CD reviews: Kathleen Edwards and The Weeknd

POP/ROCK: Kathleen Edwards, "Voyageur" (Zoe/Rounder)

Sure, Edwards is one of the many low-key, brooding singer/songwriters who cross genres and overshare about themselves via intimate lyrics. But few of them do downcast confessionals like Edwards does on her fourth album.

The Canadian singer explores the darker side of love with nuances in sound (maintaining a cohesive tone while weaving through folk, pop, blues and alternative adult), lyrical perspective and just-enough experimentation (deliberate, slight stuttering on the vocals, for instance, and infusing the track "Going to Hell" with shimmering psychedelia).

Edwards also paces the atmosphere with shifts in mood and style. For example, after opening with a trio of melancholy cuts -- including the wistful jangle of "Empty Threat" ("I'm moving to America/It's an empty threat") and the piano-centered/brushed-rhythm-backed "A Soft Place to Land," she drops in cautious optimism in the form of a gently pulsing "Change the Sheets."

A few tracks fade in this familiar stew of self-pity, but one that stands out is the gorgeous "Chameleon/Comedian," where Edwards methodically breaks her listeners' hearts with hypnotic repetition. That sweetly somber song alone makes "Voyageur" a trip worth taking.

POP/ROCK: The Weeknd, "Echoes of Silence" (The Weeknd)

Abel Tesfaye, aka the Weeknd, has been busy the past few months. He self-released three mix tapes of moodily skewed R&B that have earned him a nomination for Canada's top musical honor, the Polaris Prize (he lost out to Arcade Fire last summer), and an endorsement from Drake.

Tesfaye doesn't always play a likable character in his songs. Though he sings in a high, tremulous voice that threatens to break into a sob at points, he plays against type: the sensitive, heartfelt crooner singing about doing heartless things. He doesn't just break up with his girlfriends, he wants to break them, too. He owns up to his insecurity, his inability to rein in his ugly side.

The disturbing twists are matched by music that shifts from feathery and layered to distorted and dirty. Beats flicker in and out, sometimes hitting with tribal force, other times barely there. Instead of the insistent dancefloor push of contemporary R&B, the Weeknd is a closer cousin to the creepier, slower tracks in Nine Inch Nails' discography. Little wonder that Tesfaye's cover of Michael Jackson's "Dirty Diana" is nearly unrecognizable, burying the rock bravado and focusing instead on the unsettling lyrics of temptation, lust and betrayal.

It all comes to a bad end for the narrator: the destructive spiral of "The Fall" and the final checkout of the funereal title song. The latter is typical of Tesfaye's art, hovering like a ghost over a beautiful corpse.