CD reviews: Brian Eno, They Might Be Giants and Soul of John Black

For his second album in 12 months, pop's ultimate experimentalist toys with something rare within his catalog: poetry. Texts have specked his work since the beginning of his solo career, but Eno mostly has shied away from words as roadblocks to his walls of sound.

Here, with the collaboration of impressionistic poet Rick Holland and a few (mostly women) singer-speakers whose voices remain either dryly unadulterated or get weirdly morphed, Eno throws sound and visions around like a salad spinner. As the readers rant quietly about urban spaces and the sciences, Eno provides frisky ambient music, a form of word jazz that dabbles somnolently in chamber classicism, exotic and Krautrock as the texts move from background to foreground and back again. "The Real" grows more hypnotic through its repetitions of noise, vocals and ideas ("real runs out and seems to see the real as it runs"). Eno, too, finds his own brand of seduction while speak-singing "Breath of Crows." Eno isn't Barry White, but he's shockingly close.

A gorgeous and daring work, even by Eno standards.

"Quirky" and "eclectic" may be the two most overused words in music criticism, but these longtime alternative-rock iconoclasts are part of the reason why: John Flansburgh and John Linnell have embodied everything playful, absurdist and unpredictable in their 25-year recording career, from their choice of instrumentation to distinctively goofball, surrealist lyrics. "Join Us" is TMBG's first in four years geared to adults after a series of successful, Grammy-winning children's music releases, and it finds the band returning to appropriately twee form.

Indeed, "Join Us" might be TMBG's strongest set since its '80s-era heyday. The album features 18 tracks and seemingly sprawls over as many genres and styles, such as the dada hip-hop of "The Lady and the Tiger" and the chiming psychedelic pop of "Old Pine Box," all delivered with a manic grin. TMBG has retained its appealing trademark humor, but what impresses most is the duo's ability to churn out cascades of earworm hooks. Every song teems with surprisingly memorable choruses, melodies, and, well, quirks that prove hard to forget; after such a deluge of stealthy and refined charms, resistance to the TMBG formula becomes futile.

John A. Bigham -- he's the Soul of John Black -- shows again that he deserves the kind of recognition gained by other soul artists with a retro bent, from Raphael Saadiq to Sharon Jones. This 10-song set is, indeed, a "good thang."

The singer/guitarist, formerly of Fishbone, pretty much covers all the bases here. On the one hand, he's as smooth as they come: "How Can I" is a bedroom ballad with a sleek '70s vibe, and "Lil' Mama's in the Kitchen" exudes the suave charm of Brook Benton. On the other hand, he can get sweaty: The title song and "I Love It" are punchy slabs of R&B with a sure pop touch. Overall, Bigham proves adept at blending the urbane and the down-home.