Garland Jeffreys
The King of In Between
(Luna Park)

Garland Jeffreys’ visual image shouts more “Whitey on the Moon” than “Puerto Rican girls just dyin’ to meetcha,” so the direction of his new album took me by surprise. While it does have elements of ’70s protest funk, it’s also soaked in influences like The Stones and The Velvet Underground. There are some reggae and freight train blues grooves on the record, too, and it’s a decent general purpose rock ‘n’ roll album. Though its flavors are nice, there’s nothing on it that’s instrumentally or lyrically terribly original or meaty. Still, the guy gets some cred for including a cover of David Essex’ “Rock On,” which was last seen in leather pants on Def Leppard’s 2006 ’70s tribute album Yeah! —Tom Sturm

Boubacar Traore
Mali Denhou
(Lusafrica)

Boubacar Traore, a leading light of Malian guitar music, weaves unusual spells. Listeners more accustomed to the verse-chorus-bridge-solo scheme of pop song construction can find themselves a bit adrift, uncertain what to expect—Traore’s songs don’t lead to the big drama pop tends to deliver. They are instead contemplative compositions that establish melody and rhythm early on, then repeat those motifs, creating a pleasing trance. It’s easy to get lost in the guitar lines (nearly always single-note melodies rather than chords), and the harmonica that weaves throughout seems at once very American and very much at home in this African setting, echoing Delta blues amid the unfamiliar sounds. Traore doesn’t sing in English, and, without the meaning of the words grabbing attention, the unusual and thoroughly enjoyable spell he weaves is that much easier to fall under. —James Heflin

Radiohead
The King of Limbs
(TBD)

If what happened with their other albums is any indication, in time I will come to love Radiohead’s new release. Maybe I’ll hear jazz pianist Brad Mehldau interpret one of the melodies, or I’ll find some bootleg of the band’s lead singer Thom Yorke performing an acoustic set. And then I’ll be able to hear the songs for the noise. For now, though, I’ve been doing a lot of skipping ahead to the last three tracks. After an initial, promising cascade of keyboards, their patented frantic mix of synthetic and real drumming starts fluttering in my head. While I don’t doubt the rhythms are complex and interesting to those who can stand them, to my ears they feel like a room full of restless foot-tappers during an exam. The maddening staccato doesn’t end until the sixth track on the disk, when someone apparently un-plugged the spastic R2-unit in the corner. —Mark Roessler