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Marta Sanchez Azabache (Polygram Iberica) A source of controversy in her native Spain, Sanchez nonetheless has her eyes set on global stardom. She's huge in Japan (who isn't?), she's recorded in English and Italian and on this album she works with producer Nile Rodgers and Gn'R's Slash. Sure, it's R&B-infused commercial radio pop, but it's smart and sexy enough to perhaps even dethrone Céline Dion. 7/10 (Rupert Bottenberg) Guided By Voices Mag Earwhig! (Matador) When news leaked out that GBV leader Robert Pollard had swapped his crew of drinking buddies for the art-guitar action of Cleveland's Cobra Verde, fans everywhere wept. Even though the regulars do sit in on Mag Earwhig!, Pollard wanted a heavier, hi-fi edge for his latest fantastic fable. Going by the newly buffed buzz of "Portable Men's Society" or "Mute Superstar," his intuition was again brilliantly dead-on. 8/10 (Lorrie Edmonds) Clawhammer Hold your Tongue (Interscope/MCA) Clawhammer's wall-spinning sound has never translated well onto CD, but Hold Your Tongue may be the ultimate punk rock answer to Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica. The chemically induced warblings of Jon Wahl in "The Day it Rained Pigeon Shit" is guaranteed to disturb and annoy (precisely its intention). Music to ingest household solvents by. 7.5/10 (Johnson Cummins)
Despite the mixed results of her Patsy Cline homage Shadowland, k. d. lang makes another stab at the concept album with 12 covers about smoking--a metaphor for a constant craving of another kind. As with Shadowland, strings abound and it's torch over twang in "Don't Smoke In Bed," "My Last Cigarette," The Hollies' "The Air That I Breathe" (refreshing) and Steve Miller's "The Joker" (what would k.d. be without cheese?). Same problem, though: some hazy results. 7/10 (Chris Yurkiw)
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k. d. lang Drag (Warner Bros.)