Music releases

Robert Earl Keen

READY FOR CONFETTI

Lost Highway Records

For his 16th album, Robert Earl Keen is ushering in a new era of his career while still paying tribute to his beginnings.

The alt-country crooner experiments with sound on “Ready,” out today, infusing the title track with a breezy Jimmy Buffett swagger and tossing “Waves on the Ocean” to a reggae- styled guitar. Yes, Keen must have been craving a little sunshine while writing this LP, which he did mostly on the road, as opposed to his normal spot in a solitary cabin.

But as he plays with the aesthetics of his music, he also delves back into his catalog to cover his own classic ballad, “Paint the Town Beige,” from his 1993 record “A Bigger Piece of Sky.” (He wanted a “clearer, cleaner” version, he said.) It’s a legendary song, and while it doesn’t differ all that much from the original record, it’s a pleasure to have another studio version.

Keen is a respected songwriter, and for good reason. But he’s best when he’s clearly having fun. He has a good time with CD-opener “Black Baldy Stallion,” a melodic tongue- twister of a country song that spins a memorable yarn. Like most of the other songs here, it’s breezy and warm. But its intricate lyricism sets it apart from the rest of Keen’s catalog, and it’ll surely become a live favorite in the next tour or two.

— Ricardo Baca,

The Denver Post

Cobra Starship

NIGHT SHADES

Fueled by Ramen Records

“You make me feel good, la la la la la” are words to live by in any summer, especially in the hands of a dance band as talented as New York’s Cobra Starship.

Best known for helping to introduce actress Leighton Meester’s singing career on 2009’s “Good Girls Gone Bad,” front man Gabe Saporta is a master of electronic styles, accelerating synthesized bleeps and bloops into natural Top 40 hits.

But while Saporta recently trashed Britney Spears for watering down dubstep, a cutting-edge club-music style, Cobra could use her big, familiar personality.

— Steve Knopper,

Newsday

Zee Avi

GHOSTBIRD

Brushfire Records

Zee Avi doesn’t need much encouragement to sound unburdened and twee. But she might have found the ultimate enabler recently, judging by “The Book of Morris Johnson,” the lead single from her second album, “Ghostbird.” Inspired by the animal-centric work of the Florida folk artist Morris Johnson, it’s a smiley-face sticker in song form, with lyrics about happy turtles, grinning gators and dancing crabs. “Sometimes you just gotta know how to feel,” advises Avi, equipped with her ukulele, her blithesome spirit and her pretty, wafer-thin voice.

Avi, originally from Malaysia, comes to us through a contemporary channel of serendipity: Four years ago she posted a video of one of her own songs on YouTube, earning much encouraging feedback and, eventually, a contract with Brushfire Records, Jack Johnson’s label. Her self-titled debut, released in 2009, was a modest but charming affair, full of songs that breezed through heartache.

“Ghostbird,” produced by Mario Caldato Jr., is livelier but emptier, lacking any credible trace of emotional tension. Yes, there’s a tune called “Concrete Wall” depicting one side of a bitter domestic argument, but its sound is glib and depthless, with a cappella vocals and superfluous texture from the turntable artist Cut Chemist. “Bag of Gold” likewise squanders an intriguing us-against-them premise with a drowsy wash. “Madness” is a throwaway attempt at lounge jazz, clumsy and plodding.

This is an album with an ersatz reggae tune, “Roll Your Head in the Sun,” whose lyrics involve little more than the title phrase, blissfully repeated. (“Thank you, sun,” goes its only other refrain.) Intriguingly, she sings in a smokier, more mature register on “Siboh Kitak Nangis,” a ballad in her native dialect. (The title means “Don’t You Cry.”)

Elsewhere she favors a high, girlish coo: singer-songwriter as confectioner. Which isn’t to cast doubts on her candor. “Can I please stay in the clouds forever?” she sings on “Stay in the Clouds,” backed by only the strum of her ukulele. “’Cause I really like it here.”

— Nate Chinen,

The New York Times

Pistol Annies

HELL ON HEELS

Columbia Records Nashville

You’ve seen the routine by now: An artist starts out rough, unwashed and crackling with energy; gets attention and acclaim; cleans up nice and plays well with others; becomes a star and, more important, a celebrity, known as much for fame as for art; wonders about the life and the attitude left behind; goes back to hang out with the old crew and get back in touch with roots.

Usually that arc is the preserve of rappers; now it’s the turf of Miranda Lambert, onetime country rapscallion turned belle of the ball. In the past two years she’s shifted from serrate numbers about bruised women and shotguns toward tender ballads; add in a 2010 CMA Award for female vocalist of the year and a power-couple marriage to Blake Shelton, and it’s beginning to look as if Lambert might have forgotten her way around a firearm. (Lest anyone fear Lambert has gone soft, consider this: The venison served at her May wedding to Shelton was killed by the couple themselves.)

But there’s the gun, right in the name of her new band, Pistol Annies, a collaboration with the singer-songwriters Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley. “Hell on Heels,” their debut, is thrown-together short, and full of lean and dirty productions. The songs have the feeling of rejuvenative writing, small experiments in genre and style for artists versed in country’s classic modes but who rarely get to fiddle around with them.

“Beige” is an affecting look at a young bride with a big problem: “Everyone in this place knows that I didn’t wait/ ‘Cause I was wearing beige,” Monroe sings, in a shivering voice, brittle and lovely. “Lemon Drop,” written and sung by Presley, is a neat trifle about poverty in the Kitty Wells vein. The title track, on which all three women share vocals, is a stark stunner about squeezing men dry, then dumping them like bad memories.

Songs like these recall Lambert’s scratchier earlier days, and other ones here show range: “Bad Example” is a slick song about being naughty that Hank Williams would have gladly tackled, and “The Hunter’s Wife,” sung with stern determination by Presley, plays as a serious, steaming rejoinder to spouse-hostile songs like Brad Paisley’s “I’m Gonna Miss Her.”

— Jon Caramanica,

The New York Times

David Guetta

NOTHING BUT THE BEAT

EMI Records

Those not following pop music won’t likely recognize David Guetta’s name, but they know his beats. Remember the Black Eyed Peas’ ubiquitous pop smash “I Gotta Feeling”? That was all Guetta. And Kelly Rowland’s “When Love Takes Over”? It actually was on Guetta’s CD, “One Love.”

The influential French DJ/producer is back with his official follow-up to “One Love.”

“Nothing but the Beat,” sounds all too similar to Guetta’s first big outing. In fact, the lead-off track here, “Where Them Girls At” (featuring Nicki Minaj and Flo Rida) is reminiscent of an Akon song.

Do the kids care? Nah. They just want something fresh for the dance floor.

Most of the record is aimed at the pop market — think dance clubs — but there are a few more traditional electronic tracks. And Guetta’s crafty collaboration with Afrojack, “Lunar,” is a stunner. The instrumental sounds like a genius B-side from Daft Punk’s “Tron” soundtrack, a futuristic whomp of energy and groove.

— Ricardo Baca

The Denver Post