Patti Smith
Twelve

ITUNES

Hall of Fame punk icon
stumbles to the oldies

Patti Smith misplaces her fearless edge on this oddly subdued set of covers. Versions of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” add nothing

to the perfect originals, while dated, mediocre songs such as Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” and George Harrison’s “Within You Without You” are beyond saving. Only her stirring take on Dylan’s “Changing of the Guards” and a fierce revision of Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” recapture Smith’s familiar magical intensity. JON YOUNG

Son Volt The Search ITUNES Uncle Tupelo cofounder is still Americana’s reliable narrator

Jay Farrar and Co. waste no time establishing the mood on their fifth studio release: “Slow Hearse” unfolds reverently with expansive, graceful piano, Beatles-esque guitar, and a sublime melodic hook. “The

Picture” blows out the cobwebs a little, with a galvanizing horn section and driving rhythm, but Farrar soon settles back into a series of staunch, midtempo ballads about Life in These United States (“Highways and Cigarettes,” “Automatic Society”). It’s a sober cruise down the white line between timelessness and nostalgia. J. NIIMI

Another Faustian
rock bargain goes
horribly wrong.

The Tossers Agony ½ ITUNES MYSPACE Rum, sodomy, and the lash— still a winning combo

Most punks who try to pick up where the Pogues keeled over get the drunken madness right, but not the romance. Not so with the Tossers, a seven-piece band from Chicago’s Irish Southside who once backed up Pogue Spider Stacy. Singer/mandolin player Tony Duggins writes gorgeous whiskey weepers filled with fiddle, banjo, and tin whistle, while his slurry croon recalls Shane MacGowan’s more intelligible days. That’s not to say the Tossers can’t throw a mad party. Kickoff track “Never Enough” bemoans a lack of alcohol and drugs, and “Traps and Ultimatums” finds Duggins dressing down a lover for asking him not to go out boozing. A pair of political tunes seem out of place, but it’s nothing that another shot of Jameson won’t fix. JASON BUHRMESTER

Various Artists A Tribute to Joni Mitchell ½ ITUNES Cover artists find their own voice in matchless songs The original freaky folkie, Joni Mitchell writes songs of such beauty and deceptive complexity that she elevates all the participants in this consistently fine tribute. Most remarkable is how each Joni supplicant is able to still exude his or her own essence. Sufjan Stevens rearranges “Free Man in Paris” into one of his ornately bouncy baubles, and Björk Björkifies “The Boho Dance” with tinkling chimes and her enigmatic vocals, while Prince does his incomparable falsetto-love-man thing on “A Case of You.” Even James Taylor sounds like the starkly poignant sweet baby James of yore. BARRY WALTERS

Kicking and Screaming
Angry young rockers turn on their bloated benefactor

Various Artists Ed Rec Vol. 2 ½ ITUNES For everybody too hip to admit that they miss Fatboy Slim

The French may not have any idea what they’re doing with rock, but when it comes to producing house music for rockers, the Parisian label Ed Banger has a knack for impressively concussive tracks. Justice’s “Phantom,” Sebastian’s “Greel,” and Vicarious Bliss’ “Limousine” are as stoopid fun as late-’90s Big Beat, with industrial clang and disco élan replacing frat-keg-ger bonhomie, plus a tuff-chick rapper named Uffie and lots of squealing noises. Have fun not respecting yourself in the morning. MICHAELANGELO MATOS

The Used
Lies for the Liars
ITUNES MYSPACE

Well, it finally happened. After years of being groomed for mainstream stardom, Bert McCracken, the onetime king of screamo, has had it with the shallow world of music-biz phonies. In recent months, the Used frontman has publicly grumbled about the fair-weather friends he made during his band’s rapid ascension, and on this third album’s “Pretty Handsome

Awkward,” he continues to
elaborate over three and a half
minutes of vengeful hard rock.

Built around a sleazy guitar line that wouldn’t have sounded out of place blaring from the Sunset Strip in 1987, “Handsome” is easily one of

McCracken publicly
grumbled about his
fair-weather friends.

the best songs that McCracken and his scraggly bandmates have written. Both pissed off and impossibly catchy, it’s an undeniable anthem that Warped Tour attendees the

nation over should quickly
fall for, and it’s a shame that
there aren’t more songs on
Liars like it.

But for every irresistible kiss-off like “Handsome” or goth-punk romp (“Paralyzed”), there’s also a lifeless ballad (“Find a Way”) or an embarrassing stab at musical theater (“The Bird and the Worm”). While the Used honestly want to move away from their time-tested sound, the experiments come off as unfocused and confused. And for now, McCracken is still most convincing when he’s at full rage. TREVOR KELLEY

The Twilight Sad Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters ½ ITUNES MYSPACE If Big Country were around today, they’d be proud

Anthemic Scots the Twilight Sad walk a fine line between drippy sentimentality and rough-edged realism. The majestic “And She Would Darken the Memory” almost overindulges, but frontman James Graham cuts through the cathedral echo with a hoarse brogue. The treacly guitar on “Cold Days From the Birdhouse” is punctured to perfection by a single, nagging piano note. And finally, on “Walking for Two Hours,” the band finds a blissful balance, weaving a soothing accordion line into a bashed-out chorus. SHANNON ZIMMERMAN

Patrick Wolf The Magic Position ITUNES MYSPACE Jaded sonic youth becomes childlike pop libertine

For Patrick Wolf, time’s arrow has always flown backward. As a precocious 11-year-old, he tinkered with instruments and recorded music that demonstrated an uncanny attention to soundcraft but found him weary and numb, already disaffected with virtually everything except the intricacies of noise. Now that he’s 23, his pop romps seem like children’s dreams—all colors, twinkles, and buzzes,

ALEX PARDEE/COURTES Y WARNER BROS.