McCartney moves forward with ‘Creation’

Paul McCartney

“Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard” (Capitol) •••

It feels kind of weird, yet oddly refreshing, to put it this way – but Paul McCartney’s new album holds its own against today’s top power pop.

Weird because McCartney was, of course, one of the architects of the sound that informs today’s power pop. Refreshing because of the gratification that comes from hearing him again attentive to quality control.

“Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard” is actually step two in a recording renaissance that began with 2001’s “Run Devil Run.”

Where that album found McCartney revisiting his pre-Beatles, rockabilly roots, the new effort operates as a kind of White Album redux. At this pace, the 63-year-old musician will be up to his neo-Wings phase before the decade is out.

Some of the Beatles borrowing is blatant: The wistful “English Tea” lifts its piano line and art-song structure directly from “For No One,” while the sweet “Jenny Wren” will prompt ample “Blackbird” comparisons.

Elsewhere, the effects are more subtle, as McCartney calls on that jaunty part of his rock brain – notably in the up-tempo album opener “Fine Line,” a piano-driven number with an immediately memorable melody, and “Promise to You Girl,” a snappy tune with lavishly stacked harmonies.

“This Never Happened Before” is a gem, an emotionally rich pop symphony.

Though it skirts McCartney’s sappier impulses, the album still meanders through several songs (“How Kind of You,” “At the Mercy”) with little payoff.

In the end, though, this is another reassuring release from a musical giant who seems to have found the right way to reconcile, and reconnect, his past with his present.

Brian McCollum, Detroit Free Press

David Gray

“Life in Slow Motion” (four stars) ••••

On his seventh and best CD, Welsh singer Gray breaks away from the pack of self-consciously scrappy, navel-gazing male troubadours that he has been lumped in with – somewhat unfairly, if often admiringly.

Working with producer Marius DeVries, whose previous clients include Rufus Wainwright and Bjork, Gray crafts richer, more ambitious arrangements that better suit his lovely, lyrical songs.

The many high points include the soaring “The One I Love” and radiant ballad “Lately,” which makes the early Van Morrison comparisons Gray received seem less hyperbolic.

Elysa Gardner, USA Today

Bonnie Raitt

“Souls Alike” (Capitol) •••

Latter-day Bonnie Raitt albums – and by that we mean post-“Nick of Time,” the 1989 Grammy-grabber that transformed her from highly regarded journeywoman to household name – navigate tricky terrain between slide-guitar-fired soulfulness and too-easy listening.

“Souls Alike” leans, just enough, toward the former. Not that there’s anything on this album (the first that she produced herself) that would raise too much of a ruckus if it came over the speakers at your local latte joint.

But though Raitt wrote not a one of the 12 tunes, she has infused them with either enough personal resolve – as in the steadfast “I Will Not Be Broken” and the emotionally frank “The Bed I Made” – to keep “Souls Alike” from going soft.

And in a pinch, Raitt gets funky, drifting down to New Orleans on “Love on One Condition” and “Unnecessarily Mercenary,” both written by her Dr. John-schooled piano player, Jon Cleary.

Dan DeLuca, Philadelphia Inquirer

Czar-Nok

“That One Way” (Capitol) •••

Rapping about the glory of being a drug dealer is all the rage in hip-hop today, but on the stirring “Can’t Get Out the Game,” the upstart Cincinnati rap duo of Hayczar and E-Nok takes a stark look at the challenges, trappings and shortcomings of the financially rewarding but often fatal career.

The contemplative, organ-driven cut is one of several highlights of this strong debut album, a 16-cut collection that deals with the contradictory, complex layers of a life in which right and wrong aren’t clearly delineated.

On “Pimpin’ and Gangsta,” for instance, the pair celebrate both pastimes with such glee and polish that you have to wonder what they do when they’re not rapping.

This duality – alternatively championing and examining the downside of an illicit lifestyle – makes “That One Way” a compelling work.

Soren Baker, Los Angeles Times