I'm going to start running my USA Today reviews here each week, a day or so after they run in the paper. They won't always be my favorite albums from the week, or even things I necessarily like a lot; four other critics write reviews for the paper. If you want to see my reviews - along with the reviews from Edna Gundersen, Elysa Gardner, Steve Jones and Ken Barnes - the day they run, check out Ken's Listen Up blog on Tuesdays.
Lyle Lovett and His Large Band, It’s Not Big, It’s Large
* * *
Texas-sized Cowboy Jazz
As its title suggests, this isn’t quite a big-band album, though the opening instrumental by Lester Young sure starts it that way. But the always-versatile Lovett couldn’t possibly settle there, and he’s also got country shuffles and tunes of folk-like simplicity, along with songs that extol the joys of a South Texas girl and singing with Joe Ely, John Hiatt and Guy Clark. And, as if his own band weren’t large enough, he fleshes it out with some top-flight hired hands, including Clark, Jerry Douglas and Béla Fleck. — Mansfield
>>Download: South Texas Girl, All Downhill
>>Skip: The Alley Song
Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals, Lifeline
* * 1/2
Surfer Soul
Harper recorded his latest album in Paris. But with a band sharpened by nine months of steady touring, its spiritual location is 1320 South Lauderdale, the Memphis address of Hi Records, where Al Green and Otis Clay recorded their gospel-infused soul hits in the early ’70s. Lyrics such as “You can’t just say ‘I love you,’ you’ve got to live ‘I love you’ ” show that Harper may share Green’s heart and soul, but he doesn’t have his voice. Harper is always more expressive as a guitarist than as a singer, and it takes the occasionally electrifying slide solos or gorgeous instrumental to rescue this set.
>>Download: Fight Outta You, Paris Sunrise #7
>>Skip: Needed You Tonight
Casting Crowns, The Altar and the Door
* * 1/2
Sunday Rock for Monday Mornings
On this church-focused collection, these platinum-selling Christian rockers concern themselves with the space between the title’s two fixtures — that is, between intention and action, between doing good and getting in the way, or, as one song puts it, between “the God we want and the God who is.” That’s a space worth exploring, and the band’s motives may be the best, but their anthems are as predictable as a televangelist’s tears: start soft, build big, then cue the strings.
>>Download: Somewhere in the Middle, title track
>>Skip: I Know You’re There
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