POP/ROCK
Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs, "God Willin' and the Creek Don't Rise" (RCA)
Folk-rock's reluctant laureate takes his trademark accessibility to new heights on this excellent album, his fourth. Backed by a stellar band, the Pariah Dogs, LaMontagne pairs his raspy croon with a distinct '70s sensibility, drawing on the Band, Faces and Nick Drake to guide experimentations with country and Americana. The rocky opener "Repo Man" has a seductive twang and there's something endearing about the shambling "Old Before Your Time," on which the thirtysomething LaMontagne mourns a lost youth. But it's the melancholy "New York City's Killing Me," which relocates Nick Drake to the Big Apple, that centers "God Willin'." Wistful and touching by turns, it's a reminder of just why LaMontagne became the face of modern folk.
EMILY TARTANELLA, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
HIP-HOP
Freddie Gibbs, "Str8 Killa No Filla" (Decon)
"Rap ain't nothing but talking [trash], I'm just the best at it," the Gary, Ind.,-born gangster rapper crows on "Crushin' Feelins," one of the standout tracks on this mixtape, released in conjunction with Gibbs' debut EP, "Str8 Killa." The statement attests to only half of what makes the former Interscope refugee-turned-mixtape-messiah one of the brighter talents in recent memory. Blessed with a wrathful Swisher Sweet-scarred baritone and a cadence as fluid as the Hennessy he swills, Gibbs glides gracefully across soulful, sun-damaged, chest-beating workouts like "Live by the Game" and "The Coldest." But he earns his reputation on tracks like the Bun B-aided "Rock Bottom" and "National Anthem," where he poignantly memorializes the period when he was "younger, very ambitious, but often blinded by my hunger."
JEFF WEISS, LOS ANGELES TIMES
