There are certain names that automatically conjure up the blues – Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King and Howlin’ Wolf. At 6’ 6” and close to 300 pounds, Chester “Howlin’ Wolf” Burnett was as intimidating as a linebacker and had a rough-edged voice that sounded like he gargled with broken glass. The four-disk, 96-track Smokestack Lightning: The Complete Chess Masters 1951-1960 is a full-bodied early career retrospective that showcases Wolf’s iconic no-frills growl.

There are numerous alternate takes and mixes for many of Wolf’s best know tracks, including “How Many More Years,” “Dorothy Mae,” “Nature,” and “I’m Leaving You.” “How Many More Times” is served up no less than three times – re-titled as “No Place to Go” and “You Gonna Wreck My Life.” Many of the recordings sound as if they were recorded in a cereal box, but that helps, rather than hinders, Wolf’s pioneering primal blues delivery.

Wolf’s minimalist approach (harp, guitar, drums, stand-up bass) invariably makes some of the songs sound the same, but he varies his approach enough to show why burgeoning rockers like Keith Relf, Eric Burdon and Mick Jagger admired him so much. The horn section in “Oh! Red” gives it a fiery bounce, while his lack of a rasp in “Saddle My Pony” marks one of the few times Wolf softened his gravelly voice. “Smokestack Lightning” is deliberate and forceful with plenty of Herculean howlin’. “Neighbors” is highlighted by jaunty piano licks and a thudding bass line that saturates the mix, while “Hold Your Money” has happy harp passages that serve to remind the listener that the blues didn’t always have to be sad to be good.

Wolf’s vocal for “I Asked Her for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)” is so coarse it sounds like the woman in question gave him a match too. “Evil (is Going on)” is perfect for his devilish delivey: “Long way from home, can’t sleep at all, you know another mule is kickin’ in your stall/That’s evil.”

Smokestack Lightning also offers an insider’s warts-and-all look at how Wolf constructed his tunes. In “Howlin’ for My Baby” Wolf’s drummer searches in vein for the right beat. “You Can’t Put Me Out” begins with an amusing conversation between Wolf and his producer: Producer: “You gonna moan?” Wolf: “I’m hollerin’ now. You gonna give me some money?”

Smokestack Lightning finishes strong with three of Wolf’s songs that became the backbone of his act: “Wang Dang Doodle,” “Backdoor Man” and “Spoonful.”

Wolf would go on to write more classics, including “Hidden Charms,” “Killing Floor” and the humorous “300 Pounds of Joy.” Smokestack Lightning: The Complete Chess Masters 1951-1960 captures the Wolf as a cub in his early years – and it’s a howlin’ good time.

Legendary smoothness, super steamy romantic ballads and an unmistakable uptown swing made the four-part harmonies of super-Philly group Boyz II Men instantaneously successful. The resilient combination of soulfulness and a rhythm and blues pop sound made the group one of the best-selling R&B groups of all time. “Motownphilly” changed the sonic landscape of R&B in the 90’s. They revived the sound of doo wop music, made it hip, yet edgy and added an onslaught of accented synthesizers and sharp beats plus their impressive vocal styling. Boyz II Men has sold over 60 million albums since their first, Cooleyhighharmony, was released in 1991.

Singer, Michael McCary retired from the group around 2003, however Nathan Morris, Wanya Morris and Shawn Stockman forged ahead releasing albums, one of which was of cover songs in 2009 and now their new album, Twenty, a two-disc set. The loveliness of “Water Runs Dry,” the romantic endearment of “I’ll Make Love to You” and the remorseful heartbreak of “End of the Road” are just a few of the nine re-recorded tracks on the album while there are 12 new singles. “Believe” is a futuristic upbeat dance track, while “Slowly” features their trademark romantic sensuality. “Benefit of a Fool,” grinds out a swinging 70’s energetic dance groove and those wonderful vocal dynamics. Twenty is very classic Boyz II Men, still featuring that same infectious harmonious vibrancy and soul-swooning rhythm and blues warmth.

Regardless of Billy Corgan’s actions in resurrecting The Smashing Pumpkins over the past few years, he’s thankfully been more dignified in handling the band’s back catalog, which is now in the reissue-and-remaster phase.

The Pumpkins’ debut, Gish, was, at the time, a sort of mid-way point between the band’s start as drum machine-driven goth wave and the dreamy alternative rock for which they’d become known. This is a more hard rock album than their later efforts, and when it rocks, it sizzles. “I Am One” and “Siva” are some of the best examples of Corgan’s searing guitar work on the record, the latter also expertly showcasing what was already a knack for super loud-to-whisper quiet dynamics.

The band’s dark side tinges the album with a hazy psychedelia, such as on “Rhinoceros,” the trippy “Suffer,” and “Daydream” (with lead vocals by bassist D’arcy), not to mention the odd hidden track “I’m Going Crazy.”

The remastering job is also nicely done, preserving dynamics while adding a bit more punch, clarity and heft.

The bonus disc features a wealth of rarities and alternate takes. There are live, acoustic, and demo versions of album and non-album tracks, some of which are quite worthwhile, like the echoey demos of “Crush” and a Corgan-sung “Daydream.” You also get a new mix of the band’s dream-rock epic “Starla” and a version of “Drown” with an alternate feedback solo.

The deluxe edition is packed in a shiny box with beautifully re-designed artwork, photos, a booklet with track-by-track commentary by Corgan, and a bonus DVD of a full 1990 performance in a Chicago club (as well as a home video of the band performing “Crush” in the living room), which so perfectly completes the picture of Gish from an archival standpoint, Corgan’s funny clothes and long hair included.

The band had such blistering live shows, and while the early gig shows them still in development, it’s an interesting peek at the way things were and gives hints of where it was all going.

Recently, the British newspaper The Guardian ran an article asking if indie rock was dying out. Around the same time, The Maccabees’ third album landed comfortably in that nation’s charts at number four, proving that there is still an audience for guitar-based rock.

The English band has certainly matured over the years with Given to the Wild proving to be their most cohesive album to date. There’s a certain cinematic quality to the record, with each song flowing smoothly into the next. It’s difficult to isolate individual tracks, but that’s for the best. While other albums can feel like a collection of random songs made around the same time, Given to the Wild is a solid, soulful work.

The overall tone is slow and dreamy with songs like “Child” and “Ayla” not being afraid to pull in elements like horns and piano. There’s a patient build to every track that goes from quiet, delicate guitar to swelling triumph by the end. Don’t mistake that for it being formulaic though; The Maccabees have hit their stride and know how to make music for the heart as well as the head. Fans of Foals’ atmosphere and Arcade Fire’s intensity will find admiration for an English group only growing more talented by the album.

The ninth studio release from singer-songwriter, producer, and performer Meshell Ndegeocello is an intimate room of alternative-pop sounds.

As the title suggests, Weather covers the wide array of feelings one may experience in and out of a relationship or just while living life. It’s a personal experience; simple yet complex in its instrumentation. Ndegeocello’s music captures a moment, a time of vulnerability.  Weather reminds me of 1999’s Bitter and 2009’s Devil’s Halo—LPs that are full of emotion, heartbreak, love, and sadness–except that it is now 2012 and the prolific songwriter is still sifting through those complex feelings of isolation and desire.  ”Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear” evokes sadness and longing, while “A Bitter Mule” is seemingly about forgiveness, yet “Chance” speaks on “If not for love/I have to refuse it.”

What I’ve always enjoyed about Meshell is that you never know what to expect, from album to album. Sometimes it’s best to just dive in and pray for a connection. Though she hasn’t truly had mainstream success since 1993’s Plantation Lullabies and Bitter, the bassist  still packs venues around the country, which speaks volumes about her ability to write lyrics from the heart and to connect with fans new and old alike!

With his band, the Hold Steady, lead singer Craig Finn created five full-length albums, each with a full cast of characters. With the scene often set in Minneapolis (near where Finn was raised), these characters partied; they drank, dropped acid, danced, and were crowned king and queen of their high school prom. Each song introduced us to characters, like Charlemagne and Sapphire, and to a world that, to me with my fairly PG-rated lifestyle, was kind of fascinating. But what happens when these rebel high school kids grow up? Once the whole rock and roll lifestyle stops seeming cool and starts having real effects? Finn catches up with a few of these characters later in life on his fantastic new album, Clear Heart Full Eyes.

The album kicks off not with the type of bang we’d expect from the Hold Steady frontman, but more with a dark rumbling. “Apollo Bay,” the album’s first track, has heavy guitars that drone and scream while Finn sings, “All my days stretch out before me/And my nights just go to hell.” Not a super hopeful introduction, but a compelling one.

Songs like “No Future,” “Terrified Eyes” and “Jackson” are all rich with characterization, the kind that typically develops after several chapters in a novel, not after just a few lines in a pop song. “Terrified Eyes” mixes an infectious, up-beat country melody with some incredibly dark lyrics that focus on domestic abuse. Written in typical Finn-fashion as a narrative, the song introduces us to Shannon and her abusive partner Sean. The song opens with the telling lines, “Sean says he can’t sit here and tell her that it’s really all so simple/Cause it’s not simple, it’s exhausting and confusing and it’s scary and complex.”

The final track, “Not Much Left of Us,” deepens the alt-country feel with more gorgeous, melancholy steel pedal and fiddle. “Honolulu Blues,” the album’s first single, doesn’t really fit in at all. With its blues-rock beats, it takes on a very cool, Stone-y vibe. Themes of Christianity and religion come in too, particularly on the bouncy, ridiculous “New Friend Jesus” that features the lyrics, “Now people give me sideways looks when we set up on the strand/It’s hard to suck with Jesus in your band.”

Overall, this is a great album, without any tracks that I’d consider “skipable.” It’s a complete departure in some respects from his work with the Hold Steady, but when it comes to great characters, lyrics, and catchy beats, Finn delivers.

Weezer
Live in Del Mar, California

There’s nothing worse than a live album that just focuses on singles and refuses to touch upon a band’s full discography. However, Weezer’s never been the sort of band to buy into the music industry hype. Live in Del Mar, California is as fun as being at a gig, and if you can’t make it out to a gig, sometimes a really great recording is the next best thing.

Rivers Cuomo proves himself an engaging and humorous frontman throughout, from commending his bandmates’ solos during their introductions to encouraging audience members to urinate before the end of the gig.

The delivery of each song is done with honed precision, loyal enough to the album tracks to be recognizable but just varied enough to be set apart. The setlist gravitates toward The Blue Album, some of the band’s finest and most loved work, but there’s something here for fans of any of Weezer’s albums. Small bonuses are included in the form of covers of Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks” and Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android.”

Like Rivers’ look, Weezer never seems to age as a group, and thank God for that. The band is one of the final remnants of 90′s nerds proving themselves cool, and their longevity and continued skill give outcasts a reason to continue feeling pride playing Dungeons and Dragons while wanting to rock.

Mylo Xyloto, the fifth studio album from the British quartet Coldplay treads on familiar territory, which can be either good or bad depending on what you like about the band. For me personally, this is not a good thing. Aside from a few moments, I didn’t find their debut, Parachutes, all that spectacular but I was blown away by its follow-up, A Rush of Blood to the Head. The new wave, spacey approach they took with X&Y made for a very enjoyable listening experience and then came Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, which I thought sounded like a band that is very much aware of their popularity and how crucial is to immediately deliver an iPod commercial-worthy hit single. It still sounded like Coldplay, it just wasn’t as interesting.

That’s how I feel about Mylo Xyloto. While it’s not completely unlistenable, it doesn’t sound like the guys dug very deep to come up with these tunes. The Coldplay formula is pretty basic and that has worked well for them but when they pump out forgettable songs that lack the magic of past hits like “Trouble,” “Clocks” and “Fix You,” you come to a harsh realization—Chris Martin has absolutely no range as a vocalist. After a while his either sleepy or falsetto approach to singing begins to make each song sound interchangeable. When your music structure is as simple as Coldplay’s can be, it’s up to the singer to bring forth a memorable, catchy vocal line and lyrics but both are hard to come by on Mylo Xyloto.

I hate to think that this is secretly their goodbye album and they will soon go off to their own separate things because I think they still have magic left in them, but they’re never going to dig deep enough to find it again if mainstream music lovers just eat up whatever they dish out. Many artists in the past have put out such colossal flops that everyone was certain their career was over, only to have that same artist come back more determined the next time around and release a masterpiece. Failure can be great inspiration. Mylo Xyloto isn’t a complete failure by any means but it’s definitely a couple of steps back. Here’s hoping the next Coldplay album is a great leap forward.

There are so few record labels whose releases have as definitive a sound as those on British indie 4AD did in the 1980′s and early 90′s.

It was virtually its own breed of new wave, and its definitive artists of the era – Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Clan of Xymox, and Modern English, to name a few – all seemed to make albums that passed through the reverberant 4AD sound tank. Add to the mix the distinctive artwork of in-house designer Vaughan Oliver, and the picture is complete.

But no artist embodied 4AD more than the non-band This Mortal Coil, and for good reason – it was the brainchild of label founder Ivo Watts-Russell (along with producer John Fryer), and featured a revolving list of musicians that at least initially were mostly either signed to or associated with the label. For 4AD by 4AD.

Now all three TMC albums have been reissued in lavish box set detail, each tastefully remastered for the digital age.

Debut album It’ll End in Tears is the stone classic of the bunch. Like most of the group’s best tracks, many highlights here are covers – the jarring and spacious take on Big Star’s “Kangaroo” and the immortal, ethereal rendition of Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren.” Some instrumental passages can meander, and certain vocal contributions (ahem, Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance) can be a bit much sometimes, but this album alone seals the deal. Lush, dreamy, and definitively gothic.

The two albums that followed, Filigree and Shadow and Blood, are much more sprawling at nearly 75 minutes each. Filigree is an endurance run and could stand to lose a few tracks, but the rewards are still there, particularly on another Tim Buckley cover, “Morning Glory,” original “The Jeweller,” and its many instrumental interludes, like the brilliantly titled “The Horizon Bleeds and Sucks Its Thumb.”

The slightly more organic “Blood” is a bit less compelling with both its production and most of its songs a bit more straightforward, though it has its moments in the dreamy “Carolyn’s Song,” “Several Times,” and in its melancholic atmospheres and arrangements.

A real prize in the box set though is the exclusive bonus disc Dust & Guitars, which compiles non-album singles and extra tracks, the true highlight being the group’s first single, a cover medley of Modern English’s “16 Days / Gathering Dust.”

For those that claim to be fans of the dark, romantic side of dream pop, new wave and post-punk, this collection is simply vital to your being. Space out, make out, or slit your wrists to it; either way you’ll be overcome.

Few musicians manage to put out albums in consecutive years, but with Humor Risk, Cass McCombs has released his second record of 2011. There isn’t a real overarching sound that unites the songs; instead, it feels like a collection that demonstrates how a capable singer/songwriter can stretch his creative wings and embody whatever genre he pleases.

“Love Thine Enemy” is an upbeat message of altruism, making kindness seem cool somehow. Immediately following is “The Living Word,” which is much more of a slow acoustic jam. “The Same Thing” is Western-tinged, but a stamping drumbeat keeps the tone upbeat.

A highlight is the darkly twisted “To Every Man His Chimera,” with brutally honest lines like the following: “Everyone I know gossips in their sleep / Everyone I know suffers just like me.” By contrast, “Robin Egg Blue” is a much more up-tempo, biblically-themed tune that makes intellectualism irresistibly catchy. “Mystery Mail” is a curiosity as the album’s most obvious rock song, but also the longest track, managing to maintain the listener’s attention throughout by telling a story about an antagonist named Daniel. “Meet Me at the Mannequin Gallery” has the lo-fi appeal of bands like Sebadoh, as does the thickly distorted but charming “Mariah.”

Cass McCombs is an artist who best suits those who appreciate acoustic musicians paving their own way. He’s not flashy or gaudy. Instead his songs are unpolished fragments, bits of stone that catch the light and reveal their inner jewels without much help.