New and noteworthy

Transformation

The Alarm

Mike Peters, who considered himself an “artist who’s a Christian” rather than a “Christian artist,” completed this album right before starting the therapy that he thought would help him KO cancer for the fourth time in 30 years. In other words, its exuberance derives from his conviction that he was going to win. Alas, one year later, it was he who went down for the count. But he sure went out with a bang. From pilfered big beats and riffs (Gary Glitter, the Spencer Davis Group, AC/DC) to pure, old-school Alarmism, Transformation finds Peters rocking for all he was worth. Which—in case you don’t know—was a lot.

Gratitude: Oskars Petrauskis Plays Ešenvalds 

Oskars Petrauskis

The saxophonist and the composer ID’d in the subtitle are the Latvians most responsible for this album’s awe-­inspiring beauty, but the organist Liene Andreta Kalnciema and the Liepaja Symphony Orchestra add crucial textures. And even if you didn’t know that the nine-minute “Adoremus in Aeternum” means “Let Us Worship Forever” or that the 10-minute “Laudate Dominum” means “Praise the Lord,” you’d know something divine was afoot. Perhaps most stunning of all is the high D reached by the soprano Marina Rebeka in the rendition of “O Salutaris Hostia” (based on an Aquinas hymn text) that brings the album to a climax you have to hear to believe.

Forever Now!

Switchfoot

As you may have read, these songs flesh out a “concept,” one that shall go unmentioned here because you can look it up and because—hooray!—it doesn’t affect how most of the songs land. About those songs: They’re as rich, thought provoking, clever, and musically grabbing as the best of anything else in the Switchfoot catalog. The possible exception is “Darkness.” If its theodicy-questioning narrator is just a concept-fleshing-out character, fine. But if it’s Jon Foreman, he should know by now that Jesus Himself predicted bad people would happen to good things.

The Hymns

CeCe Winans

Some might wish that the bestselling female gospel singer of all time had put her own cross-generational stamp on these 15 hymns (and one Christmas carol) instead of just singing them atop traditional (and traditionally unobtrusive) accompaniment. But except for the mildly black-­churchified “At the Cross” and “Nothing but the Blood,” just sing them she does. And because she’s the bestselling female gospel singer of all time for a reason, just singing them is enough.

Encore

The blue-eyed soul belter David Clayton-Thomas, who died in June at 84, recorded 20 solo albums, but he made his mark with the jazz-rock pioneers Blood, Sweat & Tears. When three of their first five singles hit No. 2 (the previous Motown flop “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” the Clayton-Thomas original “Spinning Wheel,” the previous Laura Nyro and Peter, Paul and Mary deep cut “And When I Die”) and another hit 14 (the previous Carole King flop “Hi-De-Ho”), BS&T was off to the hit-machine races.

Then the wheels, spinning or otherwise, came off. John Scheinfeld’s 2023 documentary What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears? argues that the band’s 1970 State Department–sponsored Eastern Bloc tour made it look irredeemably unhip to a fanbase strongly opposed to the Vietnam War. Maybe. Then again, the jazz-rock-­pioneers Chicago Transit Authority—aka Chicago—were also happening at the same time and on the same label. The pop world simply might not have been big enough for two. —A.O.