Garth Brooks makes a return to music

Garth Brooks
“Man Against Machine”
(RCA Nashville)

As would be expected, Garth Brooks strives for an epic statement on his re-entry into full-time recording, after a 13-year hiatus.

Unlike most modern male country stars, Brooks looks beyond partying and celebrating rural life on “Man Against Machine.” Like U2 or Bruce Springsteen, Brooks positions himself as a cultural figurehead who speaks for, and to, the common man.

To his credit, Brooks represents the middle class who work too many hours and devote their earnings to getting by in a society that‘s “rotten to the core,” as he states in the title song, which pits a desperate man making a stand against an Orwellian power structure.

The album shows the influence of country rockers Jason Aldean and Eric Church in its heavy guitars and dark-hued themes. But he doesn’t go for auto-tuned vocals, rhythm loops or rapping. The songs are weighty and wordy, taking up where his albums “Scarecrow” and “In the Life of Chris Gaines” left off.

Some tunes -- “She‘s Tired of Boys” and “Midnight Train” -- could benefit from the concise editing that defines the best country songwriting.

Now, like then, Brooks’ desire to address life‘s important themes should be welcomed into a country music scene that rarely shows such ambition these days. (AP)


Bob Dylan’s lost lyrics revived

Various Artists
“Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes”
(Electromagnetic Recordings/Harvest Records)

The bottomless well of material from Bob Dylan just got deeper with the release of “Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes,” an unqualified success.

The 20 songs with titles like “Card Shark” and “Duncan and Jimmy” are taken from recently discovered lyrics Dylan wrote in 1967, during the period that produced the so-called Basement Tapes recordings that were released in their entirety in a separate box set earlier in November.

Such luminaries as Elvis Costello, Jim James from My Morning Jacket, and Marcus Mumford worked out musical arrangements from the lyrics that Dylan either never recorded, or perhaps recorded and never released. Former Dylan band member and producer T Bone Burnett, who also pulled together the “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou” soundtrack among many other projects, oversaw the work and makes it all flow seamlessly.

“Down On The Bottom,” the James-led opener, is a standout, as is “When I Get My Hands On You,” with Mumford taking lead vocals.

The artists create something entirely new with lyrics written nearly 45 years ago that sound like they could just as easily have come from the Civil War, Dust Bowl or yesterday.

In other words, it’s timeless. (AP)


Pink Floyd says goodbye

Pink Floyd
“The Endless River”
Columbia Records

Never was an album more aptly named than “The Endless River,” the new -- and seemingly final -- release from Pink Floyd. It flows unstoppably, and while some listeners may feel it meanders on too long, it’s very easy to get swept along by it.

Though this is the band’s first studio album in two decades, much of the material was recorded in 1993 and 1994, during sessions for “The Division Bell.” For years, it seemed that album would be Pink Floyd’s swansong. But now the material has been tweaked and shaped under into a new release, partly in tribute to keyboard player Rick Wright, who died in 2008.

Guitarist David Gilmour has called “The Endless River” a series of musical conversations; the band members’ musical rapport was always more eloquent than their spoken communications. There are not many words on this mostly instrumental album, although physicist Stephen Hawking lends his distinctive voice to “Talkin‘Hawkin.’”

The band members know it, too. The closing track is “Louder Than Words,” and finally there are lyrics: “We bitch and we fight, diss each other on sight,” it begins, a fond but weary tribute to creative spark and strife. “The sum of our parts, the beat of our hearts, is louder than words. (AP)