COUNTRY
Keith Urban, "Defying Gravity" (Capitol Nashville)
Urban's new CD arrives at a wholly different time in his life than his previous studio album, 2006's "Love, Pain and the Whole Crazy Thing." Back then, Urban had checked into rehab two weeks before the album's release, barely four months after his marriage to Nicole Kidman. Apparently, the title reflected his conflicts between personal bliss and private torment.
Urban sounds decidedly more buoyant on "Defying Gravity." The CD's sophisticated arrangements also suggest that Urban made the best of his extended creative break. "My Heart Is Open" and "If Ever I Could Love" experiment with rhythms and textures, and he expresses his joy in ecstatic guitar runs and in lyrics.
Indeed, some songs -- "Kiss a Girl" and the album's first single, "Sweet Thing" -- concentrate almost too much on musical merriment while letting the lyrics slip into juvenile sentiment. However, the best songs -- the soulful "Standing Right in Front of You," the sweet ballad "Only You Can Love Me This Way" and the cover of Radney Foster's "I'm In" -- illustrate the distinctive talent Urban has for tying high-spirited instrumentation to upbeat statements about the pleasures of love and everyday life.
Urban performs May 14 at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
MICHAEL MCCALL, ASSOCIATED PRESS
POP/ROCK
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "It's Blitz!" (Interscope)
In 2007, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs released "Is Is," an exhilarating EP with the kind of stark, wild-eyed songs -- little more than a beat, a guitar riff, a hook and Karen O's nervy voice -- that blasted the band up from New York clubs seven years ago. That EP was a fake-out; the songs had emerged between the band's first two albums, "Fever to Tell" in 2003 and "Show Your Bones" in 2006.
