Adam Lambert
“The Original High”
Warner Bros. Records
From the five o’clock shadow Lambert sports on the black-and-white album cover and the acoustic strains of the intro of the first track, “Ghost Town,” you would think the out singer and sometimes-Queen frontman was about to get his “Faith” on, a la George Michael.
Alas, not really. But Lambert does a decent bait and switch throughout “The Original High,” which can be maddening or clever depending on which side of his musical personality you subscribe to.
The majority of the songs, like “Ghost Town” and the title track, have really deep, introspective intros that hint at a direction deeper than pop music. Then, just when you start thinking this is going to be some next-level stuff, generic club-dance pop beats and synths come crashing into the song like a heavy backpack full of glitter and glowsticks, shattering the mood and turning something that could have been transcendent into something closer to a thumping, Gaga-dancefloor remix or a shiny, poppy Katy Perry collaboration.
Still, there are some moments of brilliance to be found.
Tracks like “Heavy Fire” and “The Light” play no tricks, delivering solid, dark, propulsive bass-heavy dance grooves throughout. “There I Said It” and “Underground” are soaring, sparse and heartfelt, some of the best songs on the album.
Lambert definitely has all the pop and rock bases covered with his career, and longtime fans will definitely find a lot to be satiated with on this new album. But hopefully he will start digging deeper into his influences and take some more creative risks on future albums.
Indigo Girls
“One Lost Day”
Vanguard/IG Recordings
The pioneering acoustic folk duo continues to pull out all the stops on their latest album, which is a kaleidoscope of the various styles that make up their unique brand of folk rock.
Of course, there are going to be stripped-down atmospheric folk songs like “Texas Was Clean,” “If I Don’t Leave Here Now” and “Alberta,” with haunting melodies and excellent harmonies. But the Girls also get down and dirty on rock songs with a little more grit and bite to them than we usually hear from the pair, especially on tracks like “Happy in the Sorrow Key” and “The Rise of the Black Messiah.” The Indigo Girls could definitely give the E-Street Band a run for their money if they wanted.
Given those two extremes, the majority of the album finds a happy middle in the kind of jangly, breezy rock songs like “Olympia Inn,” “Southern California is Your Girlfriend” and “Learned It On Me,” any of which could easily put Sheryl Crow out of business.
It’s nice to see that the Indigo Girls are firing on all cylinders this deep into their career. This album is one that you will be happy to get lost in.
VNV Nation
“Resonance”
Anachron Sounds
For their latest album, this British/Irish EDM/goth duo recorded only vocals for some of their more well-known songs, with music performed by the Babelsberg Film Orchestra. It’s definitely a bold move for artists used to composing and performing using only electronic drums and backing synth.
But VNV Nation has always had more going for it than your average EDM band, and singer Ronan Harris’ voice has long appealed to fans outside of the genre. So it’s no surprise that their songs translate very well in an orchestral format. It’s not that much of a stretch for their more-somber songs like “Beloved” and “Nova.” But for tracks like “Sentinel” and “Perpetual,” which were way more robotic and propulsive in their original form, the orchestra versions are quite the transformation.
Longtime fans of VNV Nation probably have fluid-enough tastes in music to adjust well to the classical beauty of these reimagined songs. But if some of them don’t, it’s their loss, as “Resonance” shows how eclectic and visionary this duo has been over the course of their career. And hopefully this will give some fans of classical music a jumping-off point into EDM.