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Beck's CD 'Chemtrails' gets help from Danger Mouse

Glenn Gamboa | DROPS

July 8, 2008

THE ARTIST Beck

THE ALBUM 'Modern Guilt'

THE GRADE C+

BOTTOM LINE In the battle between sad and danceable, Beck's sadness trumps Danger Mouse's beats.

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There's a point near the end of "Chemtrails" when elaborate drum fills are exploding like fireworks on the Fourth of July, cymbals are joyously crashing, guitars are raging and all Beck can do is moan over it all like a mopey Brian Wilson with a toothache.

That pretty much sums up the method of operation on Beck's new "Modern Guilt" (Interscope) album. Danger Mouse provides the interesting musical backdrops and Beck provides the misery. As a package, "Modern Guilt" is at least more sonically interesting than Beck's last bummer album, "Sea Change," but the sense of missed opportunities here start to annoy pretty quickly.

The sinewy dance track "Youthless," for example, is in the same deep-groove family as Gnarls Barkley's breakthrough hit "Crazy," but Danger Mouse would have been better off saving the track for Cee-Lo. Instead of matching the mood with some entertaining lyrics, Beck takes the existential route, going on about "holding nothing" in a monotone.

"Hey, what are you gonna do when those walls are falling down?" he asks in "Walls," squandering an interesting dance beat on that sad-sack chorus and such observations as "You got warheads stacked in the kitchen."

Clearly, Beck succeeded in pairing dance beats with dirges throughout "Modern Guilt," giving his angst a contemporary twist. But his stubborn artistic victory turns out to be a loss for fans looking for remnants of the imagination he showed throughout 2006's "The Information."

ALISON MOYET

'The Turn'

THE GRADE B

BOTTOM LINE Crafting songs that suit both her inner belter and her inner chanteuse.

Unlike most singers blessed with amazing voices, Alison Moyet understands that less can sometimes be so much more, that restraint can be just as powerful as release. That's why "The Turn" (Decca) is almost all about glorious restraint.

In "One More Time," the reined-in delivery only adds to the uncertainty Moyet's trying to convey about the doubt surrounding a troubled relationship. The ballad "Fire" builds cool, measured drama like a David Bowie song from the late '70s. And the poetic "Smaller" stylishly takes repressed anger to new levels, which makes "A Guy Like You," when she finally lets loose, all the more satisfying.

in stores

Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis' "Two Men With the Blues" (Blue Note)

The Baseball Project's

"Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails" (Yep Roc), including R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey

Bad Religion's "New Maps of Hell" (Epitaph)

Yaz's box set "In My Room" (Mute)

The 30th anniversary edition box set of Billy Joel's "The Stranger" (Columbia)