Pop

Three decades later, Tom Petty is paying his buddies back. Before Petty made his name with the Heartbreakers, the straw-haired rocker played bass in Mudcrutch, a Gainesville, Fla., fivesome that released one single before splitting in 1975. Since the reconvened band includes two Heartbreakers in guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboard player Benmont Tench, plus lead guitarist Tom Leadon and drummer Randall Marsh, it's no surprise that Mudcrutch is hardly a departure from the easygoing, instantly grabby fare Petty's been placing on rock radio playlists for eons.

Thanks to Leadon (brother of Bernie, formerly of the Eagles), the album stretches out further into Allman Bros.-esque guitar jamming on the nine-minute-plus "Crystal River" than Petty fans may be accustomed to. And country-rock cuts such as "Orphan of the Storm" and "Topanga Cowgirl" steer toward Sweetheart of the Rodeo-era Byrds influence. But mainly, Mudcrutch sounds like just another Tom Petty album packed with memorable songs, and a particularly good one at that.

- Dan DeLuca

No Age
Nouns
(Sub Pop ***1/2)

Money changes a lot of things, but it couldn't change No Age. Picked up by Sub Pop after the success of their debut, Weirdo Rippers, the L.A.-based noise-rock duo promptly returned to the studio (three of them, in fact) to record Nouns.

Arriving less than a year after Rippers, Nouns is every bit as visceral, unpolished and explosive, and only a tad more compromising. Randy Randall's motoring guitar - sometimes a scooter, other times a Harley - sounds less bleak, though that's probably not intentional. On the other hand, Dean Spunt's drumming, which has grown into something resembling a traceable, steady beat ("Cappo," "Brain Burner"), is intentional. And so are the warm tones that surround songs like "Things I Did When I Was Dead."

The ambience, especially, makes the record's sprawling instrumental passages ("Impossible Bouquet" being the best, and strangest, of them) feel less like distractions and more like the point. This is the kind of maturity money can't buy.

- Michael Pollock

Matmos
Supreme Balloon
(Matador ***)

If the long-running electronic duo Matmos - Martin Schmidt and Drew Daniel - has veered toward arty abstraction in the past, its seventh album is a pleasant surprise. Supreme Balloon is a ticklish feat of rubbery soul and playful melodies, relying on short songs in all but one instance: the 24-minute title track, which starts at a low hum, hits upon a busy flutter in the middle, and ends with deconstructive blurts of synthesizer. Otherwise, squishy gems like "Polychords" and "Exciter Lamp" keep us nodding and tapping our feet through the duo's cryptic collage of sounds. Matmos always enjoys a challenge, whether collaborating with Bjork or recording a live album. Here, the duo successfully tackles cuddly electronic pop worthy of Hot Chip.

- Doug Wallen

Steve Winwood
Nine Lives
(Columbia ***1/2)

Five years after his acclaimed indie release, About Time, Steve Winwood has returned to the majors with Nine Lives, but fear not: He's made minimal concessions to the pop commercialism that wilted much of his mid-'90s output. Nine Lives is a muscular, genre-jumping collection that has the understatedly talented Winwood exploring everything from Latin rhythms ("Secrets") to acoustic blues ("I'm Not Drowning") - and even offering a nod to his past with the Traffic-y flute-and-organ jam "At Times We Do Forget." Winwood's bandmates - particularly saxophone player/flutist Paul Booth and percussionist Karl Vanden Bossche - are given plenty of sonic wiggle room, enhancing the expansive arrangements that give songs like "Dirty City" (featuring Eric Clapton) and "Raging Sea" a loose but structured vibe. Winwood lays down plenty of funky guitar and Hammond organ licks throughout, but his greatest instrument remains the soulful, soaring vocals that first brought him fame as a teenager more than 40 years ago.

- Nicole Pensiero

Country/Roots

She's only 21, so Hilary McRae wasn't around in the '70s. But that's the decade the piano-playing singer and songwriter evokes on her exceptionally accomplished debut.

Buoyantly catchy in many spots, Through These Walls could easily qualify as pop. The music, however, is grounded in warm, uptown R&B, heavy on the horns. The sophistication of the arrangements matches that of McRae's schmaltz-free songs - tough or tender, she dwells on matters of the heart in ways that expose raw feeling without resorting to histrionics or melodrama. Add her decidedly dusky alto, and you have a young artist who sounds wise and battle-scarred beyond her years while also coming across as a vibrant new voice.

- Nick Cristiano

Tab Benoit
Night Train to Nashville
(Telarc ***)

Tab Benoit's passion for the music of his native Louisiana hasn't always prevented him from succumbing to generic, meat-and-potatoes blues-rock. In the last few years, however, the singer-guitarist has tapped into his roots in ways that have produced the most consistently rich and satisfying albums of his career.

Night Train to Nashville continues that trend, as it captures a live set in Music City in which the bayou bluesman is again backed by his fellow Louisianans in the group LeRoux. The performances highlight both the straight-on soulfulness and tangy flavor of Benoit's blues and R&B (he wrote nine of the 11 tracks, which also touch on rock, country and zydeco). Adding some flavor of their own are several guests, including Jim Lauderdale, Jimmy Hall and Kim Wilson, but they never steal the spotlight from the front man and his songs.

- N.C.

Jazz

The first poignant tones make it clear that trumpeter Nicholas Payton is hitting a sweet spot on his new CD. His quintet with keyboardist Kevin Hays, bassist Vicente Archer, percussionist Daniel Sadownick and drummer Marcus Gilmore sounds as if it should be coming from the FM dial late at night.

The CD combines dreaminess with some serious playing.

Payton's not the most persuasive singer, as he tries to be on "Blue," with its Miles-like intro. But the moody vocal still meshes with the laidback theme.

Payton's horn gets all breathy on Jerry Goldsmith's "Chinatown," the movie's still-striking title track. And they all linger on the languorous groove embedded in "Let It Ride."

Producer Bob Belden, who played with Payton on his 2006 CD, Mysterious Shorter, lightly folds in some electronica on "The Crimson Touch," which leans toward a smooth vibe, though not obnoxiously so. The percussion is more sculpted than clanging.

Payton's father, the New Orleans bassist Walter Payton, contributes two tunes, including the gorgeous opener, "Drucilla," and "Nida," which comes endowed with a gentle form of Crescent City funk. The elder Payton's tunes are a welcome addition.

- Karl Stark

John Ellis
Dance Like There's No Tomorrow
(Hyena ***1/2)

Lord have mercy but the funk here could save a few souls.

Soprano and tenor saxophonist John Ellis, who got schooled in New Orleans with Ellis Marsalis among others, creates a winning platter of soulful tunes with his teacher's son, Jason Marsalis, on drums.

Ellis, who was guitarist Charlie Hunter's horn man for six years, creates a lineup of originals that have Chitlin' Circuit zest. Ellis can find the froth in a tune, as he does on "Dream and Mosh." A composition like "I Miss You Molly" shows some simple grace, while "Three-legged Tango in Jackson Square" is simply a hoot.

Gary Versace's organ and accordion snake around the proceedings, leaving color and energy in their wake, especially on the high-steppin' title track.

But the knockout punch comes from the surprise generated by sousaphone man Matt Perrine, who blows your mind when he blows his bottom-dwelling horn.

The quartet setup gets drab at times. But the tunes and performances all push this above average.

- K.S.

Classical

Rhapsody
Gautier Capucon, cello; Gabriela Montero, piano.
(Virgin ****)

Brahms
Piano Concerto No. 1
Nicholas Angelich, piano; Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Paavo Jarvi conducting.
(Virgin ***)

"Martha Argerich and Friends," applied to her annual chamber music festival in Lugano, is covering an increasingly wide spectrum of musicians - much of the EMI/Virgin artist roster - with performances that are probing, spirited, and consistently among the best chamber music recordings of any given year. You may not spend more than a few listenings with arcane repertoire such as Mikhail Glinka's Grand Sextet and Beethoven's Piano Quartet, even in these ultra-alert performances. But two unlikely highlights are Ravel orchestral works - Ma Mere l'Oye suite and Daphnis et Chloe Suite No. 2 - in keyboard reductions, the former played by Argerich and Alexander Mogilevsky with a rarefied coloristic sense and the latter by Sergio Tiempo and Karin Lechner, who are so inside the music you don't miss the orchestra.

More conventionally great moments include best-ever performances of Beethoven's Piano Trio No. 2 (Op. 70), ("Ghost"), with Argerich, Renaud Capucon and Mischa Maisky, and Bartok's Violin Sonata No. 1 with Argerich and Capucon. Argerich's solo turn in Schumann's Kinderszenen has good moments, but not enough of them, and her collaboration with Venezuelan firebrand Gabriela Montero in Schumann's Andante and Variations for two pianos passes without great incident.

Outside that set, Montero is in scintillating form with cellist Gautier Capucon on a disc titled Rhapsody. With her fashion-model looks and taste for classical crossover improvisation, she's so market-friendly you'd think she was created in some remote Swiss laboratory. In fact, she's hugely exciting, smart, insightful and charismatic - all welcome qualities on the Rhapsody disc with Prokofiev's normally sprawling, late-period Cello Sonata. Capucon, an excellent cellist, has rarely played with so much fire.

Pianist Nicholas Angelich, a marvelous collaborator on the Lugano performance of Dohnanyi's Piano Quintet No. 1, has no problem, on his own disc, commanding the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in this new Frankfurt-made recording. Technically, he gives the piece a rare digital clarity and fortissimos that are never forced or colorless. He and conductor Paavo Jarvi ruminate eloquently in more reflective passages. However, Angelich's four-hand piano collaborations with Frank Braley in Brahms Hungarian Dances are superfluous filler.

- David Patrick Stearns