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Rumer spreads joy of Bacharach, David songbook

Album cover for Rumer's "This Girl’s in Love"
Album cover for Rumer's "This Girl’s in Love"

B+ Rumer

This Girl's in Love

Rhino

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Album cover for The Flaming Lips' "Oczy Mlody"

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Album cover for Dale Watson & Ray Benson's "Dale & Ray"

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Album cover for The Notwist's "Superheroes, Ghostvillains & Stuff"

If you enjoy richly orchestrated pop, British singer Rumer's latest -- This Girl's in Love, subtitled A Bacharach and David Songbook -- deserves your attention. It is a lush, beautifully arranged album of tunes from one of pop's most venerated songbooks: the works of Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

For many, Bacharach and David are synonymous with the voice of Dionne Warwick. The composers produced many of her recordings from the 1960s and early 1970s. Dusty Springfield is also regarded as a superb interpreter of their songs.

This sophisticated album has a certain familiarity with Springfield's hit "The Look of Love," the Carpenters' "Close to You," Warwick's "Walk on By" and Jackie DeShannon's "What the World Needs Now," among others.

British-based Rumer also sings lesser-known songs, such as a striking and poetic "Balance of Nature," "The Last One to be Loved" and two minor Warwick hits -- "Land of Make Believe" and "Are You There (With Another Girl)."

Rumer's lovely, expressive voice gets a retro setting with a modern vibe, thanks to producer/arranger Rob Shirakbari, who worked more than 25 years with Bacharach and Warwick. Rumer's voice has been compared to Karen Carpenter for its richness and tone and is well suited for this material.

The singer is especially strong on Warwick's "Walk on By" and "A House Is Not a Home." The former's arrangement follows Warwick's closely; the latter is imbued with yearning. Rumer brings palpable heartache to "Are You There (With Another Girl)."

Hot tracks: "Walk on By," "The Look of Love," "Are You There (With Another Girl)," "Balance of Nature"

-- ELLIS WIDNER

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

B The Flaming Lips

Oczy Mlody

Warner Bros.

Recent albums from the Flaming Lips have been confrontational in their psychedelic wildness, whether 2013's abrasive The Terror, 2014's bizarro cover of the Beatles' With a Little Help From My Fwends or their surprising collaboration with Miley Cyrus on 2015's Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz. Coming after that string, the melodic and relatively sedate Oczy Mlody is a relief that recalls the more placid moments of high-water marks The Soft Bulletin or Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.

It still offers heavy doses of psychedelia, but the songs are less likely to invoke nightmares than to be reveries about frogs and unicorns and sunrises. It's a keyboard- and electronics-based album, so when a guitar takes the lead for a moment, for instance on the closer, "We Are Family" (with a Cyrus cameo), it evokes nostalgia. Wayne Coyne's melodies drift like dreams -- or trips -- but Oczy Mlody is the most grounded and accessible Lips album in a long time.

Hot track: "We Are Family"

-- STEVE KLINGE

The Philadelphia Inquirer

B Dale Watson & Ray Benson

Dale & Ray

Ameripolitan/Home

Dale and Ray are two good ol' boys having themselves a good ol' time on their spirited self-titled debut album. Purporting to be a country tandem from Bedsore, Texas, the white-haired duo consists of Alabama-native honky-tonker Dale Watson and Springfield, Pa.-raised Ray Benson, the leader of western swing group Asleep at the Wheel, who, like Watson, has long made his home in the Lone Star State.

Their genial team-up never takes itself too seriously as it delights in hard-core-country home truths, with a tribute to Merle ("Feelin' Haggard") and a cover of Willie ("Write Your Own Songs") as it scoots around the dance floor on "I Wish You Knew" and pines for the night before on a "Hangover Ago."

Hot tracks: "Feelin' Haggard," "Write Your Own Songs," "Hangover Ago"

-- DAN DeLUCA

The Philadelphia Inquirer

B+ The Notwist

Superheroes, Ghostvillains & Stuff

Sub Pop

Superheroes, Ghostvillains & Stuff documents a single 2015 show in The Notwist's native Germany, but it serves as a greatest-hits primer for the uninitiated (fans of Radiohead and Stereolab, take note) and a vibrant expansion of the band's meticulous studio versions.

The Notwist formed in 1989 as a hard-core band, but hit their stride in 2002 with Neon Golden, a perfect and prescient melding of thoughtful guitar rock and glitchy electronics. Superheroes focuses on that album and the subsequent two, but with an expanded six-piece band that amps up the intensity, the noisiness, and the range of textures.

Songs like "Pick Up the Phone," "Gloomy Planets," and "Kong" take on new power and clarity. The sense of live interplay and adventure -- especially on tracks like "Pilot" and "Run Run Run" that stretch to eight or more minutes -- make this live album essential.

Hot tracks: "Pick Up the Phone," "Kong," "Pilot"

-- STEVE KLINGE

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Style on 01/24/2017

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