B+ Rihanna
Anti
(Virgin EMI)
You can't name your album Anti without inviting your audience to think about what you oppose. So what is Rihanna standing against in her eighth studio record? A smoothly choreographed product rollout, for one.
After repeated delays, Anti finally appeared online, first in an apparently unauthorized leak, then as an exclusive on the streaming service Tidal. Samsung also gave away a limited number of free downloads through a complicated promotion. Two days later, the album was available for sale through iTunes (where it quickly topped the chart) and Tidal.
Anti's chaotic delivery resembles a rejection of the type of careful strategizing that drives many high-level pop careers. It also looks like an exercise of accumulated power.
Certainly, Rihanna is taking advantage of her position on this album, her most adventurous by far. Throughout Anti, Rihanna turns away from the bright, propulsive sound of her best-known songs -- "Umbrella," "We Found Love," "Diamonds" -- and toward production that's looser and more unpredictable.
"Consideration" is a scratchy hip-hop number featuring the underground R&B singer SZA of Kendrick Lamar's Top Dawg crew. "James Joint" has Rihanna describing her love of weed over shimmering, Stevie Wonder-style electric piano. "Same Ol' Mistakes" is a trippy remake of a tune by the Australian psych-rock band Tame Impala.
"Woo" rides a dark, needling groove produced in part by the rapper Travis Scott, whom Rihanna is reportedly dating. In each of these tracks you can hear the singer's clear pleasure in exploring styles not necessarily keyed to chart domination.
Yet Rihanna isn't merely flexing her hard-won control here. She's also pushing back against her established image, which over the last few years has toughened, thrillingly, into a kind of icon of imperturbability.
Anti is remarkably tender at points, as in "Kiss It Better," a woozy synth-rock jam about a lover seeking reconciliation, and "Never Ending," which sets a similar idea over an acoustic arrangement that borrows from Dido's "Thank You," of all things.
Hot tracks: "Work," with Drake, the bleary retro-soul "Higher," and sparse, unguarded "Close to You"
-- Mikael Wood
Los Angeles Times (TNS)
A Tedeschi Trucks Band
Let Me Get By
(Fantasy/Concord)
It's barely 2016, but the Tedeschi Trucks Band has already released one of the great records of the year.
Expanded to an even dozen -- in addition to Doyle Bramhall II guesting on and co-writing several songs -- the band led by the husband-and-wife team of singer-guitarist Susan Tedeschi and guitar hero Derek Trucks masters a wide range of styles and sounds on Let Me Get By, from Memphis soul and R&B to blues and funk.
For years one of the premier American live acts, TTB's third studio album reflects the hundreds of days on the road. Not the endless bus rides or the monotonous hotel rooms but the ease with which the 12 musicians gel and the energy and depth they bring.
Recorded in spurts at Swamp Raga, the Tedeschi-Trucks home studio in Jacksonville, Fla., the songs grew out of collective jams and tour rehearsals. Produced by Trucks, the album achieves a wonderful sonic balance and each tune offers multiple layers to discover.
There's excellent musicianship throughout, but Tedeschi's steaming, yet never overwhelming, vocals and bassist Tim Lefebvre and Kofi Burbridge's keyboard arsenal deserve special mention.
If you can't catch TTB live on the road, Let Me Get By provides no small comfort.
Hot tracks: Opening cut "Anyhow" with echoes of the Allman Brothers and the Al Green-meets-Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan combination of "Crying Over You/Swamp Raga"
-- PABLO GORONDI
The Associated Press
B+ Buddy Miller
& Friends
Cayamo Sessions at Sea
(New West)
Put Buddy Miller on a cruise ship, and outlaw country becomes Caribbean country.
Miller's a popular perennial performer on the Cayamo music cruise, and during voyages to such destinations as St. Croix and Tortola in 2014 and 2015, he organized recording sessions aboard the ship with some of the other headliners. Here's the result: 11 songs capturing the collaborative spirit that's a big part of Cayamo's success.
The ever-deferential Miller remains in the background much of the time but makes sure the atmosphere is relaxed, and the song selection is typical of his big-tent approach. Shawn Colvin, always masterful at covers, beautifully tenderizes the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses." Kris Kristofferson reprises his best tune, "Sunday Morning Coming Down," the lyrics all the more poignant coming from someone approaching 80.
Doug Seegers evangelizes on the persuasive original "Take the Hand of Jesus," and for those who worship John Prine, Brandi Carlile and the The Lone Bellow bring gospel fervor to "Angel From Montgomery."
Kacey Musgraves does rousing rockabilly on Buck Owens' "Love's Gonna Live Here." But the best 16 bars belong to Richard Thompson, who delivers a fevered guitar solo on an obscure song by Hank Williams ("Wedding Bells"), as if setting the sea on fire.
Hot tracks: "Wild Horses," "Wedding Bells"
-- STEVEN WINE
The Associated Press
Style on 02/09/2016