Spins

Brian Wilson

That Lucky Old Sun

Label: Capitol

If you like: The Beach Boys, recycled as a musical

Song to download: "Midnight's Another Day"

Brian Wilson sings with boundless enthusiasm on That Lucky Old Sun, his first full album of new songs since 2004.

The once-reclusive Wilson, 66, has lately toured extensively, performing the complete Pet Sounds and Smile albums along with other hits he wrote for the Beach Boys. That Lucky Old Sun is an elaborate latter-day conceptual sequel to those two albums -- a day in the life of Los Angeles, from one dawn to the next. Produced by Wilson, the music is overstuffed with echoes of his Beach Boys marvels -- chugging rhythms, creamy vocal harmonies and such favorite instruments as bass harmonica, temple blocks, chimes and French horn.

The album, an uninterrupted suite of 17 tracks, lasts just 38 minutes. Save for one song, Wilson wrote the album with keyboardist Scott Bennett, and with Van Dyke Parks, who provided wordplay-laden lyrics for "Heroes and Villains" and other Smile songs.

The lyrics -- and nutty spoken-word passages written by Parks -- sketch a Los Angeles filled with lovers and dreamers before circling back to Wilson's troubled past. In "Midnight's Another Day," Wilson sings, "Swept away in a brainstorm/Chapters missing, pages torn… all these people make me feel so alone."

Wilson and his collaborators strive to make That Lucky Old Sun a new career landmark, and it is a breakthrough compared to his previous simplistic solo albums. But too often the songs are patchworks of Wilson's past glories, making references that are far too recognizable. For all its determined optimism, That Lucky Old Sun ends up as more an affirmation of Wilson's legacy than an expansion of it.

-- Jon Pareles

The New York Times

The Dandy Warhols

Earth to The Dandy Warhols

Label: World's Fair

If you like: The Great Unknown

Song to download: "Welcome to the Third World"

If you squirmed at The Dandy Warhol's last album, Odditoirum or Warlords of Mars, then you're not likely to initially be too thrilled with Earth to the Dandy Warhols, the band's wry new album. Earth's loose (inner) space theme inspires long tracks that happily indulge the band's inclination to dabble and experiment in altered states.

Even so, singer, songwriter and producer Courtney Taylor-Taylor's free-flowing cycle of headphone-ready songs is surprisingly cohesive -- a funny ("Welcome To The Third World," a "Some Girls"/Chic/Talking Heads parody, is priceless), funky, punky, dubby, wispy salute to psychedelia. And the album's weightless groove is suitable for any intergalactic dance floor (gravity boots optional).

Fine melodies abound, buried, as are vocals, beneath the wash of druggy psychedelia. The controlled chaos goes on and on, but give it a chance -- appeal eventually stumbles through the haze to shut down the judgmental mind and provoke a mind-blown party.

-- Ed Bumgardner

relish staff writer

The Game

LAX

Label: Geffen

If you like: G-Funk

Song to download: "Letter To The King"

Name-dropping rapper The Game's new album, LAX, finds him, for the first time, in the role of a joyless name-checker. Almost everything on the disc, from the boasting to the baiting, is pro forma. Worse, The Game, never a fluid rapper, sounds lumpy, as if he were delivering verses while running up stairs.

Gone are the clever hooks of his debut album and the brute textures of his second. The production is now ponderous; The Game even somehow coaxes a dull beat from Kanye West.

Crucial to The Game's biography is his 2001 shooting, which might explain the bizarre, sometimes galling "Never Can Say Goodbye," in which he raps from the perspective of three long-gone greats -- Tupac Shakur, the Notorious B.I.G. and Eazy-E. But sacrilege aside, the Game sounds his most vibrant here, matching their vocal rhythms and tics. He sounds as if he's having more fun playing them than, everywhere else here, playing himself.

-- Jon Caramanica

The New York Times

David Sanborn

Here And Gone

Label: Decca

If you like: soul-jazz

Song to download: "What Will I Tell My Heart"

Here and Gone, the 23rd solo album by saxophonist David Sanborn, is tribute and testament to alto saxophonist Hank Crawford -- and it also happens to be a decent soul-jazz record.

Sanborn's sweet-tart alto-sax playing has been a recognizable and reliable pop staple for so many years that these grittier performances feel surprising. When he puckers up for a swinging instrumental, such as Crawford's "Stoney Lonesome," the effect is one of disarming delight. More commercial are evocations of Ray Charles, Crawford's longtime boss. Guitarist Eric Clapton guests on "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town," and slide guitarist Derek Trucks lends a hand on "Brother Ray."

Two soul singers also tackle songs associated with Charles: Sam Moore (Sam & Dave) wins with "I've Got News for You," but Joss Stone, belting "I Believe to My Soul," induces winces.

That's it for the guests, and thankfully so, as Sanborn deserves his time. And when he gets it, he characteristically makes it count.

-- Nate Chinen

The New York Times

Scott Kempner

Saving Grace

Label: Megaforce

If you like: Willy DeVille, The Del-Lords, Bruce Springsteen

Song to download: "I'll Give You Needles"

Scott Kempner is one of rock 'n' roll's true believers -- a founding member of the proto-punk band The Dictators and the proto-Americana band The Del-Lords, who has also worked with the mythical Skeletons and with Dion DiMucci (Dion & The Belmonts).

Kempner is a proud survivor, of a near-fatal illness, and of the battered rock 'n' roll landscape he so loved-- a fact celebrated throughout Saving Grace, an unabashedly retro-fueled solo album that bears the indelible imprint of the musical streets of New York where he was raised.

Kempner, now as before, wears his influences like tattoos, drawing inspiration from his musical heroes -- a long list that he shares with such likeminded rock ambassadors as Bruce Springsteen. The songs are sharply written and epic in reach, the guitars ring loud and true. And Kempner's messages of coming back from loves and lives lost or squandered resound in almost heroic proportion. This is back-alley rock 'n' roll -- honest, passionate and free of filler. This is music to believe in.

-- Ed Bumgardner

relish staff writer

Johnny Flynn

A Larum

Label: Lost Highway

If you like: Richard Thompson, Ray Davies, Nick Drake

Song to download: "Tunnels"

Johnny Flynn, a 25-year-old British acoustic signer-songwriter, foreshadows his intent with the odd title of his debut album, A Larum, -- a name copped from an obscure 1602 play. Flynn is also an accomplished Shakespearean stage actor, so he naturally brings a literary bent to lyrics set upon a sonic foundation of traditional English folk.

Flynn bears a populist's heart, and his songs have a Dickensian tone that dispels materialism in favor of communal joy and shared ideals. Most songs carry a high-spirited energy and a playful sense of wordplay. Arrangements reflect Bruce Springsteen's The Seeger Sessions in the punchy way they add life to non-amplified music. But Flynn's lyrics and instrumentation offer an old English sensibility similar to that of Ray Davies.

Flynn's catchiest tunes -- "Tickle Me Pink," "Leftovers," "The Box" -- feature his fresh point of view. He's not wholly formed with ballads, but his humanity and unpretentious intelligence gives his music a rare and compelling appeal.

-- Michael McCall

The Associated Press