Kato Attwood. 8/10 Trial Track: “Bloodhounds” (Lorraine Carpenter) Album launch with Adam & the Amethysts, Mountain Man Pat Jordache and North, My Love at la Sala Rossa, Fri., Dec. 11, 8:30 p.m., $8 ($15 with CD)
 Fanfarlo
Reservoir (Canvasback/Warner)
A number of tunes acquit themselves well enough on the debut from this London-based chamber pop unit—the lovely “Luna,” for instance. But donning a mantle of beleaguered noblesse distinctly similar to that of the Arcade Fire or the Divine Comedy’s less comedic moments, never to mention frontman Simon Balthazar’s vocal pastiche of Byrne and Morrissey, leaves an irritating sense of second-tier imitation. 6.5/10 Trial Track: “Luna” (Rupert Bottenberg) With Freelance Whales at Il Motore, Wed., Dec. 16, 9 p.m., $15
Thirty Seconds to Mars
This Is War (Virgin/EMI)
Big on everything but ideas. Armies of backing vocalists and crowd noises smother every epic chorus. Overcooked two-note riffs even the Edge would find gaudy. Generic wartime lyrics aimed at rallying jilted, impressionable youth. A slathering of studio trickery designed to have you believe Jared Leto is making his grand call to arms from the top of Mount Everest with the world’s largest bullhorn. 3/10 Trial Track: “Hurricane” (Erik Leijon)
 John Southworth
Mama Trevatron (Dead Daisy/Outside)
Buck 65 has said that this Canadian singer-songwriter “is to music what Guy Maddin is to film”—at his best, his eccentricity reigns, reaching out to audiences with a unique, antique aesthetic, his text and mise en scene simultaneously amusing and emotionally charged. Like Maddin, however, Southworth is inconsistent—his third album is padded with both boring pop and failed outré experiments. 6/10 Trial Track: “First of May” (Lorraine Carpenter)
Tin Huey
Before Obscurity: The Bushflow Tapes (Smog Veil)
God love Smog Veil for their Ohio proto-punk archeology. In 1978, before they morphed into new wave one-hit-wonders the Waitresses (“I Know What Boys Like”), these Ohio weirdos took their Can, Eno, Soft Machine, Captain Beefheart and Roxy Music influences and put them through the prog shredder with dazzling results. Fans of Ohio proto-punks Devo, Rocket From the Tombs, Pagans, the Mirrors and Electric Eels: this is mandatory if you want to complete the picture. 7/10 Trial Track: “The Comb” (Johnson Cummins)
Boris
Japanese Heavy Rock Hits (Southern Lord)
Available as a download or split up over three seven-inch vinyl singles, the latter proves to be the ultimate format to take this all in. The six songs all stand on their own and run the gamut from shoegazer pop on “Hey Everyone” to experimental electronic noise on “Black Original” and their specialty, punishing power drone and doom on “…And Hear Nothing.” If you think rock has slipped under its own spinning wheels, you have to get on this. 8/10 Trial Track: “Black Original” (Johnson Cummins)
DJ /rupture and Matt Shadetek
Solar Life Raft (Agriculture)
Rupture and Shadetek hit the psychedelic, spatial, groovy, gradual and insane dub cuts of the moment, while thankfully missing the hordes of trend-chasing, half-tempo D&B acts also associated with dubstep. At one point, Shadetek’s heavy jam “Shild Dub” rolls through crate-dug ambient gem “Breathing Room” by Hildegard Westerkamp into cracked-out loop-sampler “Mothertongue: Pt. 1,” and then come the quirky breaks of Mizz Beats—and somehow it makes sense. 8.5/10 Trial Track: DJ /rupture and Matt Shadetek, “Underwater High Rise” (Jack Oatmon)
 Snoop Dogg
Malice N Wonderland (Capitol/EMI)
Snoop’s latest effort, kicking off with of one the best singles of the year (“I Wanna Rock,” sampling the chorus from Rob Base’s “It Takes Two”), isn’t one of his most complete albums in recent years but it still provides a steady stream of tracks that prove once again the Doggfather can keep up with the times. Nothing in there that he hasn’t done before but sometimes that’s how it should be. 7/10 Trial Track: “I Wanna Rock” (Morgan Steiker)
Masta Ace & Edo G
Arts & Entertainment (M3)
Most people would consider these MCs past their prime but Masta Ace and Edo G still rhyme fresher than ever and their stellar delivery is something of a lesson on this first collabo album. Nonetheless, this album sometimes loses its strong rhythm captured by “Fans” and “Little Young” for unnecessary attempts at a commercial track. 7/10 Trial Track: “Little Young” (Morgan Steiker)
 Chris Brown
Graffiti (Jive/BMG)
To my knowledge, Ike Turner never released a song entitled “I’m Glad I Beat Tina to a Pulp.” Most of Brown’s big-budget, electro R&B would-be smash feels like it was conceived before cold-cocking his skyrocketing career, except “Famous Girl,” a horrifying attempt at defending his decking Rihanna. Pardon the expression, but for an attempted career resuscitation, Brown has come out swinging. 6.5/10 Trial Track: “Wait” (Erik Leijon)
Rob Clutton
Suchness Monster (Rat-Drifting)
The second solo recording for Toronto’s Rat-Drifting label from Rob Clutton, a phenomenal bassist and a deeply engrossing performer, offers new insights into the state of the art of double bass playing. Classically trained, a respected jazz player and world-class improviser (and writing a PhD. on banjo music!), Clutton has an original and heartfelt take on music and performance. In a word, deep. 9/10 Trial Track: “Wilberforce” (Gordon Allen) CD launch with Lori Freedman & Nicolas Caloia at l’Envers, Wed. Dec. 16, 9 p.m., $7
 Various
Ghana Special: Modern Highlife Afro-Sounds and Ghanaian Blues 1968-81 (Soundway)
Intrepid musical archeologist Miles Cleret returns to the country with which he made a name for himself and his label Soundway (2002’s Ghana Soundz). Over two CDs, 33 tracks span a spectrum from tough, rocky Afrobeat to moody quasi-blues to light, bright highlife effervescence. The devil knows how Cleret keeps digging up all this all-but-lost gold, but it sure shines. 8/10 Trial Track: The Barbecues, “Aaya Lolo” (Rupert Bottenberg)
MINI CD REVIEWS
Gnaw their Tongues All the Dread Magnificence of Perversity (Crucial Blast) These Dutch miscreants’ blast of brutal industrial noise hits with such force, they make Throbbing Gristle and Whitehouse sound like Hedley. 9 (JC)
Matthew Good Vancouver (Universal) The former CanCon firebrand has settled into a nice groove as a latter-day Depeche Mode-style dark synth rocker. 7 (EL) With Mother Mother at Metropolis tonight, Thurs., Dec. 10, 8 p.m., $25, all ages
Kid Casablanca & Jef Barbara Barbara Blanca (independent) Members of Montreal’s electropop mafia (specifically Jef and the Holograms, Plaza Musique) create a moody concept EP to dance and trance to. 7.5 (LC)
Duplex! Worser (Mint) West Coast indie rockers take a second stab at making kids’ music parents can stomach, with songs exploring such topics as same-sex divorce and sandwiches. 7 (LC)
Say Anything self-titled (Jive/Sony BMG) As far as pseudo-Christian pop punk records go in 2009, this smarmy entry is the least sucky. 5.5 (EL)
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