Dig These Discs: Feist, Sheryl Crow, Lea Michele, Mary J. Blige, Amanda Palmer & Edward Ka-Spel

Multi-platinum singer/songwriter Sheryl Crow releases her ninth studio album, "Be Myself," and it's an excellent 11 tracks of her classic rock stylings. Nine-time Grammy winner Mary J. Blige releases her 13th studio album, with help from Missy Elliott, DJ Khalid and more. Singer and former "Glee" star Lea Michele releases her second studio album this month, 11 theatrical hits meant to showcase her vocal prowess. Canadian singer/songwriter Feist releases her fifth studio album, "Pleasure," 11 folksy songs. Amanda Palmer of Dresden Dolls fame teams up with Edward Ka-Spel of The Legendary Pink Dots honoring a longtime promise to collaborate.

Be Myself (Sheryl Crow)

Multi-platinum singer/songwriter Sheryl Crow releases her ninth studio album, "Be Myself," and it's an excellent 11 tracks of her classic rock stylings. Crow tackles topical issues in these songs, looking at what is going on in the U.S. and around the world. "I told you to be discreet, but you went to the world and broadcast me," she scolds in "Alone in the Dark," an upbeat song about heartbreak. She's looking for a way to ease her mind and a place to rest her head in the country/pop hybrid "Long Way Back," singing, "some days you got face the light, get back in the ring, put on your gloves and fight." She gets help from Gary Clark, Jr. on guitar in her swinging single "Halfway There," which also features a video with cut-out animation in a whimsical Monty Python-esque satirical imagery. Crow worked again with producer Jeff Trott on this album, and the longtime collaborator did not let her down. Crow says her main goal�was "to investigate what made my early songs strike people as being authentic and original. So for the first time in my life, I made it a point to sit down and really listen to my old records. I'd drive my kids to school and play the old stuff as I came back home. That helped me remember what it felt like when I was just beginning as an artist. But it wasn't about repeating myself. It was about revisiting where I came from and seeing where that would take me now."�The instrumentation on Crow's title track is reminiscent of her early, rollicking super-hit, "All I Wanna Do," as she sings, "I shaved my head, I changed my name, I paid my bills away, cause if I can't be someone else... I might as well be myself." She's looking for "old school contact? Would it be too much?" in the sunny "Roller Skate," and whispers her way through the tentative cut "Love Will Save The Day." She's crashing down on the seesaw in "Strangers Again," saying, "I don't know why you treat me this way, like I'm a criminal." Crow pairs a swinging acoustic guitar's country line with poppy lyrics in "Rest of Me," asking, "when she walks away, do you try to say you're fine?" Crow plays it close to the vest in one of the strongest tracks on the album, "Heartbeat Away," singing about a man who stuffs the money in a briefcase and heads down the Cayman Islands, so that "when the hackers hack the system he'll be on the beach with a Mai Tai in his hand." She hits her mark smooth and steady in "Grow Up," singing, "you've got a lot to say -- but not to my face." She wraps up an excellent album with "Woo Woo," singing about those sexy girls. Crow kicked off her spring tour on April 22 in Atlantic City, and takes it through the U.S. to California, and returning to New York in late June and early July. Catch her when she comes through your town!
(Warner Bros. Records)

"Strength of a Woman" (Mary J. Blige)

Nine-time Grammy winner Mary J. Blige releases her 13th studio album, featuring production by DJ Camper, Bam, Hit-Boy, KAYTRANADA,�Kanye West, Quavo (of Migos), DJ Khaled and Missy Elliot�amongst others. Blige kicks the album off with a trill of classical piano for her single "Love Yourself," featuring Kanye West. "I made it here with love, say I've been up and down and I've been through it all, took a while to know my heart," sings Blige in this impassioned first cut that advises, "you gotta love yourself, if you wanna be with someone else." It's hard to tell who's wrong or right when you're in "The Thick of It," sings Blige in one of her old-school sounding cuts that has her asking who's gonna love you like she does? She cuts him down to size in "Set Me Free," sassing, "How you fix your mouth to say I owe you when you had another bitch and taking trips and shit with my money for so long?" She may be older, but this queen is still not playing around, and you will pay for what you did to her. Deep bass and percussion marks "It's Me," as Blige sings that something's not right. Quavo, DJ Khaled and Missy Elliott lend a hand in the mid-tempo "Glow Up," with Blige saying, "You can do that dumb shit somewhere else/ they don't call me a queen for nothing." She takes her licks hard, when she thinks of all the lies he told her, in "U + Me (Love Lesson)," but realizes that she's not the first one who's been put through hell in "Indestructible" advising, "you gotta love like you never been hurt to find the love that you deserve." She realizes that she doesn't know him at all, but says, "Thank You" anyway, for opening her eyes to his wrongdoing. Did you think you would get one over on Mary J? As she notes in the next track, she's a "Survivor," adding, "no matter how low I go, I'm gonna rise up." Blige adds a funk beat to the bouncy "Find the Love," and Prince Charlez lends a hand in the slow R&B cut "Smile," singing, "I feel confident; better about myself... I've been broken for a long time, now I'm standing in the sunshine." All hail the queen!
(Capitol Records)

"Places" (Lea Michele)

Singer and former "Glee" star Lea Michele releases her second studio album this month, 11 theatrical hits meant to showcase her vocal prowess. Her single and first cut, "Love is Alive," was released at the beginning of March. In this syrupy sweet ballad, she sings, "When my golden crown becomes a cup of doubt, I try to remember..." Critics are already comparing her to Celine Dion in her prime -- but many bemoan that this new album doesn't provide her with the right material to really shine. The album does contain quite a large number tearjerkers, but they seem very predictable. In "Heavy Love," she sings of "sailing on your seas and I fell in, don't know how to breathe or how to swim." Her breathy vocals suit the refrain to "put another pill upon my tongue," but the overwrought dramatics give the song a maniacal, unhealthy pallor. She is advised to go slow, and take all the time she needs in "Proud," a song that has her admitting, "everyone's waiting on me to see what I can do." Too much of the album seems predicated on the premise of proving herself, when she clearly has a wealth of talent, but maybe not enough ideas on what to do with it. She's screaming at the sun in "Believer," with its pop-influenced instrumentation, and vows that "can't no one tame this raging heart." The songs Michele selected for her album seem a bit overwrought at times, and tend to meld into one another. The strong piano opening of "Run To You" gives way to a sound repeated throughout the album, making the listener feel like even perfection can go too far. The whispery opening of songs like "Heavenly" devolve into deep drama, and can end up sounding sophomoric, which ironically, is not what you want for your sophomore album. In "Anything's Possible," she sings about picking up the pieces of her scattered life and not judging herself, but her promises to "push to the limits, climb every wall/ keep on believin' anything's possible," seem trite by then. A prime example is her story-song, "Getaway Car," a tale of "two kids with curious hearts, not afraid to break," could paint a picture of young love, but it ends up as a lot of loose ends. "Sentimental Memories" is an upbeat composition, but falls flat despite it. Her a capella intro of "Tornado" is promising, and at times it heads toward Gaga-ish pop indulgences, but Michele pulls back before something real can happen. She ends "Places" with the sing-song piano of the flirty, "Hey You," singing about forgiveness. Ultimately, that may be what Michele needs -- to stop pushing this immense talent in our faces, and just settle in comfortably to some more interesting, challenging material.
(Columbia Records)

"Pleasure" (Feist)

Canadian singer/songwriter Feist releases her fifth studio album, "Pleasure," 11 folksy songs. It's her first new album in six years, and returns Feist to her core sound. She wrote the album during a bout with depression, and the feeling permeates the album. Spare thumbing on the bass opens the title track, "Pleasure," with Feist singing a capella at points. She sounds like PJ Harvey when she sings the chorus. She sings out plaintively in the lonesome "I Wish I Didn't Miss You," and tries to build herself back up in "Get Not High, Get Not Low, singing of her native Canada, "I was bright as the sun, then Saskatchewan/ then I laid low like a tide, then a Bay of Fundy high. I was living in extremes." Her lonely acoustic guitar ballad "Lost Dreams" vacillates between bravado and resignation. "Any Party" is a strummer in which she vows, "you know I'd leave any party for you/ there's no party as sweet as a party of two." She closes it with a handful of effects -- car wheels on gravel, a dog barking, FM radio, etc. It's one of the best of the bunch. She's dour again in "A Man Is Not His Song," including a chorus to create a more engaged sound. She sings so sweetly in "The Wind" that it could be a melody by Beth Orton. She goes harder in the slightly off-kilter cut "Century" featuring Jarvis Cocker, who adds a spoken word outro. The slow acoustic hit "Baby Be Simple," has a folksy vibe, and blues guitar adds a much-needed level of sass to "I'm Not Running Away." Feist ends the album with "Young Up," a sleepy cut in which she bemoans how "I got so stuck in my ways; that's no way to behave." It's nice to see Feist get back to the nuts and bolts of her original sound, but to be frank, the patina of depression that lies over "Pleasure" renders the title antithetical.
(Polydor Records)

"I Can Spin a Rainbow" (Amanda Palmer & Edward Ka-Spel)

Amanda Palmer of Dresden Dolls fame teams up with Edward Ka-Spel of The Legendary Pink Dots honoring a longtime promise to collaborate. They began working on the effort in July 2015, when Ka-Spel was losing a battle with cancer, and was given less than a week to live. They eventually recorded at friend Imogen Heap's Essex home recording studio The Hideaway, composing and recording the album in less than a month. The result is nine excellent tracks, plus three bonus cuts at the end. Palmer calls the collaboration "a spiritual experience," in which both artists' stories, song fragments, poems and lyrics were fleshed out with piano, rhythm and melodies. "We merged our songwriting heads and poetic worlds to make a new universe," said Palmer. "We would sit in Imogen's house drinking cups of tea, bemoaning the state of the upcoming election, binge drinking in the UK, the refugee crisis, our internet addictions, frightening news we had read, our relationships... and then we'd compost all of the ingredients of our fears and conversations into song form... To me, the songs are simultaneously frightening and comforting, like a thunderstorm heard from a living room." They start with the unsettling "Pulp Fiction," peppered as it is with their groans as Palmer sings cryptic lyrics like "it's better to be hammered than a rusty, useless nail." Melancholy piano opens "Shahla's Missing Page," as Ka-Spel sings about the "little plastic vial" he keeps hidden deep in his pocket for more than 22 years. The addition of wavering violin toward the end cements the classic horror film vibe of the song. This uneasy feeling carries forth into "Beyond the Beach," as Palmer intones, "it's been a decade since it happened, and we're told we can return. It may be best to boil the water..." By the time Ka-Spel intones "I have an extra hand to hold you with," you're jumping out of your skin. This isn't music to lull your children to sleep with. They take a trip down memory lane as she tries to write her novel "in the hovel we call home" in "The Shock of Contact." Later, she gleefully sings how she "ripped up the pages/ spent your wages, entertaining friends you hated." "They used to talk all the time, the blindfolded bodies you stacked in the barn and they told you not to look behind you," Ka-Spel intones at the opening of "The Clock at the End of the Cage." The off-kilter addition notes played on a child's xylophone elevate this to a truly horrifying level. The imagery of caterpillars in cocoons runs through "The Changing Room," and Palmer opens "Prithee/Liquidation Day" with a sort of croaky, spoken-word intro. At almost 10 minutes, this is an epic, and halfway through, Ka-Spel introduces creepy circus music with an equally creepy vocal component. The clink of coins overlays a verse about little Johnny lying dead in the hall in "The Jack of Hands." In the end, says Ka-Spel, "still, I don't believe in angels." Palmer sings of being "a little blueish dot lost in a sea of gray" in "Rainbows End" and goes through her epic journey, ending with the vow, "They say that I'm not breathing but I simply don't believe them/ and as soon as this is working, I'll make him take me home." The bonus track "Beautiful Plastic" pairs up excellent percussion and electronic samples, over Palmer's spoken vocals about a man whose "face was red, his breath was poison." She proceeds to outline a violent attack of a wife by her husband, only to reveal at the end a note reading, "Bye honey. Hope you like the doll." They follow this with "Ukelele Piece," and the short bonus track, "Concertina (starting block)." If you're looking for music that will leave you deeply unsettled, this is the album for you! Palmer and Ka-Spel tour select U.S. cities in May, before launching their European tour, with dates in Munich, Prague, Amsterdam, Paris, London, Vienna and more.
(Cooking Vinyl)