Richard Hawley, "Hollow Meadows"

Duran Duran

“PAPER GODS”

Warner Bros. Records

Nostalgia is fleeting, but it is renewable, and every few years, Duran Duran returns to remind a new set of people of a sound that, buried deep within, they love.

“Paper Gods,” the 14th Duran Duran album, and first since 2011, brims with the signature louche funk that made this group a paragon of early 1980s sleek excess. Simon Le Bon is still a fragrant, sleepy singer whose default vocal approach is the come-on.

But on “Paper Gods,” he’s newly cynical about the things that used to turn this band on. The title song, about the hollowness of beauty, almost feels like a rebuke to “Rio.” “Butterfly Girl” promisingly begins like classic Duran Duran: “By the look on your face, you’ve been awake all night.” But then Le Bon becomes a scolding elder: “I still hope you’re gonna realize/There’s only one kind of happy in that glass of wine.”

Duran Duran chooses its collaborators wisely here, opting for some from its 1980s golden age or those who’ve internalized that era’s balance of sleaze and good cheer, like Mark Ronson, a producer of “Pressure Off,” a blend of hard-slap funk and dreamy new wave that features Rodgers and Janelle Monáe.

So long as Le Bon is oozing atop brisk arrangements like this, the specifics of the words don’t much matter. Everyone here has the posture down cold. It’s not nostalgia if you never stopped.

— Jon Caramanica,

New York Times

Empress Of

“ME”

Terrible Records

Transparency reigns on “Me,” the coolly assured debut album from Empress Of, aka the songwriter Lorely Rodriguez. The tracks use just her voice and her electronics, and they are as clean-lined and skeletal as a blueprint under Plexiglas. Born and raised in California and now based in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, Rodriguez drew attention when she posted her songs in progress as “colorminutes” on YouTube. They introduced her bright, forthright voice, her thoughts of love and anxiety, and her facility with countless loops and layers.

Yet for the album, Empress Of distilled her music, ruthlessly making every sound earn its place and, as a result, making each song more focused and tenacious.

Empress Of sings about closeness and alienation, good sex and bad, open longing and post-breakup memories: “I want to care much more/But I’m feeling less and less,” she sings in “Water Water.” When things are going well, as in “How Do You Do It,” the beat moves toward electronic dance music and the tunes grow more symmetrical. But there’s always tension somewhere: in a tinge of dissonance, in an insistent syncopation, in the spaces she refuses to fill in. Smartly and shrewdly, Empress Of provides the neatness of pop minus the reassurance.

ON TOUR: Sunday — Holocene, Portland; www.ticketfly.com.

— Jon Pareles,

New York Times

Slayer

“REPENTLESS”

Nuclear Blast

Slayer’s mid-’80s thrash-metal implied a set of willful extremes, but also an economy and focus. It found its essence in attitudes and strategies that wouldn’t go out of style: previews of the apocalypse, splattery guitar duels, minor keys, tempos rising above 200 beats per minute.

“Repentless” is the sound of Slayer telling you that it still recognizes its essence, despite the fact that three people associated with its best work are now gone. Those are guitarist and songwriter Jeff Hanneman, who died in 2013 and has been replaced by Gary Holt; the group’s founding drummer Dave Lombardo, who left the band in 2013 and has been replaced by Paul Bostaph; and producer Rick Rubin, who worked on every album by Slayer between 1986 and 2009. The new album is produced by Terry Date and doesn’t greatly vary the formula: It is loud and precise, with very little reverb.

You don’t hear the band straining against limitations, or writing at its peak. But “Repentless” is comfortable, full of certainty, good enough. The title track is not about a warlord or criminal but a hardened musician in a band, and the album feels self-referential in other ways, too. It averages out some of Slayer’s best moves: dire riffs at galloping speed; advanced-class, divebombing guitar jabber — especially from Holt, on tracks like “Vices” and “You Against You.” (I miss the comparative swing and lightness in Lombardo’s drumming.)

And then there’s the aggrieved yelling of Tom Araya, the bassist and singer. “So is it just me?” he asks in “Implode.” “Can everyone see/the world drowning in its own blood?” He’s been doing this for a very long time, but there’s still no reverb on his vocals, no smoke and mirrors to make him grander than he is. He doesn’t sound seignorial. He’s still reflecting fear and cynicism: permanent conditions.

— Ben Ratliff,

New York Times

Gary Clark Jr.

“THE STORY OF SONNY BOY SLIM”

Warner Bros. Records

Gary Clark Jr. makes a promise on his second studio album, “The Story of Sonny Boy Slim.” “Hold on, we’re gonna make it,” Clark sings like a Southern-soul crier on a tune called “Hold On.”

The lyrics unspool in a rhythmic patter, referring to bitter losses, “the whole world gone crazy.” But the track ignites only during his guitar solo, which starts in the background and soon fills the frame. If this calls to mind the biblical parable about hiding one’s light under a bushel, it also underscores a familiar conundrum for Clark, one that he still hasn’t resolved.

At 31, he’s probably the most acclaimed bluesman of his generation, a guitar hero of potent magnetism. But despite the implications of the title, his new album has no concept, serving up a mixed menu of styles, including boom-bap swagger (“The Healing”), rustic gospel (“Church”) and 1980s party-funk (“Can’t Sleep”). At times it can feel as if he had set out to make a Lenny Kravitz record.

Clark’s songwriting lags noticeably behind his musical prowess. And he sings much of the album on falsetto, a thin part of his vocal range. Clark is smart to resist typecasting as a blues revivalist and to approach the studio as a platform distinct from the stage. Still, the standout tracks here are those that echo his live act, like “Grinder,” a heavy-blues chug. On “Stay,” he issues an exhortation much like the one on “Hold On,” but in character, with an untrustworthy, cajoling air. The moral ambiguity is intriguing, and the guitar solo doesn’t run away with the song.

— Nate Chinen,

New York Times

Richard Hawley

“HOLLOW MEADOWS”

Warner Bros. Records

After a diversion into heavy, guitar-centric rock with 2012’s “Standing at the Sky’s Edge,” Richard Hawley is back to being the romantic crooner who has become a beloved figure in his native England.

Hollow Meadows, the eighth studio album from the former leader of the Brit-pop band the Longpigs and brief member of Pulp, is full of moody, brooding, lushly arranged songs that exist outside of time and genre. Hawley’s thoughtful, resonant baritone lends every song gravitas, whether he’s singing about love, loss, or longing.

He does melodrama well: hints of Glen Campbell, Neil Diamond, and Tony Bennett run through the album. His voice sounds weathered on the somber, string-soaked “I Still Want You” and graceful on “Long Time Down,” a gently rolling ballad graced with slide guitar and cooing female backing vocals. From the chiming, edgy “Which Way” to the understated, introspective “What Love Means,” “Hollow Meadows” rings true.

— Steve Klinge,

The Philadelphia Inquirer