MORE REVIEWS

Ghostface Killah
"More Fish"
(Def Jam)

Not really rehashed leftovers but definitely a Christmas snack, this could prove a paradigm shift: major label -- not Sanctuary meets De La or Koch doing its thing -- sticks with quality artist past his commercial prime because he'll certainly break even and possibly sell long-term. Granted, it could just be Jay-Z playing his remaining executive cred for the greater glory of his artistic legacy (which would also be a paradigm shift). But hip-hop is now where rock was in the early '80s, when veterans such as Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman and Lou Reed were the equivalent of what the book trade called publishers' poets back when commercial publishers dealt poetry. Whether doing his ex-Wu thing or mixtaping with the Theodore Unit pals showcased here, Ghostface always tells a good story and finds a good beat. This isn't the gauntlet "Fishscale" was. It's just a good bunch of songs. Thank UniMoth for venturing capital on it.

The Knife
"Silent Shout"
(Rabid/Mute)

Celebrating the lighter side of alienation, the cunning Olof Dreijer elbows comely synthesizer tunelets with sharp synthesizer beatlets as his wacky sister Karin applies a kiddie screech to various bad things. Exactly what these are is hard to say because the lyrics resist parsing as sound and sense. But the musical construction is so jaunty that they can't be serious even if they're cutting their alienated fans out of the joke. Dig it when Karin lowers her voice electronically and duets with herself. Good giggles are so rare in alt these days.

Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited
"Rise Up"
(RealWorld)

Like Burning Spear at a higher level of elaboration, the Zimbabwean truthteller tends toward the mean. His songs go on, his grooves blend together. So it's a surprise when a lead track constructed of the usual reggaefied mbira materials leaps from the speakers. Clearly, good riffs do still come to Mapfumo, especially when he's pondering his loss of a home market. Nothing else here tops it, and soon you wish he wouldn't hand off so much singing to the ladies. But the details are manifold, and the grooves maintain their mo.

The McKay Brothers
"Cold Beer & Hot Tamales"
(Medina River)

Whatever we've been hearing since outlaw was a cliché, no way is honky tonk the key to a higher reality. But I'm glad I met the George Jones imitator who gets to the package store on his lawnmower and am touched by the lachrymose lyricism of the guy whose dog replaces his wife on the passenger seat of his pickup. Their roadhouse wisdom is improved by their Texan bilingualism and their concern for ecology. And when Hollin McKay buys his lifemate some breasts, he does ponder a higher reality: "Do they stand up when you lie down?/How do they make you feel?"

Tartit
"Abacabok"
(Crammed Discs)

These mostly female Tuareg exiles convened in Belgium in the '90s to brave the world music circuit, with who left Africa when and who went back fuzzy. For all their tinde drums, the folkloric chants of 2000's "Ichichila" seemed static and bare. But since then, the Mali explosion has brought with it Festival in the Desert and its children, and the forward drive here is definitely cognizant of the better-known Tuaregs of Tinariwen. Tartit play faster and ululate more as their self-sufficient gravity accommodates a Westward-looking groove. Afel Bocoum and friends carry one track, less familiar names three others, with Tuareg bassist Nasser a standout. If their veiled faces make you feel guilty, be that way. I take my Islamic connections wherever I can find them.

TV on the Radio
"Return to Cookie Mountain"
(Interscope)

Proud foe of prog, poetasters and their debut album, I filed this under overwrought 'til I could bear the clamor of their youthful cohort no longer, and soon I was sucker-punched by its opening salvo, four sour treated-horns-with-sitar notes that remain the best thing on the record, immediately followed by the second-best thing, Tunde Adebimpe's pained falsetto "I was a lover before this war." Together, these are enough to justify the record's ominous tone. Though hardly straightforward, neither music nor lyrics are obscure. Instead, emotional dislocations are contextualized for once -- blamed on Bush and/or capitalism, actually, which rather than a cop out is almost an analysis. Never rousing and too often glum, the album is carried by its intelligence, integrity and terrible beauty. Difficult but durable music and point but open-ended verbiage that conveys what a bummer it is to struggle fruitlessly with your own political impotence.