New Recordings

No Better Than This

(Rounder ***)

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Since the end of his John Cougar days, John Mellencamp has gradually been moving away from the big, anthemic sound that pretty much defined heartland rock. No Better Than This follows the release of a four-CD boxed- set retrospective, On the Rural Route 7069, and marks the Indianan's rootsiest turn yet. With T Bone Burnett as producer, the album was cut, in mono, at Sun Studios in Memphis, the San Antonio hotel room where Robert Johnson recorded, and a historic Savannah, Ga., church.

If the whole approach is a little too self-consciously rawboned and retro, there is nothing affected about Mellencamp's performance, or his songs. (Nothing, for example, like that drawl Springsteen puts on for his folkier numbers.) He leads a stripped-down band through a strong set of originals ranging from country laments ("Nobody Cares About Me") to folk narratives ("Easter Eve") and rockabilly raveups (the title track), earning his own place in the traditions he so obviously wants to be a part of. - Nick Cristiano

nolead begins
Usher
nolead ends nolead begins Versus
nolead ends nolead begins (La Face ***)

nolead ends Usher's a recently single lover-man who likes to strike while irons are hot. Still, following on the heels of March's Raymond v. Raymond and its return to (raunchy) form, you'd figure Versus would be nothing but remixes. Wrong. The smooth soul-hop crooner with the halt in his voice and the swagger in his step has plenty of new songs cut from the same sexy jib as Raymond.

"Lay You Down" and "Lingerie" may have the feel of vintage Prince with their steely, sultry vibe. Jay-Z and Bun B certainly add streetwise stammer to this sultry pajama party. But "Love 'Em All" is pure Usher - stuttering, rapturous R&B that presents carnal longing with taste and sass. While fans of Usher's sprightly dance jam "OMG" will dig the glossy "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love," heads will turn when pop tween (and Usher discovery) Justin Bieber pairs up with his mentor on the shimmering "Somebody to Love." Raymond was the warm-up. Versus is the funky main event.

- A.D. Amorosi

nolead begins Iron Maiden
nolead ends nolead begins The Final Frontier
nolead ends nolead begins (EMI ***1/2)

nolead ends Little has changed for British metal band Iron Maiden since its 1980 debut - not the band's logo, alien-faced mascot, or fascination with hell-on-earth prophesies, and certainly not its trademark gallop. Great news for diehards, then, that The Final Frontier, the band's 15th studio album, is a top-to-bottom crusher. Ten years after the return of Maiden's longtime lineup, the band still sounds refreshed, flexing muscle over some of its longest songs ever and showing a dedication to craft and melody, especially, on the opening title track and the 11-minute closer "When the Wild Wind Blows." Next to recent albums by Howl and Nachtmystium, The Final Frontier firms up the notion that heavy metal can move in new directions without losing its core extremities.

- Michael Pollock

nolead begins Curren$y
nolead ends nolead begins Pilot Talk
nolead ends nolead begins (DD172/Def Jam ***1/2)

nolead ends Running away with Ke$ha's dollar sign, New Orleans rapper Shante Franklin has floated through associations from No Limit to Cash Money to Def Jam almost as effortlessly as he's laid down smoke-filled rhymes. Likewise, Curren$y's major debut flits from Snoop Dogg to Mos Def without looking up from the couch; it's just another mixtape to him, a historically appealing quality in N.O. rappers. With the surgical intensity of Clipse, he pushes no drugs and shoots no thugs for 40 minutes, dreaming of Doritos and weed among nonmetaphors like "she's so wet she's soggy" and the rare proactive threat to "get it crackin' like lobsters." Producer Ski Beatz (a veteran of Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt) provides a kitchen-sink feel, the best utilizing 8-bit video games ("King Kong"), decaying game-show theme horns ("The Day"), and pianos recorded in what sounds like an undersea speakeasy ("Audio Dope II").

It takes some of the shine off the second half when the duo confuse Louisiana jazz with boardroom easy- listening, but you still come away with the impression they can do anything as long as it's not fast.

- Dan Weiss

Mosaic

(Skaggs Family **)

nolead ends He's best known these days as a passionate champion of bluegrass music, helping keep the music alive with his band Kentucky Thunder. But Ricky Skaggs' instincts have deserted him this time. His latest foray outside pure string-band music is not nearly as rewarding as his stint as a mainstream-country hitmaker in the '80s.

Mosaic augments Skaggs' basic acoustic approach with electric guitars, keyboards, percussion, and myriad other instruments. The results, however, tend to be both colorless and ponderous, which is especially curious for an album about faith that is supposed to be inspirational. The same goes for the songs (none by Skaggs). They're earnest in the extreme, but similarly lacking in any infectious spark - or poetry, for that matter. And in the case of "Fire From the Sky," an Old Testament-style, my-God-can-smite-your-God tale, the vibe shifts from moribund to unpleasant.

- Nick Cristiano

Noir Blue

(Capri Records ***1/2)

nolead ends Players who plumb the mainstream take a risk in jazz, namely boredom. But Ken Peplowski makes it an honorable choice. The clarinetist and tenor man, who was born in Cleveland, comes up with some pretty moments opposite pianist Shelley Berg, bassist Jay Leonhart, and drummer Joe La Barbera. While all are heavyweights, Peplowski's interplay with Berg is especially spirited.

It's also welcome that Peplowski continues his long love of Strayhorn-Ellington tunes, including the sweet title track, which gets done here in a way that caresses the inner ear. Peplowski takes up several standards, including a perky take of Hoagy Carmichael's "Riverboat Shuffle," and caps the session with "Little Dogs," his tribute to Ornette Coleman. The tune catches him stepping outside his tonal comfort zone and still sounding great.

- Karl Stark

nolead begins Mozart
Symphonies Nos. 14, 18, 20, 39, and 41.
nolead ends nolead begins Boston Symphony Orchestra, James Levine conducting. nolead ends

nolead begins (BSO Classics, two discs, ***1/2) nolead ends

nolead begins Symphony No. 40 plus music from Lucio Silla and Idomeneo.
nolead ends nolead begins Apollo's Fire, Jeannette Sorrell conducting. nolead ends

nolead begins (Avie ***1/2) nolead ends

Though both these sets visit the most familiar Mozart symphonic territory, they do so with insight and style and have important diversions along the way. At the height of the 1990s CD boom, James Levine recorded all the early Mozart symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic; this new set benefits from a more judicious selection and approach. The results are stylish, charming, and vigorous, even if the music is of its time - the 1770s - and illustrates the steep evolutionary curve the composer achieved only a few years later. The later symphonies have Levine adopting some elements of historic performance practice, mainly in his use of tempos, but with the imposing Boston Symphony Orchestra sound that you simply have to love or leave.

The Cleveland baroque orchestra Apollo's Fire completely eschews that sound, giving Mozart's Symphony No. 40 a feathery transparency that lacks the sharper contours of conventional-instrument orchestras but reveals the music's inner workings with irresistible ease. The level of playing is high and conductor Jeannette Sorrell's interpretive choices are lyrical and sound, if not all that original. The rest of the program illustrates Mozart's learning curve in the context of 18th-century social function. By exploring some of the more negligible areas of Mozart output (ballet music, German dances), Sorrell shows how he used the inconsequential, decorative functions of music to create works that stand with the highest of artforms. Soprano Amanda Forsythe is the dramatically alert, technically spectacular soloist in the Lucio Silla aria "Parto, m'affretto." - David Patrick Stearns