C+Lady Gaga Joanne
Universal
Lady Gaga has spent the last few years proving her vocal chops -- the Grammy-winning album with Tony Bennett, the show-stopping Sound of Music tribute at last year's Academy Awards, her performance of "Till It Happens to You" for her Oscar nomination this year -- and her strong voice is the star of the promising but uneven Joanne.
Joanne feels like a rock-and-country album with a few dance songs. She seems to be exploring her boundaries, but the album is a little haphazard. Joanne is named for the pop star's late aunt. The title song is fittingly tender, though Gaga's voice sounds affected. She employs an equally obvious vocal technique -- a stiffened vibrato -- to lesser effect on the down-tempo ballad "Angel Down."
Gaga sounds more natural, even fierce, elsewhere, particularly on the heartfelt "Million Reasons" and the rocker "Diamond Heart."
She co-wrote and produced every song, mostly with Mark Ronson, who also plays guitar, bass or keyboards on many of the tracks. Other co-writers include Beck, Florence Welch, Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, folk-rocker Josh Tillman and country hit maker Hillary Lindsey.
There's a lot going on and there's no real cohesion, but there are a few catchy standouts.
Hot tracks: "Million Reasons," "Diamond Heart"
-- SANDY COHEN
The Associated Press
B+The Infinite Calling
Reflections for Angels Unaware
Self-released
Jonesboro guitarist Daniel Turner returns with his fourth album of ambient music as The Infinite Calling and it's another trek across misty landscapes, down dark roads and into slow-waking dawns.
With just a guitar and a few production tricks, Turner creates moving, pondering poems in sound that range from bright ("Another Sunrise, Another Gift of Gratitude") and whimsical ("Marching Tapestries") to foreboding ("Low Skies Open"). Throughout Reflections for Angels Unaware, the follow-up to last year's Vidya, Turner bends, picks and coaxes from his strings and gear aural meditations that soothe and quietly inspire.
A small glimpse of Turner's artistry comes at the end of "The Unshakable Deliverance of the Heart." As he reaches for higher notes, he still plays only what the composition needs, never overextending or clamoring for unnecessary flash.
We'll quibble and note that the "Marching Tapestries'" arrangement becomes repetitive, but otherwise, these Reflections are a dreamy, ambient trip.
Hot tracks: It's always odd to point out "hot tracks" on Infinite Calling records. This stuff is the opposite of hot; it's pure chill. Anyway, these: "Low Skies Close," with its pulsing, backward effects; "Low Skies Open," "Another Sunrise, Another Gift of Gratitude"
-- SEAN CLANCY
B+Willie Nelson
A Tribute to Ray Price
Legacy
Willie Nelson and the late Ray Price share a long history. Nelson played in Price's band The Cherokee Cowboys in the 1950s and 1960s; Price signed him to a songwriting contract around 1960. Price, who charted more than 100 singles, recorded Nelson's "Night Life." Nelson also recorded three albums with Price after attaining stardom on his own.
This masterful tribute, helmed by Price's producer, Fred Foster, presents a dozen of Price's greatest tunes. On half of the songs, Nelson is backed by The Time Jumpers, a western swing band that features Vince Gill.
Price excelled in western-swing-flavored hard country ("Heartaches by the Number," "I'll Be There") and with his string-sweetened countrypolitan hits such as 1970's cover of Kris Kristofferson's "For the Good Times" and 1973's "You're the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me" (which became a Top 10 for Gladys Knight and the Pips in 1974).
Nelson brings his familiar vocal warmth to these songs and one can feel the deep affection Nelson has for Price, who died in 2013. It is a musical milieu Nelson knows all too well. And he does Price and himself proud.
Hot tracks: "Heartaches by the Number," "Crazy Arms," the honky-tonk weeper "I'm Still Not Over You"
-- ELLIS WIDNER
B+Lisa Hannigan
At Swim
ATO
Lisa Hannigan fills her stirring album with graceful melodies, reflective lyrics and a world of watery references.
Hannigan and producer Aaron Dessner (of The National) use a wealth of harmonies -- usually her own multi-tracked vocals -- and an arsenal of mostly acoustic accompaniment to build a captivating listen whose restraint adds to its allure.
Harbors, seas, currents and springs, as well as swimming, drowning and deep treasures populate the tunes, all chiseled by the influences of Hannigan's Dublin home, a relationship-related move to London and the recording sessions in an upstate New York studio in a large converted church.
"Prayer for the Dying" is a bit of country in Cowboy Junkies mode; "Anahorish" is an a cappella rendition of lyrics from the late Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney with stellar vocal help from Zoe Randell and Katie Fallon; and "Undertow" adds a touch of banjo to a richly rhythmic refrain.
Near the end, the autobiographical "Funeral Suit" paints a budding romance while integrating many of the themes from the rest of the album -- resettlement and death, love and hopeful discovery.
No matter the depth of the dive, Hannigan remembers fellow Irishman Bob Geldof's adage and masters the fine art of surfacing.
Hot tracks: "Anahorish," "Undertow," "Funeral Suit"
-- PABLO GORONDI
The Associated Press
Style on 11/01/2016