Tuned In: Kelly Clarkson, Razorlight and more

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"ALL I EVER WANTED," Kelly Clarkson (RCA)

Judging by the tone of "My Life Would Suck Without You," the first single and opening track of Kelly Clarkson's new "All I Ever Wanted," the first-season "American Idol" winner was anxious to get back to business. The high-adrenalin song vaulted to No. 1, exploding to the top with a combustible brew of humor, hook and hyperactive rhythm.
However, the subsequent track on the release, "I Do Not Hook Up," is another flurry of almost desperate, albeit effective, rock/dance mania -- indicating that explosiveness is the business plan for Clarkson, one of few "Idol" contestants to show any semblance of truly being an idol.
"All I Ever Wanted" is filled with high-octane moments, whether the singer is packaging herself as a more palatable Pink with the blistering rock sass of "Whyyawannabringmedown" and the whip-whirling electricity of "If I Can't Have You," or just blowing up in emotion as she incredulously bellows through unthinkable heartbreak on "Cry" and freaks out that her lover's eyes are open when he kisses her on "Don't Let Me Stop You" ("If you wanna leave, baby, you can leave!").
Clarkson also indulges in experimentation, snaking along like a burning fuse to the powder-keg climax of the title track, for instance, and taking eccentric jags through girl-group dynamics on the amped-up "I Want You" and bouncy "Ready." But as long as she continues to deftly dish out stately ballads such as the serious closer "If No One Will Listen" and the sweet "Already Gone," she'll keep fans happy as she follows her muse.
"All I Ever Wanted" achieves a rare blend of glossy, commercial production with soulful belting and howling that somehow doesn't seem too manipulative. And most persuasive, the feeling that Clarkson's confidence won't be deterred.
Rating (five possible): 4

"SLIPWAY FIRES," Razorlight (Mercury)

It's suitable for a band called Razorlight to have an edge, but the London-based group is simply too sharp on "Slipway Fires."
Led by singer/songwriter/guitarist Johnny Borrell, the Razorlight assault is at first subtle. Opening track "Wire to Wire" gently slides the knife in with stark piano and Borrell's blunt voice that earnestly builds, fueled by lines like, "How do you love in a house without feelings?" until the drama is pouring out in slicing squalls.
On much of the rest of "Slipway Fires" Borrell is likewise as harsh as a 100-watt bare bulb.
However, the foundations are generally sound and even impressively diverse, so the problem is squarely on the front man. His intonations turn the would-be sleek British rock/soul "North London Trash" into something abrasive, and the smoky blues inflections in the arrangement of "Stinger" are overrun by Borrell's wound-up, rushed delivery.
Thanks to him, the hodgepodge tends to sound like a coked-out cornucopia, even down to the folkie, but histrionic, "60 Thompson" and plucky, but inevitably unnerving, "Burberry Blue Eyes." For its part, the anxiety-provoking retro rocker "Monster Boots" is both numbing and unmusical, yet the worst is the closing ballad, "The House," about a dead dad and helpless child that's absurdly overdramatic and pinned to lines such as, "Tonight there's gonna be a reckoning! I'm entering the house where my father died!"
On the flipside, this souped-up stew works well at times, like during the punkish roll of "Tabloid Lover," and the mercurial mix is only occasionally bad. If only the composite effect of Borrell's incessant stabbing didn't leave listeners feeling like another victim of Jason Voorhees.
Rating: 2-1/2

"AS SEEN THROUGH WINDOWS," Bell Orchestre (Arts and Crafts)

Sometimes it's worth reading literature just for the journey, not the destination, and Bell Orchestre's "As Seen Through Windows" is a sonic equivalent of an interesting story with no clear direction.
But those who venture across the Montreal act's release should be warned: "As Seen Through Windows" takes a long time to end up nowhere.
The six-member group assembles its instrumental release with a cinematic bent, and each song would suit a soundtrack of one sort or another. Yet Bell Orchestre apparently didn't want to be restricted to just one type of "movie" to score, so the cuts spread out over a number of would-be genres. The quiet, unsettling violin part of "Icicles/Bicycles" would suit a psychological thriller, for instance, and the gentle chiming that comes early in "Air Lines/Land Lines" would be a perfect fit for a fantasy flick. Add to that the action-film-friendly flurry of horns and beat and rhythm on "The Gaze," the sport-movie buoyancy of "Bucephalus Bouncing Ball" and the surreal-indie-film-appropriate intrigue of the luminescent "Water/Light/Shifts," and this stuff could fill a multiplex.
Bell Orchestre works with a myriad of instruments -- including upright bass, violin, French horn, lap steel, melodica, trumpet, percussion, electronics, keyboards, drums and percussion -- and in the band's process of meshing all that in, several tracks blow up into epics. The act makes it work on occasion, as on opener "Stripes," which creates a feeling of anticipation and anxiety with its fluttering, ebb-and-flow keyboards plus otherworldly horn. Yet often these songs have no payoff other than to delay their own denouement.
Bell Orchestre would have done well to make a quick exit before listeners could catch on to the pointlessness of it all, but instead the band did the opposite, carrying on for more than 11 minutes on its bombastic final track.
They should have built in an intermission.
Rating: 3

(E-mail Chuck Campbell of The Knoxville News-Sentinel in Tennessee at Campbell(at)knews.com.)
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