ShareThis"THE REAL THING," Vanessa Williams (Concord)
Vanessa Williams' new "The Real Thing" is so meticulously crafted that it sometimes feels disingenuous. Like the singer/actress herself, the release is almost unnaturally beautiful, creating an antiseptic effect that might leave the audience feeling glossed over.
Williams often doesn't help her cause as she relies on the power of understatement to escort her through the polished strains of urbane jazz built on strings, piano and acoustic guitar -- though to be honest, if she belted her way through this material, the showboating likely would be insufferable.
So perhaps it's best she played it cool, sacrificing a little honesty here and there. The star of film, stage and the TV show "Ugly Betty" is a deft illusionist, and her savoir-faire diva on "The Real Thing" is but another character.
Plus when she's on, she's on. When the Babyface-penned and -produced track "Loving You" brings brassy oomph to the table, Williams responds with saucy vocals and the declaration, "I'll be your woman till the day I die." She responds similarly to the invigorating arrangement of the title track (a Stevie Wonder cover), and turns in her most demonstrative, and best, performance on a refined "Come on Strong."
Other songs find life of their own even when Williams is holding back: Stirring percussion drives "Just Friends" and "If There Were No Song," for example, and the rhythm of Bebel Gilberto's "Close to You" is lifted by a Latin swing.
Meanwhile, even the calculated stately tracks have their appeal, including the timeless R&B "Breathless," the tranquil "Lazy Afternoon," the cocktail-lounge "Hello Like Before" and the regal duet with Javier Colon, "October Sky." They're just a bit too drowsy for their own good.
More heart would have been nice, but if Williams and her producers set out to create a collection of lush and elegant songs, they succeeded.
Rating (five possible): 3-1/2
"WEST RYDER PAUPER LUNATIC ASYLUM," Kasabian (RCA)
Kasabian is one of those British acts that trump up the bombast beyond the threshold of broad American acceptance, and even if the group achieves an Oasis-size following in its homeland, it won't likely have any more than, well, an Oasis-size following in the United States.
Sometimes Kasabian's penchant for theatrics works on its new "West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum." For instance, lead vocalist Tom Meighan glides through the sly "Thick as Thieves" with lines like "All the little people, they want to be free/But I can't get there, 'cause I got you holding me -- back" before busting into a romping chorus of "la-la-la-la-las." But usually the stagey "Lunatic Asylum" tracks are misfires along the lines of the wobbling and muddy "Take Aim," the addled and self-indulgent "Ladies and Gentlemen" and the out-of-it/fake-gospel closer "Happiness."
It's too bad these off-putting cuts are scattered throughout "Lunatic Asylum" because Kasabian makes a brilliant run elsewhere. Songwriter/guitarist Serge Pizzorno and Dan the Automator (Gorillaz) together produce an acid trip of sound with a perfect storm of high-voltage rock and rumbling electro, and neither aspect dominates the other. Instead, the two genres are fused into a surprisingly natural collaboration. Propulsive swarms of stirring synths augment any rhythm a mere bass and drums could produce, and jagged shards of distorted guitars rip apart any sterile side effect of electronica. The two sides throb and rub against each other in an orgy of electric aggression as Kasabian bustles through the march of "Underdog," cuts through the charged chords of "Where Did All the Love Go?" and kicks into the raunchy go-go of "Fast Fuse."
Although Meighan is a mercurial frontman on cuts like the jabbing "Vlad the Impaler," the band spins all the way around for subliminal bliss in the echoing whispers of the intoxicating "Secret Alphabets" and subtle textures of the verses of "Fire."
If only Kasabian had dialed down the drama.
Rating: 3-1/2
"HERE COME THE VIKINGS," Astrid Williamson (One Little Indian U.K.)
For more than half a century singers have been trying to carve out their own niche in pop music, so naturally it gets ever more difficult for them to find a unique voice, and at this point most vocalists are resigned to just being "the next Madonna" or "the latest Mariah Carey."
Astrid Williamson has all the potential to be "another Sarah McLachlan," but she certainly puts in the effort to be more than that -- especially now that the semi-retired McLachlan is content with just churning out the occasional ballad.
Williamson, a native of the Shetland Islands formerly of the trio Goya Dress, adds newfound electric-guitar aggression to her eclectic stylings on her fourth solo release, "Here Come the Vikings." It's an unexpected twist to her esoteric sound that marries literate lyrics to aural dreamscapes, and it challenges her imperfect vocals. Yet it also tethers Williamson and keeps her from dissipating into the ether, as she is prone to do.
"Here Come the Vikings" has its missteps: "Crashing Minis" and "Pinned" are too dense and obscure for their own good, and Williamson seems lost in a tortured ramble on "Sing the Body Electric." However, even when she falters, she does it with originality -- as when she compensates for the contrivances of "The Stars Are Beautiful" with an instrumental melange including cornets, tubular bells and euphonium.
Generally, Williamson is unusually appealing, crafting a magical melody to drive the calm-but-relentless rhythm of Gothic opener "Store," and speaking in blank verse against the electric reverberations and earnest piano of "Slake." She's at her most impressive delivering penetrating passion in the chilly, obsessive vibe of "How You Take My Breath Away," and cold emotion in the torchy gloom of "Eve," a lonely trumpet punctuating such lines as "The map on her wall just reminds you other places are lit by the sun/If you could just leave her, no longer deceive her."
Perhaps she didn't need that guitar after all.
Rating: 4
(E-mail Chuck Campbell of The Knoxville News-Sentinel in Tennessee at Campbell(at)knews.com.)
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