John Frusciante

Shadows Collide With People

(Warner)

With his latest solo album, Shadows Collide With People, John Frusciante presents convincing evidence that he is the brains behind the glory of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Where his previous solo outings have been difficult, lo-fi affairs greeted with lukewarm receptions, Shadows is a glorious, epic album by an artist at the peak of his powers. Frusciante’s voice, distinctively thin and with a soulful, lustrous falsetto, is finally strong enough to carry the weight of his songwriting talent, which has never been greater.

In places, Shadows sounds like the album By The Way could have been if the Chilis had known how to mix it up the way Frusciante does. Shot through with synths and full of the rich, sweet harmonies that distinguished By The Way from its predecessors, Shadows almost sounds like a pop album on songs like “Omission.” Frusciante is careful to maintain his outsider/auteur credentials with three eerie, spine-tingling synth tracks, but the rest of the album is given over to meatier stuff. The opening track, “Carvel,” is a miniature masterwork, emerging from a sheen of synths to grab you by the ear with a hook that keeps metamorphosing into something new and toothier.

With more juicy tracks in its first half than is decent from someone best known only as a guitarist, Shadows marks Frusciante’s emergence from the shadow of the Chilis, heroin and any diminished expectations still lurking about. He proved he was a great guitarist back on Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Shadows proves that Frusciante needs neither drugs nor a backing band to deliver the goods.

—Andrew R. Iliff

The Casual Dots

The Casual Dots

(Kill Rock Stars)

Several players on the riot grrrl and Kill Rock Star scene have come together to form the Casual Dots, whose self-titled debut is filled with primitive pounding, noodling guitar lines and lovely sweet-and-sour vocals from Christina Billotte, a former member of Bikini Kill. The band is only two guitars and a drum set, so the arrangements are simple and usually rely on battling guitar lines over simple drum patterns. Considering this, it’s surprising how much of the 30-minute album is devoted to instrumental—the first song is entirely free of vocals, and on several others, Billotte’s voice only enters after a lengthy introduction. These instrumental bits are difficult to take on their own, too angular to work as kitschy surf-rock, but too stripped-down to be as effectively melodic as the pre-punk greats like Link Wray, whom the band seems to pay homage to.

These songs are at the best when the glorious vocals enter the fray. “Clocks” is a real gem, with playful lines bouncing between the singing, guitar and background vocals. Billotte is set back in the mix, so her voice provides more of an instrumental effect than actual words, and the song is a blithe and ethereal entity among the harsher staccatos of the rest of the album. Billotte also saves two of the album’s other great songs, covers of Etta James’ “I’ll Dry My Tears,” and LaVern Baker’s “Bumblebee.” Soul covers aren’t usually normal fodder for indie garage bands, but the Casual Dots tackle these with grace and panache, especially on the latter, where the spare bass-less instrumentation really captures the song’s vintage sound.

—Christopher A. Kukstis

The Cooper Temple Clause

Kick up the Fire, and Let the Flames Break Loose

(RCA)

Six disillusioned British kids provide a whole lot more volatility than can fit inside one functional rock band. Given some unsuccessful love interests, a violent tour schedule and way too much alcohol, they lose control—and, naturally, start setting stuff on fire. On their second album, Kick up the Fire, and Let the Flames Break Loose, the Cooper Temple Clause capture this incendiary chaos while forging a fascinating, if imperfect product.

Into TCTC’s sonic hearth go Pink Floyd’s manic magnificence, Radiohead’s electronic imagination and Oasis’ lyrical sensibility. The album reaches full force at the moments where these elements combine most finely; “A.I.M.” (not related to our favorite electronic pastime) begins with a coarse industrial beat, develops with Yorke-like, dreamy lyrics and peaks with a driving, distortion-saturated chorus and sweet lyric hook. “Promises, Promises” expands from a straight-ahead power riff, introducing altered chords and electronic ambience to achieve a more engaging result, and, along with “New Toys,” has real FM radio appeal. The album’s worst moments occur when the genre-synthesis feels most contrived. “Into My Arms” is a static ballad that unnaturally shifts to a psycho chemical groove, and the ten-minute “Written Apology” makes electronic clutter of a promising rock song.

Clearly, TCTC is experimenting, and one can only hope that future albums will match the group’s superior songwriting with more clarity and cohesiveness.

—Mickey A. Muldoon

Keb’ Mo’

Keep It Simple

(Sony)

Keb’ Mo’s new CD is called Keep It Simple, but he fails to keep his promise. Keb’ Mo’ is considered one of the foremost modern jazz guitarists, an assessment that continues to be accurate-—but in this context, it is both laudatory and critical.

His appreciation for the delta blues is impressive and Keb’ shows a commendable dedication to presenting those often depressing tunes in a fashion that can be understood by a new generation reared on top forty radio, but, sadly, this process sacrifices too much of the essential force behind the music. The dichotomy is clearest in the sensations he evokes; listening to his CD is not the emotional experience of the classic blues artists’ records: Simple simply doesn’t have the raw power of strong blues. Partly, the problem is a lack of trust in the audience: the record is overproduced with backgrounds that give essentially strong songs the disposable feeling of Kenny G’s nonsense.

The album works best when Simple reflects the simplicity of its musical antecedents. In lines like “Don’t try to hide your natural looks / Forget about the cover let me read the book,” there is an essential honesty, albeit a cutesy one, that brings tinges of Bessie and Sarah. However, there are too many lines like, “I found two cheap tickets / on the Internet,” that seem so anachronistic they distract from the blues feel Keb’ seemingly tries to emulate.

To Keb’s credit, however, his music keeps enough of the essential intelligence and emotion to power his songs beyond pop and easy listening radio’s usual fluff. His album is a successful version of blues for people who don’t like real blues.