Review: Steve Earle's Washington Square Serenade

Steve Earle, Washington Square Serenade

New urban folk boom

There was a time when Steve Earle would have been expected to set every bridge ablaze behind him as he took the Hillbilly Highway out of Nashville. But on his first album since relocating to New York City, he doesn’t look back so much as look ahead — to life in his multiethnic city of dreams where the ghosts of Woody Guthrie and Joey Ramone still whisper their messages in dark corners. The shambling rhythms of Dust Brother John King’s production distinguish Serenade’s urban folk from its more country-minded predecessors, but Guy Clark and Hank Williams still hold as much sway in his songs as Eric Andersen and Pete Seeger do. It’s an outsider’s album, to be sure — from his arrival in the city to his reluctance to believe that his wife loves him as much as she seems to — but Earle has always relished that role and continues to do so. (* * *)

>>Sample: Days Aren’t Long Enough, a duet with wife Allison Moorer; City of Immigrants, with Brazilian neo-folk group Forro in the Dark
>>Skip: Come Home to Me

Review: Hard-Fi's "Once Upon a Time in the West"

Hard-Fi, Once Upon a Time in the West (* * * )

Cinematic Britrock

Following the massive success — at least in Britain — of their Stars of CCTV debut, Hard-Fi’s four ambitious suburbanites use the Clash’s reggae/dub tendencies as the foundation for building a more cinematically orchestrated pop music. But singer Richard Archer sounds as much like Mick Jagger as Joe Strummer, and the band works in bits of punk and electronic dance rock, as well as some American soul and string arrangements that would make Ennio Morricone proud. Perhaps that combination’s a bit too identifiably British to conquer the rest of the Western world, but Anglophiles far and wide should be willing to throw their hands up in surrender.

>>Sample: Suburban Knights, I Shall Overcome, Can’t Get Along (Without You)

Review: Mae's "Singularity"

Mae, Singularity (* * * )

Brains and brawn

Having sold a quarter-million copies of their two indie-label releases, Virginia rock quintet Mae connects with Capitol Records to make a play for the big time. They may be too smart for their own good, but they make up for it with a fetching sense of melody and rhythmic shifts that recall Anberlin and Jimmy Eat World.

>>Sample: Sometimes I Can’t Make It Alone, Sic Semper Tyrannis

>>Skip: Release Me

Kenny Chesney — Just Who I Am: Poets and Pirates

Few country singers have made more out of memories than Kenny Chesney. To hear his singles tell the story, his life has progressed from a string of high school girlfriends to a series of rum-fueled Caribbean vacations. But banking on memories can mean mortgaging the future, and while Chesney sometimes has seemed determined to enjoy himself whatever the cost, he has rarely counted those costs.

He does so on Poets and Pirates, for himself and also, in the case of the single mother/stripper in Dancin’ for the Groceries, in the prices some people pay for others’ pleasure. “I’ve been blessed, I know, but at the end of the day I go home alone,” he sings in Wife and Kids, allowing himself a moment of self-pity in those unfulfilled dreams. But the song also comes as a remarkably vulnerable admission from a man whose one marriage fell apart so quickly and so publicly.

Elsewhere, Chesney sings that he’s “better as a memory.” Those who look forward to his latest for its island rhythms and guest spots from Joe Walsh and George Strait might agree, but the ones who come listening for the man may come away with more than they expected. (***)

>>Sample: Dancin' for the Groceries, Wife and Kids, Demons

This Week's Reviews: Lyle Lovett, Ben Harper, Casting Crowns

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