Music releases

How to Destroy Angels

“Welcome Oblivion”Columbia RecordsIn spite of its name, How to Destroy Angels is Trent Reznor taking the violence out of his music, then examining in painstaking detail what remains.

The Nine Inch Nails frontman is still obsessed with control and how it functions. But in this project he’s no longer dramatizing the struggle against it. The songs suggest submission more than resistance. It’s not music to destroy anything by.

Except maybe crummy earbud headphones. An L.A.-based quartet that also includes Rob Sheridan, Reznor’s wife, Mariqueen Maandig, and Atticus Ross, How to Destroy Angels demands close, committed listening on “Welcome Oblivion,” the band’s first full-length after a pair of earlier EPs.

Unlike Nine Inch Nails’ big radio hits, the majority of the songs here don’t brandish catchy hooks or compact slogans designed to grab you in passing. They start out quiet and often stay that way, forcing you to lean in and immerse yourself.

Once you’re inside the album, the meticulously crafted music holds your attention with a succession of striking sounds: the lonely two-note electric guitar riff in “Keep It Together”; the ping-ponging synth tones in “Recursive Self-Improvement”; the intricate grid of crosshatched machine beats that supports “Strings and Attractors.” In “Ice Age,” one of the album’s more unexpected cuts, Maandig layers her airy croon over what appears to be the toy-sized plink of an African thumb piano.

It’s a lovely juxtaposition, and a reminder of some of the left-field acoustic textures Reznor and Ross used so effectively in the “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” soundtrack.— Mikael Wood, Los Angeles Times

Son Volt

“Honky Tonk”Rounder RecordsSon Volt’s Jay Farrar says he wanted “Honky Tonk” to reflect the sound the band had on its 1995 debut, “Trace,” one of alt-country’s pioneering albums.

That’s a great plan. Though Farrar has followed his eclectic interests all over the musical map, his warm voice never sounds more at home than when it’s surrounded by pedal steel guitars and fiddles. And throughout “Honky Tonk,” Farrar sounds great, especially on the gorgeous “Angel of the Blues” when he sings of time slipping through and burdens of truth, declaring, “Sad songs keep the devil away.”

Son Volt has come a long way on the six albums since “Trace,” as both musicians and lyricists. Musically, the influence of the Bakersfield Sound popularized by Buck Owens is here — and not just in the song “Bakersfield,” where pedal steel and electric guitars duel. The simple arrangements showcase the way Farrar can fit unconventional lyrical ideas into these tradition-steeped songs.

On the single “Hearts and Minds,” he adapts a Michael Stipe-ish delivery on the questioning verses before going extra-traditional on the chorus about unwavering love. In “Brick Walls,” Farrar takes us through a clever, extended metaphor about the “brick walls and bridges on the way to your heart” that plays off the musical simplicity.

“Honky Tonk” may seem deceptively simple and comforting in its alt-country traditions, but it harbors a whole lot of envelope-pushing ideas that only masters could make work.— Glenn Gamboa, Newsday

Chelsea Light Moving

“CHELSEA LIGHT MOVING”Matador RecordsThurston Moore’s new band Chelsea Light Moving is named after the avant-garde composer Philip Glass’ pre-fame moving company, and that’s a pretty good metaphor for the band’s sound: high-minded musicians doing some dumb, brawny lifting.

The band’s self-titled debut comes after Moore’s gentler acoustic solo album and what appears to be a long hiatus for Sonic Youth (Moore is separating from his wife and band co-founder Kim Gordon). So it makes sense that his next move is this low-stakes, punky project whose album sounds like it was written in an afternoon — in both good and bad ways.

The music on “Chelsea Light Moving” is, at times, some of the most pointedly dissonant stuff Moore’s written — see the Siouxsie and the Banshees guitar squeals of “Burroughs,” or the sludge-metal of “Frank O’Hara Hit.”

Other tracks are goofy fun, such as the baritone spoken-word monologue on “Mohawk” or the deconstructed hardcore spittle of “Lip.”

None of it adds much to Moore’s legacy as a guitar innovator and post-punk aesthete, but you leave the record feeling as sweaty and beat as you would hauling a couch up to a sixth-floor walk-up.— August Brown, Los Angeles Times

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell

“Old Yellow Moon”Nonesuch RecordsEmmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell have collaborated for nearly 40 years, since Harris recorded Crowell’s “Bluebird Wine” for her debut, but their gorgeous new duets album, “Old Yellow Moon,” is somehow their first together.

They should have started earlier, considering how their voices blend so beautifully, whether they’re tackling something up-tempo like Kris Kristofferson’s “Chase the Feeling” or a wrenching ballad like Matraca Berg’s aching “Back When We Were Beautiful.”

The harmonies on “Open Season on My Heart” ensure that “Old Yellow Moon” will be one of country’s most talked-about albums of the year.— Glenn Gamboa, Newsday

Mount Moriah

“Miracle Temple”Merge RecordsThere are times on “Miracle Temple,” the second album by the North Carolina trio Mount Moriah, that singer Heather McEntire’s expressive, effortlessly shaped vocals sound remarkably like Dolly Parton’s.

Both McEntire and guitarist Jenks Miller have played in punk and metal bands, but Mount Moriah is a roots-rock/alt-country project, with traces of Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young to be heard as slow burners like “Miracle Temple Holiness” build into full-on conflagrations.

Miller’s evocative guitar conveys an air of Roy Orbison mystery to story-songs like “Swannanoa,” and the album ebbs and flows with rugged, unhurried grace as McEntire sings with a steely Southern soulfulness that can be downright transfixing. Full of promise.— Dan DeLuca, The Philadelphia Inquirer