CD Reviews: Emmylou Harris, Beck and more

"All I Intended to Be"

Emmylou Harris

Now in her 60s, Emmylou Harris proves on her latest release that she still has one of the best voices in the business.

On "All I Intended to Be," Harris sings a bittersweet mixture of her own original material as well as covers that include Patty Griffin's "Moon Song," Tracy Chapman's "All That You Have Is Your Soul" and John Wesley Routh's moving "Shores of White Sand," which opens the album.

The grace of her vocals and the restraint of her songwriting and song choices is what we've come to expect from Harris. The fact that she continues to deliver makes it even more impressive.

On the emotional ballad "Gold," penned by Harris, the production is pared back to the simplest elements to dramatic effect with Dolly Parton and Vince Gill backing on vocals. On the refrain Harris and her accompanying crew sing, "No matter how bright I glittered, baby, I could never be gold."

Regardless of what she says, we know gold when we hear it.

Alexis Larsen, Dayton Daily News

"Modern Guilt"

Beck

Beck Hansen's 10th album was co-produced by both Beck and Brian Burton — the beatmaking producer extraordinaire and taller, quieter half of Gnarls Barkley — aka Danger Mouse.

This turned out to have been a terrific pairing. By working with Danger Mouse, Beck has managed to bring the focus and clarity to his work that he's been missing.

The liner notes are the first clue that something has changed: A stark, clean, conservative design with a single black-and-white photo on the front couldn't be more different from the bright, crazy covers he's paraded out over the years.

The 10 tracks on the disc come in just shy of 34 fleeting minutes. Beck's mood is dark and glum, which will be far more familiar to fans. The first three lines of every song are enough to leave you feeling like an antidepressant.

On the title track Beck sings, "I'm under lock and key misapprehension is turning into convention. Don't know what I've done, but I feel ashamed. Standing outside the glass on the sidewalk these people talk about impossible things and I'm falling out of the conversation like a pawn piece in a human shield. Modern guilt is all in our hands." He ends saying, "don't know what I've done but I feel afraid."

Reflecting on what Beck's really getting at, the album suddenly clicks ... All of the bad news happening in the world and that feeling that comes when you throw up your hands in helplessness, walking away with the modern guilt of knowing you played your part and did nothing or not enough.

Danger Mouse augments the '60s retro sounds with something much more uncertain and menacing in the form of spooky sonic beats and soulful atmospheric samples to help communicate Beck's gloom-and-doom message.

Known for his broad experimenting and sampling of different musical styles, this time around Beck had a really good editor to work with and it showed. "Modern Guilt" is a trippy, fuzzy whip-smart release that's bursting with ideas both for the ears and the mind.

In 1994, Beck proudly proclaimed himself a "Loser." Fourteen years later, he's guilty of being anything but.

Alexis Larsen, Dayton Daily News

"ALL SIDES"

O.A.R.

Uncertainty and reassurance make for a busy tag team on "All Sides," the sixth studio album by O.A.R. It's a familiar arrangement in modern rock, and Marc Roberge, the band's singer and songwriter, embraces it. "Hold on," he urges in the refrain of one relationship-maintenance tune. "I'm on my way back home," he promises in another one. Then there's "On My Way," which closes the album and raises a question: Does Roberge have any new songs about being right where he's supposed to be?

If he does, he excluded them, in keeping with standard practice. O.A.R. specializes in a sound that could be described as aspirational; there's a reason the band was tapped to provide the theme for ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." This album in particular involves a lot of earnest fretting about making things right, or just better. That impulse elicits at least one allusion to current events, but even then Roberge manages to preserve an air of generic yearning. ("Wait for my love," he advises in "War Song." Presumably he would add that he was on his way, if he could.)

Because of its college-town origins and reputation for stretching out onstage, O.A.R. has occasionally endured comparison to the Dave Matthews Band. (Both groups also feature a house saxophonist and an avid tape-trading fan base.) "All Sides" ensures against such a fate, but for the wrong reasons: the Matthews crew usually keeps things more interesting than this. O.A.R. deserves credit (just a bit) for easing up on its trademark faux-reggae, but the alternative surely didn't have to be so prosaic.

Nate Chinen, New York Times News Service