A- Buddy Guy
Born to Play the Guitar
Silvertone/RCA
"I ain't slowin' down," Buddy Guy boasts on "Wear You Out," a barn burner he shares with ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons on Born to Play the Guitar. The 79-year-old then spends the rest of his latest album proving just that.
Wisely working again with producer, drummer and songwriter Tom Hambridge, the Louisiana-born singer and guitarist who went on to become a giant of Chicago-style electric blues delivers another exhilaratingly no-frills and hard-hitting set built on sturdy songs.
For all the testaments to his unflagging energy and ambition, however -- "I still got more to say," he declares on "Turn Me Wild" -- Guy doesn't have just one gear. He's nimble enough to navigate the bright pop-soul of "(Baby) You Got What It Takes" with 28-year-old Joss Stone. And "Flesh and Bone," with Van Morrison, is a moving, gospel-tinged ballad.
The album ends with the acoustic "Come Back Muddy," a tribute to Guy's mentor, Muddy Waters. In it, he says he's staying true to his pledge to Waters to keep the blues flame burning bright. Is he ever.
Hot tracks: "Wear You Out," "Turn Me Wild," "(Baby) You Got What It Takes," "Come Back Muddy."
-- NICK CRISTIANO,
The Philadelphia Inquirer
B Maysa
Back 2 Love
Shanachie
It's almost as much of a blast seeing how Grammy nominee/Soul Train Music Award winner Maysa Leak will reinvent her look on a new album jacket as it is listening to her husky, silky alto. (On this cover she's sporting vivid, smoky-eyed, pink-dominated makeup and wearing a big hammered silver ring of which I'd love to relieve her.)
Back 2 Love calls forth producers JR Hutson (Jill Scott, Musiq Soulchild), Lorenzo Johnson and Chris "Big Dog" Davis for a dreamy trail mix of genres, such as the uptempo, big-band-flavored title cut, the smooth-jazzy "Heavenly Voices" and the retro (almost disco-ish) "Miracle."
"Last Chance for Love" is a slow duo with Phil Perry; "Go Away Little Boy," is the story of a vacationing cougar who thought she'd have a fling but became more emotionally involved than she bargained for. (Think How Stella Got Her Groove Back, put to music.) There are no ugly cuts here.
The project's one big flaw is that it's bound to make the discriminating old-school listener -- especially one who has been a Maysa fan the entire two decades of her career -- wish it had been a bit more raw and uncut. Edges are a bit too polished, the tone a bit too pop-ish.
Hot tracks: "Back 2 Love," "Heavenly Voices," "Miracle," "Last Chance for Love."
-- HELAINE R. WILLIAMS
B Grace Potter
Midnight
Hollywood
For more than a decade, Grace Potter has fronted Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, a slick and ambitious Vermont roots-minded soul-rock band. In its early years, the band was boisterous but unchallenging, largely there to provide arrangements over which Potter's howl could soar free.
With some old collaborators, including members of the Nocturnals, and some new ones, like producer Eric Valentine, Potter has remade her sound as a pop-rock eclectic, pinballing among styles and letting her voice fill in the outlines.
In a few places, Midnight recalls Tango in the Night, Fleetwood Mac's lustrous last (noteworthy) gasp from 1987. Potter doesn't quite have the tragedy Stevie Nicks so effortlessly channels, but she finds moody pockets for her voice.
On "Alive Tonight," the band shifts from shuffling to jangling to rousing, and Potter keeps up, keeping it gentle when needed, and shrieking when that's not enough. "Empty Heart" has Muscle Shoals rumble.
Often, like on "Low" and "The Miner," Potter's obscured by design -- just enough that her voice is denied its full punch. So it's reassuring to hear "Let You Go," a rough ballad about loss where Potter takes the reins, a solo artist in full control.
Hot tracks: "Let You Go," "Alive Tonight," "Empty Heart."
-- JON CARAMANICA,
The New York Times
B Tame Impala
Currents
Interscope
"Yes, I'm changing," croons Kevin Parker on track four (titled "Yes I'm Changing") of Currents, Tame Impala's third album.
It's a statement of purpose set to a slow soul jam, but by that point, he's declaring the obvious: While Tame Impala used to traffic in neo-psychedelia with heavy guitars and woozy vocals, now Parker (who recorded Currents alone) is interested in the keyboard-based grooves of '80s R&B and the production manipulations of contemporary hip-hop. It's a radical change, although maybe not entirely surprising, given his work on Mark Ronson's Uptown Special.
Currents opens with "Let It Happen," a nearly eight-minute, continually morphing track that rides a steady disco beat. It wouldn't sound out of place on a Daft Punk or Caribou album. Lyrically, Currents is largely a break-up record: Parker could as well be separating from Tame Impala's past musical style as from a lover.
Hot tracks: "Let It Happen," "Yes I'm Changing."
-- STEVE KLINGE,
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Style on 08/25/2015