POP/ROCK: Snow Patrol, "Fallen Empires" (Island)
Snow Patrol's frontman goes by the name Gary Lightbody, but on its sixth studio album, this Irish alt-rock band couldn't sound more heavy-hearted. After opening with the image of a house burning to the ground, "Fallen Empires" cycles through similarly unhappy scenes of romantic turmoil, existential worry and, in the nostalgia-soaked "The Garden Rules," childhood cemetery strolls "amongst the lavender and headstones." By the time he gets to "The President," the album's final track before an instrumental coda, even Lightbody needs reassurance. "I've crashed to earth," he sings over a tolling piano figure, "but I'd fallen for so long that it was just relief."
Best known for the pensive 2006 hit "Chasing Cars," Snow Patrol made "Fallen Empires" in Los Angeles, and the experience appears to have earned the group some new pals; Lissie contributes background vocals on several cuts, and Troy Van Leeuwen of Queens of the Stone Age plays guitar on the lead single, "Called Out in the Dark." (Non-L.A. guests include Nico Muhly and Owen Pallett, both of whom devised lush orchestral arrangements.)
Yet for all the textural variety they provide, those welcome cameos rarely succeed in leavening Lightbody's pervasive gloom. "Don't keel over now," he urges a troubled friend in "This Isn't Everything You Are," and he might as well be addressing his audience.
- MIKAEL WOOD, LOS ANGELES TIMES
JAZZ: Charlie Haden and Hank Jones, "Come Sunday" (Emarcy)
There's something about bassist Haden's woodsy tone that just sounds thick with history. Dark yet warm as the echoes that would fill the sort of rural chapel roughly sketched on the album's cover, Haden's latest outing reunites him with the late jazz piano legend Jones in a collection of compact yet lushly rendered hymns and spirituals, many of which are linked with the civil rights movement.
Recorded shortly before Jones' death in 2010 at 91 years old, "Come Sunday" is a sequel to the duo's 1995 recording "Steal Away," which also explored the vintage gospel and Americana close to both musicians' hearts. In the past Haden has ventured into more avant-garde orbits with Ornette Coleman and his own Liberation Music Orchestra, but here he and Jones treat these melodies with a deceptively spare reverence, allowing the songs room to breathe with their original sentiment while coloring them with a lovingly inventive elegance that takes the music somewhere new.
Following Jones' sparkling lead through a swinging "Give Me That Old Time Religion," Haden's bass weaves with an improbable mix of gravity and grace, and Dvorak's spiritual-tinged "Going Home" is a showcase for Jones' piano to weave around Haden's steady foundation, which remains as sure and rich as carved mahogany.
