A most deserved spotlight

Sebastian Bach

“Angel Down” (MRV)

***

“Angel DOWN” is a rip-roarin’ rock album. After eight years, though, you might’ve expected a more distinctively Bach album.

Tailoring two songs to match the vintage Guns N’ Roses wardrobe of guest vocalist and recent tour mate Axl Rose proves both a boost and a beast for Sebastian Bach, star of stage, disc and VH1. On the one hand, he triggers instant salivation among the legions starved for fresh GNR meat. On the other, he swivels the spotlight away from his worship-worthy self.

The identity crisis escalates as Rose matches screams with Bach on a note-perfect copy (so why bother?) of Aerosmith’s “Back in the Saddle.” And Bach pulls off a nasally accurate imitation of Scorpions singer Klaus Meine on two songs (one of which, the big ballad “By Your Side,” clones his old band Skid Row, so at least he’s imitating himself).

But fight off the flashbacks, and “Angel Down” (in stores Tuesday) will tear you up. With producer Roy Z (Bruce Dickinson, Judas Priest) crafting an amped yet layered backdrop for this limitless voice, an uncharacteristically tortured Bach blazes a promising new path of modern badness and paranoia beginning with “Angel Down” (“down” appears in three titles) and ending with four Baz-to-the-wall bruisers played with nasty mastery by Metal Mike Chlasciak, Steve DiGiorgio, Bobby Jarzombek and Johnny Chromatic. The gently twisted, artfully crafted ballad “Falling Into You,” written with Desmond Child, ends it all with a gasp of wonder; it is, dare one say, classic rock.

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A wondrous voice, even if it’s weakened

Levon Helm

“Dirt Farmer” (Vanguard)

***

The erstwhile singer and drummer for the Band has one of the most distinctive voices in rock. So when he nearly lost it several years ago to throat cancer, it bordered on tragedy. That he has not only survived the cancer but also resumed singing borders on the miraculous.

What he’s created sounds like the roots album the Band never got around to. With the quality of original material that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group had to work with, there was little reason to dig into the archives. Yet it makes perfect sense now for Helm not just to interpret some of the old-timey songs he learned from his parents while growing up in Arkansas but also to reveal the source of so much of the sound and philosophy of the Band.

Traditionals such as “False Hearted Lover Blues” and “Poor Old Dirt Farmer” go right to the core of music as expression of primal human experience. They’re interspersed with tradition-minded contemporary songs by writers including Steve Earle, Buddy and Julie Miller, J.B. Lenoir and Paul Kennerly (whose “Got Me a Woman” comes off like a joyous bookend to “Up on Cripple Creek”). Helm’s Gibraltar-dependable backbeat on drums provides the foundation for several tunes, but others are stripped down to minimalist instrumental accompaniment from fiddle, guitar, mandolin, dulcimer and/or accordion.

He concedes in the liner notes that “my voice is over halfway back,” and there are times when it’s clear he’s straining for notes or tones that he could have handled in his sleep before. But that deliciously clenched vocal quality remains a thing of wonder, and we can only imagine what awaits when it gets back to 100% once more.

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While waiting to make its next real album . . .

Grizzly Bear

“Friend” (Warp)

***

Last year’s “Yellow House” elevated the Brooklyn quartet alongside Sufjan Stevens and the Decemberists as a leading candidate to create a new generation’s “Sgt. Pepper’s,” at least artistically. This set doesn’t diminish that impression, but it is a bit of a wheel-spinner while the group works on its next real album.

Part remix/alternate-version collection, part tribute album, “Friend” sees the band revisiting some material with musically and sonically adventurous results (the Beach Boys-meet-Jeff Buckley glory of “Little Brother”), while several friends-indeed reinterpret Grizzly songs.

None eclipses the originals, but the electro-pop “Knife” by Brazil’s CSS and the fractured-Appalachian “Plans” by Band of Horses in particular show that the essence of the ursine magic is not just creative arrangements, but the depth and versatility of the songs.

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Freeway’s flat effort is a sign of the times

Freeway

“Free at Last” (Roc-A-Fella)

**

The attention paid Freeway’s much-delayed sophomore effort says more about the tepid state of 2007 commercial hip-hop than it does about any inherent uniqueness about this rapper.

Granted, 50 Cent and Jay-Z are credited as executive producers, but a decade ago, “Free at Last” (in stores Tuesday) would have been lost in the shuffle, filed away as another nice-but-boring effort from a major-label rapper incapable of presenting himself as much more than a cocaine- and crime-obsessed hustler caricature. Think a JV Jay-Z, but updated with post-millennial Roc-A-Fella neo-soul, big-name guest appearances and a surly Philadelphia growl.

Despite white-hot leaked singles “It’s Over” and the Jay-Z assisted “Roc-A-Fella Billionaires,” Freeway’s penchant for ham-handed hooks and emotionally flat attempts at introspection (“I Cry”) and romance (“Take It to the Top”) reveal, over the course of these 14 songs, an ultimate two-dimensionality.

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Albums are rated on a scale of four stars (excellent), three stars (good), two stars (fair) and one star (poor). Albums reviewed have been released except as indicated.