New Albums: Kurt Vile; Gary Clark Jr.;Disclosure; Ratings: **** Excellent, *** Good, ** Fair, * Poor

Kurt Vile

b'lieve i'm goin down

(Matador ***)

nolead ends Kurt Vile is a philosophical Philadelphian on b'lieve i'm goin down, the hirsute rocker's sixth album. "Humming a sad song when I'm alone," he sings to himself, on "Wheelhouse." "But you gotta be alone to figure things out sometimes." Indeed you do, and Vile seems to have figured out that the sanguine trance rock of 2013's cheerful Wakin on a Pretty Daze didn't capture the full spectrum of what he has to say. The essential cheerfulness of that album is replaced here by an altogether darker worldview. "We'll take a puff on a cigarette and see what we get / An invigorating fix and a black lung," he wryly comments on "Dust Bunnies." Experimenting with varied textures and drum-machine rhythms, he tweaks his musical approach just enough to keep things fresh and deftly delineates existential issues on an album that opens with the songwriter looking in the mirror on "Pretty Pimpin" and not recognizing the man staring back at him. Full of deft finger-picking and dry humor, b'lieve drags a bit on the longer songs toward the end. But when it hits its marks, as when exploring the ups and downs of day-to-day existence on "That's Life, tho (almost hate to say)," it peaks very high.

- Dan DeLuca

nolead begins Gary Clark Jr.
nolead ends nolead begins The Story of
Sonny Boy Slim
nolead ends nolead begins (Warner Bros. **1/2)

nolead ends He's the latest blues-guitar hero to come out of Texas, but Gary Clark Jr. obviously does not want to be confined to that box. The Story of Sonny Boy Slim - not really a concept album, despite the title - comes closer than his sometimes overly slick and layered debut, Blak and Blu, to capturing the raw potency Clark displayed on his 2014 live album, still the best showcase of his talents.

Gospel underpinnings lend power to "The Healing" and "Church," while "Our Love" reveals Clark can excel as a sweet soul balladeer. But numbers such as "Star," "Cold Blooded," and "Wings," with Clark stretching into falsetto, sound half-baked as they plod along.

The penultimate track, "Shake" (not the Sam Cooke song, but, like everything else here, a Clark original) reaffirms that for all his genre-stretching ambitions, Clark is still best when he's veering less toward Curtis Mayfield territory and more toward the juke-joint rambunctiousness of Hound Dog Taylor.

- Nick Cristiano

nolead begins Disclosure
nolead ends nolead begins Caracal
nolead ends nolead begins (PMR/Island Records ***1/2)

nolead ends There have been other eccentric English electronic-duo brothers to use top-tier vocalists to make their wonky sample-based melodies emotive (no, not the Chemical Bros). Yet there's something special about Surrey-based siblings Howard and Guy Lawrence, the writing- production-musician team behind Disclosure. With an arsenal of dubstep, garage, and house, Disclosure's first album, 2013's Settle, was a sampladelic, melodic, sprightly dance-floor smash that introduced the world to Brit crooner Sam Smith.

Rather than rest on its laurels (save for bringing back Smith, who gives "Omen" his tender touch) Disclosure uses fewer samples, makes its electro grooves downbeat and tactile, and keeps each track filled with the human voice. With that, Caracal is more of a sensualist exercise than Settle. There are still fast-paced house tracks. Brother Howard Lawrence takes the mic to sing on speedy mixes like "Jaded," and Nao, a British singer-songwriter, touches on the subject of "Ego" with a silken disco flicker. Yet it's the slower cuts and name-brand singers that do best on the new album; not so much Lorde's dismal appearance on "Magnets," but rather the Weeknd, who turns "Nocturnal" into a sexy, sleepy dream. Good show, bros.

- A.D. Amorosi
Disclosure plays at 8 p.m. Oct. 19 and 20 at the Fillmore Philadelphia, 1100 Canal St. Tickets: $39.50-$42.50. Information: 215-625-3681, www.thefillmorephilly.com.

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