From Now On

Petula Clark

The incongruity of the first four cuts (exhilarating pop followed by acoustic Beatles followed by co-penned country song followed by “Fever”) makes Clark seem as if she’s throwing anything at the wall to see what sticks. But what she’s really doing is seeing a chance to add a meaningful epilogue to her impressive musical story (at 83 no less) and taking it. The gambit pays off more than once, and never more so than on the Steve Winwood song in which she gives the game away.

Look Park

Look Park

Every song on Chris Collingwood’s post–Fountains of Wayne debut justifies his having gone solo. The hooks, the lyrics, the aural details agreed upon by Collingwood and his producer Mitchell Froom, the ghosts of pop-music past conferring their blessings—Collingwood could no more have made this consistently enjoyable and intelligent album tethered to a fraying, formerly fruitful partnership than Paul Simon could’ve recorded his consistently enjoyable and intelligent solo debut tethered to Art Garfunkel. As for Collingwood’s once-trademark punch lines, they’re surprisingly inconspicuous by their absence.

Of Monkees and Men

The Minus 5

Scott McCaughey turns his Baseball Project–honed biographical knack to (in order of appearance) Michael Nesmith, Davy Jones, Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz, the songwriters Boyce & Hart, a Rickenbacker guitar, the actor Robert Ryan, the band Richmond Fontaine, and a friend named Weymer. The sharpest numbers are “Micky’s a Cool Drummer” (“They may have used Jim Gordon / but not on every number”) and “Michael Nesmith” (“Michael would always be the exception, / the perceiving man who defies perception”). But The Byrds–worthy music and musicianship bring every subject to life.

Star Treatment

Wovenhand

David Eugene Edwards continues to forge a uniquely Christian path, this time with textures so molten that a forge is where they might as well have been created. Forget “gothic folk.” With music this electric and loud, “gothic metal” is more like it (except “The Hired Hand,” which is definitely gothic psychobilly). The din buries a lot of the lyrics, but biblical snippets do emerge: Jeremiah 20:9 provides not only “Go Ye Light” with a refrain but also Edwards himself with a mission statement worthy of his intensity.

Encore

The standard edition of Neil Hannon’s 11th Divine Comedy album, Foreverland (Divine Comedy) finds him plying his theatrical, baroque pop with typical charm and a cheerfully light heart. “Funny Peculiar,” a duet with Cathy Davey, might’ve suited Shirley Temple. “The Pact,” pizzicato strings and all, could pass for vintage Broadway. Both songs, and a good many of the others as well, extol romance with anachronistic sophistication and a refreshing lack of irony. And neither foreshadows the deluxe edition’s second disc at all.

A musically sparse, 19-cut mini-opera that runs for nearly an hour, Disc 2 comprises painstaking letters a man dying of cancer writes to his father, whom he apparently loves (otherwise why the 19 letters?) but whom he repeatedly implores not to visit. Therein lies the dramatic tension. At its most moving, it feels like a tribute to the music of David Ackles. At its most meandering, however, it packs little more aesthetic wallop than Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. —A.O.