Dion

“NEW YORK IS MY HOME”

Instant Records

Even in his teen-idol days, Dion DiMucci had an affinity for the blues and R&B. In recent years, “The Wanderer” has embraced that music wholeheartedly, and it has inspired the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer to do some of the best work of his career.

For “New York Is My Home,” the Bronx’s favorite son has teamed with multi-instrumentalist Jimmy Vivino and his band, the Black Italians. On a set of mostly originals, the 76-year-old singer enlivens those bedrock sounds (along with some Chuck Berry flavor on “The Apollo King”) with his patented “King of the New York Streets” swagger, which remains undiminished, just like the voice that made him a star.

The title song is the anomaly here, but it’s just as strong in its own way. “New York Is My Home” features just Dion, fellow New Yorker Paul Simon, and a drummer on a moving reverie that recalls his “Abraham, Martin, and John” folk-rock period. And even as it subtly evokes some earlier Big Apple homages — “The city never sleeps, it’s my state of mind” — it remains undeniably Dion.

— Nick Cristiano,

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Waco Brothers

“GOING DOWN IN HISTORY”

Bloodshot Records

There’s no mistaking the latest Waco Brothers release for anything but another blast of fury from this alt-country unit. But there’s a renewed energy in these grooves, a muscular throb that calls to mind a merging of the old (T. Rex, Wire) and new (Dead Weather) worlds. An excitement that feels like gritty Los Angeles in 1982 at a club where X and the Blasters take to the stage and thrust their collective might upon the people and begin leading a revolution that leads to an equal respect for Johnny Cash and Johnny Thunders.

That all happens in the first few minutes of the record. These Waco Brothers and their fans ain’t cut from your grandad’s denim and leather.

“Building Our Own Prison” is a disorienting, hallucinatory slab of rock that’s reminiscent of that time you took a handful of motion sickness pills and wound up trampled underfoot at a Dr. Feelgood show. “DIYBOB” recaptures the thrill and vibrancy of the Heartland Rock heard in beer commercials and ballrooms during the mid-1980s when the Rainmakers and Del Fuegos roamed the highways and byways of America.

This record ain’t perfect, but neither is rock ’n’ roll and neither are the musicians who birthed this collection with passion and amusement. That’s a spirit that’s never going to die and one we can hope these non-brothers who aren’t from Waco can continue to practice long, long into the future.

— Jedd Beaudoin,

PopMatters.com

School of Seven Bells

“SVIIB”

Vagrant Records

“This is our time, and our time is indestructible,” Alejandra Deheza sings, with blissful conviction, at the end of the wholeheartedly gleaming march that concludes the final album by School of Seven Bells, “SVIIB.” There’s a sad back story behind it.

School of Seven Bells was formed in 2007 and distilled itself down to a studio songwriting duo: Deheza and Benjamin Curtis, the group’s producer, who together built songs from elaborately layered electronics and guitars and Deheza’s airborne vocals. Curtis and Deheza recorded the bulk of “SVIIB” in the summer of 2012. Soon afterward, Curtis learned he had a rare form of T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma, and he died in December 2013.

Now, Deheza and the producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Beck’s musical director and M83’s producer) have completed the 2012 album. Its songs chronicle an enduring connection that parallels the relationship of Deheza and Curtis: infatuation, love, friction, separation and the eternal bond of friendship.

Nearly all of the lyrics were written as the album was being recorded; now, they echo past mortality. “SVIIB” is a memorial that looks back and forward. There’s still a retro streak on “SVIIB”: hints of the Cranberries, Tears for Fears, Stereolab, Joy Division and Madonna’s “Ray of Light.”

But with its valedictory, “SVIIB” gave up the skepticism for a sonic vocabulary of reverberation and depth, of optimistic promise.

School of Seven Bells had found a way forward, un-self-conscious and unified. Fate made it the end instead of another beginning.

— Jon Pareles,

New York Times