Villagers, "Darling Arithmetic"

The-Dream

“CROWN”

Contra-Paris/Capitol Records

More than any R&B singer or songwriter working today, The-Dream knows that the better part of seduction is vulnerability. In his world, humbling yourself gets the prize. It may also explain why when he writes songs for others, like Beyoncé or Rihanna, he paints those women as conquering heroes, impervious to anything so trifling as male bravado.

On “Crown,” his new EP, The-Dream is a happy underdog right from the start. The opening song, “Prime,” is a swampy digital soul number; he sings in a voice that connotes weakness, but not desperation. “Do you believe in me like I believe in you?” he asks, and not rhetorically. His target is a sunbeam; he’s just a mortal. “I know you think you’re out of my league,” he tells her, trying to disarm her with flattery, then continues, “but I’m trying to tell you, girl/ I’m in my prime.”

Though he’s an often astounding songwriter, The-Dream doesn’t have the carnality of Trey Songz or the athleticism of Usher or Chris Brown; he’s a singer who benefits from all the gifts that modern recording technology has to offer.

For someone who has made tenderness so central, The-Dream has been haunted by real-life friction. Last year, he was arrested on charges of assaulting his pregnant ex-girlfriend. (He has denied the accusation.)

“Crown” is the first of two EPs planned for release this year; the second will be “Jewel,” which The-Dream has said will be more reflective of his songwriter side. Perhaps he hopes that singing those words himself might cleanse him.

— Jon Caramanica,

New York Times

Ludacris

“LUDAVERSAL”

Disturbing Tha Peace Records/Def Jam Recordings

Whether as Chris Bridges or as his nom de rap, Ludacris, the emcee-turned-actor has spent the latter half of this decade honing his cinematic skills, notably in the “Fast and Furious” series. This can’t hide the fact that, earlier in the 2000s, he was an avatar in pushing Atlanta (the city and the aesthetic) in the Dirty South’s rise to hip-hop prominence. With a voice like a hot slide trombone, a patented punctuated flow, and a friendly, lyrical braggadocio, Ludacris has carved out his own brand of pop-hop.

With producer David Banner providing double-time rhythms, title track “Ludaversal” announces the rapper’s rude intentions and deep commitment: “They say Luda don’t want it no more/ Nah, I’m as hungry as the first day.” Sure, there are a lot of “I’m back” bits and typical rap gloats and boasts, but Ludacris still manages to go deep and ruminate. The rope-a-dopey pulse of “Ocean Skies” gives way to a personal story of familial addictions. “Grass Is Always Greener” and “Charge It to the Rap Game” find Luda dealing seriously with leeches in the media and his family. Luckily, Luda still sounds like the rubber-band man throughout.

— A.D. Amorosi,

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Villagers

“DARLING ARITHMETIC”

Domino Recording Company

Conor O’Brien, the discerning Irish singer-songwriter behind Villagers, began his career in a shroud of complicated solitude. The debut Villagers album — “Becoming a Jackal,” released on Domino in 2010 — was an impressively layered production in which he played almost all the parts, singing about appearances and perception. His 2013 follow-up, “Awayland,” featured a proper crew of musicians, a stronger rhythmic push, and a more guarded eloquence. “It takes loss to be free,” he sang on one track, with certainty.

For the third Villagers album, “Darling Arithmetic,” O’Brien has scaled back radically, turning out something that resembles an old-fashioned folk-rock confessional. On the opener and lead single, “Courage,” he strums an acoustic guitar with a country lilt that calls Neil Young’s “Harvest” to mind. “I took a little time to be honest,” he sings gently in the first verse. “I took a little time to be me.”

If that sounds almost like an apology, O’Brien has his reasons. “Darling Arithmetic” isn’t just an album about falling in and out of love; it’s also an announcement of his identity as a gay man. That detail is at once incidental and central to the songs therein.

Directness has never really been O’Brien’s style; not musically, not emotionally. So the startling turn here is his move toward transparency. On a song titled “Little Bigot,” he addresses would-be antagonists with a disarming empathy.

O’Brien made “Darling Arithmetic” completely on his own, and he’s savvy enough to understand how its bedroom scale plays up the vulnerabilities in his small, clear voice. But while the album is willfully interior and musically conservative, it doesn’t ever feel cloistered, because of the emotional stakes that he keeps clearly in sight.

— Nate Chinen,

New York Times

Jesse Malin

“NEW YORK BEFORE THE WAR”

One Little Indian Records

It was more than a decade ago that Jesse Malin made the transition from punk and glam rocker to urban troubadour with “The Fine Art of Self-Destruction,” winning the admiration of Bruce Springsteen, among many others.

Malin has always been a rocker at heart, however. And at his best on his first album in nearly five years, the New York native and former D Generation front man melds his scruffy street-poet aesthetic with the power and the glory of the big beat. If that sounds like the M.O. of a certain New Jerseyan, Malin puts his own Manhattan-centric stamp on the template — and “Turn Up the Mains” is closer to the Stones than Springsteen anyway.

On “Bent Up,” Malin sings of a character who’s “all messed up on rock-and-roll.” But with this sweepingly ambitious set (which also has some fine quieter moments, such as the soul-tinged “She Don’t Love Me Now”), Malin taps into what’s most inspiring and redemptive about the music.

— Nick Cristiano,

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Shlohmo

“DARK RED”

True Panther/WeDidIt

On the plus side, everyone has access to everything now, but on the downside, most people can’t figure out what to do with all the information. In electronic music, producers often borrow glibly from a range of styles and eras to show off their libraries, but mainly come off as dance-floor tourists.

Shlohmo could have gone down this road. For about six years, he’s been releasing music that’s rooted in hip-hop but tempered with the reserve of the moody electronic music of the 1990s. On his 2011 debut album, “Bad Vibes,” the results were slippery and sometimes sleepy. But on a series of EPs since then — including “No More,” a rousing collaboration with the fluttery R&B singer Jeremih — he’s refined his approach, making music that’s both more elegant and more driven.

He’s also refining his source material. “Dark Red,” his sometimes emphatic, sometimes meandering second full-length album, has moments that underscore just how much Shlohmo — real name Henry Laufer — has evolved. The peak here is “Slow Descent,” which nods to both the hard slap of late ‘90s drum and bass and also the bleary droops of Portishead. “Meet Ur Maker” channels flickers of Depeche Mode-style melancholy. And “Fading” features hard, fast, clinical percussion that recalls the rigor of Squarepusher.

Shlohmo can toggle among those styles because he remains, even among them, firm in his own sound: a sort of slow low-end, a liquid melt. In places where that’s the primary ingredient, like “Buried” or “Ditch,” he can get lost. (The song titles are also more austere than the music is.) But when he refracts an idea of old through his certain sense of the now, he shines. ON TOUR: April 26 — Branx, Portland; www.eventbrite.com.

— Jon Caramanica,

New York Times