LITTLE ROCK — Justin Timberlake

“Suit & Tie”

RCA

B

Seven years since his smash album Future Sex/Love Sounds, Justin Timberlake steps away from the movie set and back into the recording studio, bringing his much-missed creamy falsetto back to making music.

“Suit & Tie” is the first single from a new album, The 20/20 Experience, due this spring.

The single has a retro vibe, bringing thoughts of Marvin Gaye’s pitch-shifting fluidity, Philly soul, ’70s disco and Off the Wall-era Michael Jackson to mind. That said, it also seems more like a deconstructed suit rather than a finely tailored one. Several components of the song seem disjointed; shifts in tempo are abrupt and don’t seem to fit.

Jay-Z’s rapped verse is more distraction than enhancement.

But there’s no denying the seductive allure of Timberlake’s delivery and the spacious, shifting beats that makes this rather gangly track soar.

• ELLIS WIDNER

Randy Houser

How Country Feels

Stoney Creek

C

Whatever Randy Houser may feel about this record - he touts it in promo materials as “real country” - it comes across as a relentlessly aggressive and very much standard issue in the age of arena rock traveling under the name of country.

Houser is noted (rightfully) for his soulful voice, but he has to compete with explosive arrangements and drums that boom like cluster bombs. There’s no sense of scale on How Country Feels with songs about a simple romantic ride under the stars sounding like a storming of the ramparts. By the time Houser gets to the ballad a little more than halfway in, you’re already well worn out.

Hot tracks: none.

• WERNER TRIESCHMANN

Norbert Leo Butz

Memory &Mayhem: Live at 54 Below

Broadway Records

A-

Tony-winning actor Norbert Leo Butz is one in a string of performers to hit the stage of 54 Below, the New York City cabaret/nightclub. But this concert isn’t exactly what you might expect from a Broadway star.

He throws in a little Broadway with the comic “I Could Be in Love With Someone Like You” from The Last Five Years and a clever mash-up of “Great Big Stuff” from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “16 Tons.”

But otherwise, this album leans decidedly to soul, blues and rock.

Butz’s voice - smooth, gruff and powerful - is perfect for that type of song and he infuses each with the appropriate humor, warmth or sentimentality. He’s playful and chatty with the audience, but he’s also fond of a certain cuss word so if you’re playing this with impressionable kids around, consider yourself warned.

Hot tracks: “Home,” “16 Tons + Great Big Stuff,” “Killing the Blues.”

• JENNIFER NIXON

Yo La Tengo

Fade

Matador

A-

Yo La Tengo’s continued relevance 27 years into their career is remarkable.

The Hoboken, N.J., trio of Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew has yet to release a bad album, and they’ve made a handful of great ones. Fade is one of them. With producer John McEntire of post-rock experimenters Tortoise, they’ve created an album that is intimate and thoughtful, urgent and fun.

The band hasn’t reinvented itself. No need, since Yo La Tengo’s expertise in catchy, jangly rock, gentle acoustic folk-pop and noisy feedback excursions allows endless room for triangulation. But they have added new colorations over the years. Credit McEntire for helping with the swelling strings in “It’s Not Enough” and “Before We Run,” the precise, giddy funk of “Well You Better,” and the motorik chug of “Stupid Things.” And while the album eschews epic guitar solos, it has room for electric rave-ups such as “Ohm” and “Paddle Forward.” Yo La Tengo is still looking to build on what they’ve perfected, to shine and not fade away.

Hot tracks: “Well YouBetter,” “Paddle Forward,” “Ohm.”

• STEVE KLINGE MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

The Pines

Dark So Gold

Red House

B+

Should you find yourself in just the right bleak mood - a late-at-night existential despair kind of mood - this, the third album by the folk band The Pines, is your soundtrack. Slow, atmospheric songs that are blanketed by keening guitars, stately piano chords and brooding keyboards dominate here.

“Rise Up and Be Lonely” is the title of one of the dirgelike tunes. As lyricists, songwriters David Huckfelt and Benson Ramsey aren’t expressive wonders but they mostly get out of their own way. But, still, the best track here is the light and lively instrumental, “Grace Hill.” It’s a needed change in an otherwise dark journey.

Hot track: “Grace Hill.”

• WERNER TRIESCHMANN

Style, Pages 26 on 01/22/2013