"SHAKA ROCK," Jet (Real Horrorshow Records)
Jet tumbles in its own turbulence on its new "Shaka Rock" and nearly comes crashing down.
The aggressive Australian band bats listeners around with a barrage of gimmicks and diversions. Although "Shaka Rock's" basic foundation is an exhilarating tribute to rock and pop from decades ago, Jet gets diverted so often that the songs typically feel like an incongruous culmination of tangents. Nearly every track feels unfinished, like a hodgepodge of ideas dumped into Jet's cargo hold without sorting.
The overall effect makes the foursome seem like a self-important band of poseurs. Yet on an individual level, the rollicking cuts make powerful statements.
A fractured melange of dirty rock kicks around event-song opener "K.I.A. (Killed in Action)," which pits strident verses against funky choruses in an epic battle before ending, ironically, with, "Let's get this started ..."
And Jet goes on to start one thing after another, but concluding almost nothing.
Lead vocalist Nic Cester is a vacuous commander over "Shaka Rock's" fidgety change-ups as arrangements halt and pounce, teasing with what could have been: "Beat on Repeat" sounds like what might have happened if a coked-out Duran Duran took the stage at CBGB in the 1970s to blow through what would one day become "Rio." Also, somewhere in the slapping theatrics and fuzzed-up density of "La Di Da" is a Beatles song trying to escape, and the buzzing "Goodbye Hollywood" throws a nod to the Rolling Stones before collapsing into addled aural annoyance.
The sort-of-rock-ballad closer "She Holds a Grudge" is an almost shockingly cohesive ending, a smooth landing for a destination-unknown ride that alternated between enchanting and infuriating.
Rating (five possible): 3
"SUN PEOPLE," Nickodemus (ESL)
Summer may be waning, but it's still wise to keep the sunscreen handy -- especially if you'll be exposing yourself to the energy that radiates from "Sun People" by Nickodemus.
The Brooklyn-based DJ instinctively puts rhythm in the foreground of "Sun People," but the collection is far from an electronic-dance release thanks to the scores of collaborators Nickodemus recruited from five continents. This international lineup of singers and instrumentalists lights up the release with organic vibrancy, turning it into a world-music collection with extra kick in the cadence.
A gripping drive may be the infectious core of the track "Sun Children," yet funk and the flip-flopping rapped/sung vocals of Stimulus and Dionysos punctuate the push. Likewise, the rolling swing of "La Lluvia" and hypnotizing bass loop of "The Love Feeling" only contribute to the fully engaging sound that also includes horns in the former and flute and chants in the latter.
Nickodemus also dishes out a triple taste of female vocalists on three consecutive cuts, with Nuriya's exotic warble weaving around accordion, sax and violin on the throbbing "Brookarest," Falu's seductive croon shading the piano and congas of "Didibina" and the warm vocals of Liliana Araujo toasting the heavy hum of "Gira Do Sol."
Meanwhile, the stylistic variation on "Sun People" ranges from the straightforward Latin sway from Puerto Rico's Candela Allstars on "Calle Sol" to the esoteric marriage of marching beat, clarinet and Wurlitzer in the darker atmosphere of "weRISEweFALLweRISE," featuring the New York Gypsy Allstars.
And again, Nickodemus being Nickodemus, the tracks all resonate with buoyancy.
Rating: 3-1/2
"DON'T GO BACK TO SLEEP," Chris Ayer (Another Record Company)
Singer-songwriter Chris Ayer's "Don't Go Back to Sleep" took shape in the life experiences of the artist as he crisscrossed America. The provocative thinker and not-half-bad vocalist wound his way from his native Virginia to Northern California, where he was a philosophy major at Stanford University, to Brooklyn, where he absorbed the vitality of the New York music scene.
Yet "Don't Go Back to Sleep" was set back with Ayer's trip to Tennessee, where his release was packaged in the standard-issue, Nashville-singer-songwriter box. Mundane constructions -- such as female backing vocals that distract from rather than sweeten Ayer's own -- trap the performer in a pedestrian cage.
Fortunately, the singer snakes his way out with his self-aware musings and fresh rasp. Sometimes he's as wide-eyed and optimistic as Ben Lee, as on the first track "Opening" as well as on "Awake," where he sings, "If this is the main event/Let me be awake for it."
But "Don't Go Back to Sleep" isn't merely a forum for simplistic positive energy: "Let Go" is about creative visualization, and both "Say What You Mean" and "The Revealing" are about self-determination, the latter of which symbolically builds in intensity as his resolve solidifies.
Not surprisingly, the more unassuming arrangements have the most impact because they don't interfere with Ayer's messages. The quiet "In the Silence" is most affecting as he addresses purposelessness with, "You bide your time with pretense/Dreams of green lawns and a strong fence/And you sit there in silence." That's quite a contrast from the forced-raucous "Roy G. Biv" that gratuitously attempts to make the singer sound like just one of the guys or the painfully generic "On Your Way," which stifles such lines as, "Somewhere there's a desk chair with your name on it."
Ayer isn't a conformist, and his music should follow suit.
Rating: 3-1/2
(E-mail Chuck Campbell of The Knoxville News-Sentinel in Tennessee at Campbell(at)knews.com.)
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