Blitzen Trapper

Furr

Remember Gomez? Bluesy, Beck-y Brits, possibly the biggest underdogs to win the Mercury Music Prize?

If my hype files aren't missing any RAM, I believe they were promoted as the "band that could do a set between Phish and Pavement." This was -- as is the nature of hype -- a generalization.

However, here's oddball Oregon sextet Blitzen Trapper to excavate the analogy once again, more accurately and simply. This band isn't a growing wad of adjectives to drop about their eclecticism; they're an established concept turning their craft up a volume.

Released to surprise Web acclaim last year, Trapper's druggy Wild Mountain Nation was praised for its uncanny dance to Pavement's Wowee Zowee in splintered lockstep. But Wowee Zowee was hardly Pavement's finest hour, and in turn Nation's great songs (its title tune, or "Devil A Go-Go") suffered from being too loose and amateurish to know what to do with them. It got by on offhand charm and cracked tunes.

On Furr, Blitzen Trapper, now signed to luminary Sub Pop, glues up what was lacking, no matter how intentional it was then. Production is more careful, goofs are omitted, musicianship is tighter, giving us 2008's third and best alternative to prime Neil Young. My Morning Jacket's good-faith effort to weirden up put off some chai-sippers, who in turn sought out Fleet Foxes' Starbucks-approved mildness.

But those of us who cram for jam will prefer the crackling electric guitars of "Gold for Bread" and "War on Machines." Those guitars still evoke Pavement, mind you, but with a new, Keith Richards-like efficiency that still knows how to fall off the rails when the time is right. In under 40 minutes, Furr's well-sequenced cycle never outpaces itself.

-- Dan Weiss, Philadelphia Inquirerssociated Press

Q-Tip

The Renaissance

It's hard to believe it's been nine years since Q-Tip's first -- and, technically, only -- solo album, Amplified, considering how much he has to say and how well he says it.

And one spin through The Renaissance will have everyone wondering how he could have stayed away so long.

He trades rhymes with Amanda Diva over the funk groove of "Manwomanboogie," showing how the battle of the sexes is counterproductive. With help from Norah Jones, who sounds more like Erykah Badu than her come-away-with-me self, Tip pays tribute to inspiring hip-hoppers on "Life Is Better." And he teams with D'Angelo on the gorgeous "Believe," which could jump-start the neo-soul movement all on its own.

After all the trouble Tip's second solo album, Kamaal the Abstract, ran into before his former record company ultimately shelved it in 2002, it's great to see Q-Tip return at the top of his game. The Renaissance is real.

-- Glenn Gamboa, Newsday