Album reviews: INXS, Low Anthem

February 28, 2011 at 11:16PM

INXS, "Original Sin" (Atco) INXS hasn't had the best of luck with singers.

Michael Hutchence famously led the Australian rock band through a series of hits in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but he was found dead in a Sydney hotel room in 1997. From there, INXS juggled a variety of fill-ins and then participated in a 2005 reality-show contest that ultimately rewarded J.D. Fortune the lead vocalist job -- and that, too, didn't quite work out.

So the concept of the band's new "Original Sin" makes sense: There's a different vocalist on every cut, including one featuring Fortune, as the group reinvents many of its old songs. And the guests are noteworthy: Rob Thomas, Ben Harper, Train's Pat Monahan, Tricky and Nikka Costa.

"Original Sin" doesn't succeed at celebrating a cohesive Hutchence-less INXS sound -- it's far too random with its revolving-door vocalists and stylistic jumble, plus there's a conspicuous absence of hits such as "What You Need," "Need You Tonight," "Devil Inside" and "Suicide Blonde."

However, this is a rewarding collision of nostalgia and modernism. Thomas teams up with Cuba's DJ Yalediys for a contemporary, Euro-dance-esque take on the track "Original Sin," Deborah De Corral puts a subtle country/gospel vibrancy in the uplifting groove of "New Sensation," Harper is at the microphone for a wildly grandiose "Never Tear Us Apart" and Monahan likewise plays it big on "Beautiful Girl."

CHUCK CAMPBELL, SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE

Low Anthem, "Smart Flesh" (Nonesuch)

Low Anthem isn't just a band name, it's a sonic philosophy. On "Smart Flesh," the splendid follow-up to the group's justly beloved 2008 release "Oh My God, Charlie Darwin," the Providence-spawned quartet soaks its spectral indie-folk in dreamy reverb, pedal steel, back-porch banjo, and high lonesome harmonica. Hints of forebears from Bob Dylan to Vic Chesnutt to the Band pop up along the way on the introspective, 11-song set.

Whether seeking the cure for the shape that the band members are in on the bittersweet pill that is "Apothecary Love," lamenting a lost loved one on "I'll Take Out Your Ashes," or amping up the tempo and the drama for "Boeing 737," "Smart Flesh" flows as one cohesive, haunting soundscape. That ghostly sensibility dances perilously close to dirgelike in a few of the album's more droning, melancholic, and low-energy corners, but the band never lets the mood slacken beyond grasp, always offering a sharp vocal edge or mesmerizing interlude to keep listeners leaning in.

SARAH RODMAN, BOSTON GLOBE

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