B Usher

Hard II Love

RCA

Yes, the most pliable R&B singer and dancer since Michael Jackson has released yet another solid album that furthers his entry into nu-soul hop with varying degrees of hipness. At age 37, that's crucial. With that comes the mandatory appearance of au courant rappers Future and Young Thug on the hulking, pushy, just-OK "Rivals" and "No Limit," respectively. The tracks are chatty and cool but disposable. Yes, Hard II Love's cover image of a damaged sculpture is easily the stupidest of the 2010s, meant to pique interest in Usher's film debut as boxer Sugar Ray Leonard in Hands of Stone. Luckily, these stumbling blocks can't stop the listener from falling in love, like, lust all over again with sensualist Usher Raymond's swerving, curving voice.

The sultan of chic, midtempo, occasionally Auto-Tuned R&B sex songs offers silken romancers such as "Missin U" and "Let Me." When it comes to upping the BPMs, PRs, and HBs on the licentious likes of "Bump" (his signature "What?!" catchphrase intact) and the sportily anthemic (and Latin-lilted) "Champions," from the Sugar Ray film, there's a teasing, playful zeal to his voice that smooth operators such as Maxwell and Frank Ocean try for but can't achieve.

Hot tracks: "Missin U," "Bump," "Champions"

-- A.D. AMOROSI

The Philadelphia Inquirer

B+Roger Hoover

Pastures

Last Chance Records

The latest from Ohio singer-songwriter Roger Hoover is a simple and pleasing mix of blue-collar folk, country and swampy blues. It's the kind of record where you can hear a chair squeak over the softly picked acoustic guitar and vocals and it sounds just right. There's some early Dylan here, some James McMurtry there and a whole lot of Hoover's well-worn, rust-belt Americana.

Pastures opens with the gentle, stirring "Get What You Deserve" (I love the backing vocals that are just slightly off-beat on the chorus); "Oh, How Times Have Changed" starts with the great line "she said she couldn't fit 10 years into a suitcase/ and left it laying empty on the floor." The album's centerpiece might just be "St. John," which builds into an almost soothing, gospel swell, with an organ and choir-like vocals by the end. It'll give you goosebumps.

Hoover is best here on the acoustic-based tracks, though there's a sort of stumbling, Tom Waits, junkyard blues vibe on the final cut, "Life We Create."

Hot Tracks: "St. John," "Get What You Deserve," "Oh, How Times Have Changed"

-- SEAN CLANCY

A-Macy Gray

Stripped

Chesky

Macy Gray reinterprets some of her hits with a jazz combo on Stripped, seasoned with a few new songs and Bob Marley and Metallica covers.

Gray's patented purr-and-growl vocals thrive in the intimate setting and the well-chosen repertoire, with trumpeter Wallace Roney and bassist Daryl Johns skillfully coloring the quartet's arrangements.

Recorded in-the-round with a single microphone and no overdubs in a deconsecrated Brooklyn church, the album launches with "Annabelle," a bluesy new tune apt for a speakeasy. Gray really sounds at home in this setting.

Holly Cole could tackle the double bass-led take of "I Try," Gray's biggest hit, while Madeleine Peyroux should consider covering the passionate reggae slant of "She Ain't Right for You."

Gray imbues Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" with a deep melancholy that never wilts, as inventive solos from guitarist Russell Malone and, especially, Roney, provide elevation. Marley's "Redemption Song" gets a faithful reading, Gray applying the same successful approach she uses throughout the album -- honest vocals without mannerisms, just straightforward communication and all the more effective for it.

Hot tracks: "Nothing Else Matters," "Annabelle," "I Try"

-- PABLO GORONDI

The Associated Press

BBruce Springsteen

Chapter and Verse

Columbia

For this companion album to his much-anticipated autobiography, Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen chose 18 songs to reflect the themes of the book and to help trace his musical journey from a teenager in The Castiles to the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer he is today.

For Springsteen collectors, the album offers five previously unreleased tracks. From The Castiles' archives come the Beatlesque "Baby I" and garage rock take on Willie Dixon's "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover." Steel Mill's prog-rock jam "He's Guilty (The Judge Song)" and the Bruce Springsteen Band's "Ballad of Jesse James," which owes a bit to The Band. None of those tracks will merit more than a few listens for curiosity's sake, though Springsteen's "Henry Boy" will likely draw some interest because it sounds like an early version of "Rosalita."

The remaining 13 songs are tried-and-true Springsteen. Yes, "Born to Run" is here, so is "Born in the U.S.A." in case you forgot what those sound like. After all, it's impossible to hear those songs or "Badlands" or "Wrecking Ball" and not recall a glorious concert where Springsteen turned them into indelible memories.

Hot tracks: "Born to Run," "Wrecking Ball," "Henry Boy"

-- GLENN GAMBOA

Newsday (TNS)

Style on 10/04/2016