Eric Clapton: Blues (Polydor)

Eric Clapton's relationship to the blues is so long-standing that it resists summary. But the release of this smartly assembled two-disc set makes it possible to say that with three purchases -- Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton (1966) and From the Cradle (1994) being the other two -- a credible overview is now easily attainable.

Including five unreleased tracks and drawing primarily from Clapton's undervalued Seventies work, Blues devotes one disc to studio versions and one to live performances. On the downside, that makes for repetition -- two takes of both "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" and "Early in the Morning," for example, when one of each would have done fine. And though both are previously unreleased and worth hearing, two studio renditions of the Bo Diddley chestnut "Before You Accuse Me (Take a Look at Yourself)" are hard to justify. Finally, do "Wonderful Tonight" and "To Make Somebody Happy" really qualify as blues? By including twenty-five tracks and well over two hours of music, however, compilation producer Bill Levenson left himself plenty of room for those excesses. The rest, happily, is gold. Clapton torches Otis Rush's "Double Trouble" and moans his way through Big Maceo's "County Jail Blues." An acoustic "Mean Old World," with Duane Allman ripping shit up on slide, and a fevered live jam with Freddie King on "Further On Up the Road" define the spectrum that this set runs.

So whether reaching down deep or rollicking hard, Clapton taps the musical wellspring that has sustained him for more than three decades. It may be a story you've heard parts of before, but it's compelling nonetheless -- and this collection tells it with insight and flair. (RS 819)

Anthony DeCurtis - Rolling Stone

Days of the New: Days of the New (Outpost)

Wild horses charge at the listener from some distant point on the horizon, a shriek rises from amid the pounding hooves, and a baritone voice intones, "Pain is my pill" -- and that's only the first minute and a half of Days of the New's second album. The Louisville, Kentucky, group's twenty-year-old deep thinker, Travis Meeks, comes by subtlety only reluctantly. If he has a sense of humor, it's well hidden, and he keeps his personal-intensity meter on the blowtorch setting. Meeks may be earnest, but he isn't mild -- his music isn't just big, it's daring, shotgunning in a dozen directions at once.

About the only thing Days of the New shares with its equally hard-hitting but relatively one-dimensional predecessor is its title; that 1997 album had the feel of a post-grunge sorting-out, a young songwriter searching for his voice while still under the spell of Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam. After scrapping his old four-piece rock band, Meeks has come back with a richer, more expansive approach that suggests the soundtrack for an unmade psychodrama. Working title: Travis Reborn.

"The world is a pea / No, it don't revolve around me / If anything, I revolve around the world," he sings on "Last One," a howler worthy of Jim Morrison at his most self-indulgent. But in writing and producing the album and playing many of the instruments, Meeks compensates with knee-buckling dynamics and inventive instrumental voicings, coloring the arrangements with lavish orchestrations, layered voices, Eastern percussion, American Indian chanting, fiddle solos and rhythm loops. The songs bleed into one another, emphasizing a sense of journey that grows more durable with each listen.

Though Meeks is still sometimes guilty of bludgeoning a tune like a Sub Pop wanna-be, he has learned how to leave a few holes for more-ambiguous emotions, and the music is often strikingly beautiful: the latticework of acoustic guitars on "Enemy"; the rivers of percussion that engulf "Skeleton Key"; the wordless female vocals that snake through "Bring Yourself"; the counterpoint brass and string melodies that close "Provider."

Meeks' ambition sometimes outruns his abilities. He could have simply remade his platinum-plus debut to cement his status as a rock star. Instead, Days of the New comes off like a bold, if flawed, progress report from an artist in the midst of a head-spinning transition. (RS 821)

Greg Kot - Rolling Stone

Guided By Voices: Do The Collapse (TVT)

I just got finished reading that U2 are going back to basics. As is natural, the pendulum swings both ways. Guided By Voices, lo-fi dork-boy critics' fave band, hook up with Ric Ocasek and go for HI-FI. I fearlessly predict winter will be colder than summer next year!

And there's something to be said for dependability, predictability, and other measures of conservative judgment. Bob Pollard writes a hundred songs a month and every once in a while one sticks, and while no one (yet) has given him a weekly TV show to peddle his latest, at least he manages to put out albums more frequently than the blokes in U2. Do The Collapse is a forever shifting lineup of guys backing Mr. Pollard, and the upgrade in sound is welcome variety.

If you like bands such as Big Star, the Raspberries, the Beatles, Badfinger, even--what the heck--the Cars, you'll find at least a handful of tracks to hum on the way home from work. And then you'll realize: work sucks!

- Launch

Heavy D.: Heavy (Universal)

In his twelve years of releasing records, rapper-actor-ex-record exec Heavy D has done nearly every hip-hop style -- New Jack Swing, Native Tongues, hip-house, gangsta, whatevah. So it should make sense that on his seventh album, the pioneering rap popster tries on some trendy, crazy beats, spooky trip-hop grooves and retro-soul melodies. "Like Dat Dhere" spins the now-familiar sputtering syncopations popularized by Aaliyah and Missy Elliott. "Dancin' in the Night" has D singing like Everlast over twangy guitar. "Ask Heaven" features Chico DeBarge crooning an unearthly R&B chorus. Although the original Overweight Lover's efforts to beef up the stylistic substance is admirable, nearly every too-thin track feels both ambitious and tentative, as if this former party pleaser couldn't muster the skills to realize his suddenly loftier aspirations. D pretends to be Timbaland, but his abilities are more Puff Daddy. Despite some deeper, more personal rhymes, Heavy is still lightweight. (RS 818)

Barry Walters - Rolling Stone

Geri Halliwell: Schizophonic (Capitol)

As the allegedly least talented of the Spice Girls -- sort of the Ringo of the group, or the Zac -- Geri Halliwell has a lot to prove on her solo debut. Can she stand on her own? Can she sing? Can she come up with a snappy new mantra? Schizophonic is more Girl Chutzpah than Girl Power. Geri seems intent on being all spices: sweet, salty, flirty, bossy. "Mi Chico Latino" is her impeccably timed contribution to the Latin-pop phenom, complete with awkwardly pronounced Spanglish; "Let Me Love You" has a Middle Eastern intro and electric sitar, while "Sometime" offers a canned-sounding gospel chorus. "Lift Me Up" is simple, effervescent pop. (Imagine several incarnations of Madonna compressed into one album: "La Isla Bonita," "Shanti/Ashtangi," "Like a Prayer," "Cherish.") Geri's voice is flat and unsyncopated -- she puts syllables in the darnedest places between the beat -- but it has a surprising, undeniable charm. She's like a really enthusiastic impersonator, so anxious to win you over that you give in. Schizophonic doesn't reveal any hidden talents. We always knew Geri would hang onto the pop landscape for dear life. Hey, let her. (RS 816-817)

Karen Schoemer -Rolling Stone

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