Bad Religion Plays With Renewed Fervor

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BAD RELIGION

“The Process of Belief”

Epitaph

God--however you choose (or not) to define that term--bless Bad Religion. In an era when too many demand unquestioning loyalty to the status quo, the veteran L.A. band provides a by turns muscular, melodic and melancholy guide to challenging the norm and making your own rules.

OK, right--that’s pretty much what these guys have been doing throughout their 20-year recording career. But they’ve got a bit more spring in their step on “Process” (due in stores Tuesday), perhaps because of the first appearance of original guitarist-songwriter Brett Gurewitz since 1994’s “Stranger Than Fiction,” or maybe because the group, which moved to Atlantic Records that same year, has returned to Gurewitz’s fiercely indie Epitaph label.

Speaking partly as if addressing a select few who can understand the message, and partly as if anyone who really listens can get it, the band tears through 14 tracks in 36 minutes. Guitars mesh with pell-mell assurance as the players veer from the singsong one-two punk of “Supersonic” and “Destined for Nothing” to the breathless tirades “Prove It” and “Materialist” to the angular anthem “Epiphany” and the goth-pop ballad “Broken.”

“You might not think there’s any wisdom in a ... punk rock song,” taunts the environmentally minded “Kyoto Now!” Au contraire, messieurs. There is quite a bit. Bad Religion plays Thursday, Friday and Saturday at West Hollywood’s Whisky, Roxy, and Key Club, respectively.

--Natalie Nichols

***1/2

ELBOW

“Asleep in the Back”

V2

Romance is thriving in England, at least among a new generation of rock bands. Like Coldplay, Travis, Doves and Starsailor, the young men of Manchester-based Elbow tap the spirit of classic romantic poets as they moon over unattainable women but still brave gantlets of emotional batterings to pursue them.

“I’ll be the corpse in your bathtub/Useless/I’ll be as deaf as a post/If you hold me like a newborn,” sings a hopelessly smitten Guy Garvey in “Newborn,” a centerpiece on this debut album (in stores Tuesday).

The quintet cradles its yearning in music so hypnotically graceful and magnetically powerful that the offerings are as compelling as they are naively sincere. Elbow may not prove to be the most commercially successful of the new romantics--the songs are more about atmosphere and texture than about pop hooks--but at this stage it may well be the best.

From the first notes of opener “Any Day Now,” with its haunting, pulsing vocal arrangement and waves of guitars and keyboards, it’s clear this is a band with imagination and ambition.

There are times that “Asleep in the Back” (which is a finalist for Britain’s Mercury Music Prize after it was released there last year) recalls U2’s feeling its creative oats in the mid-1980s.

--Steve Hochman

*** 1/2

WILLIE NELSON

“The Great Divide”

Lost Highway

Pop fans could be rightfully suspicious of yet another batch of all-star duets between the veteran country outlaw and various rock, pop and country partners, this time including Rob Thomas, Brian McKnight, Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt, Lee Ann Womack--even Kid Rock.

Don’t be.

This is Nelson’s most ambitious and consistently rewarding album in years. It exhibits a level of commitment rarely apparent in recent albums that, however musically engaging, have often sounded tossed together.

Nelson sounds utterly comfortable with the ultra-contemporary production by Matt Serletic (Matchbox Twenty, Santana). Still, even production this captivating can carry only so far, and songs by several outside writers, including Thomas, Serletic and Bernie Taupin, allow Nelson to ruminate articulately on the toll that time can take on the heart, the body and the spirit.

There’s an elegiac sweep to several tracks: the Nelson-Jackie King title tune, in which the singer refuses to pronounce a relationship dead; “This Face,” an unflinching self-appraisal that’s neither vain nor self-pitying; and the album-closing duet with Raitt, “You Remain,” a haunting expression of loss.

In “Last Stand in Open Country,” his duet with Kid Rock saluting mavericks young and old, Nelson, who at 68 would seem to have nothing left to prove, nonetheless sings, “I’m always looking for something to prove.” Obviously he means it, and here he proves it. He plays Feb. 8 at the Grove in Anaheim and Feb. 9 at Universal Amphitheatre.

--Randy Lewis

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STEPHIN MERRITT

“Eban & Charley” soundtrack

Merge

He’s made records as Magnetic Fields, the 6ths, Future Bible Heroes and Gothic Archies, but until now Stephin Merritt has never released one under his name. The occasion is songs and score for an independent film about the relationship of a young man and a teenage boy, and the assignment taps the more abstract aspects of a musician who’s been hailed as the true genius of contemporary American pop songwriting.

The album (in stores Tuesday) clocks in at barely more than 30 minutes, and seven of them are taken up by the sounds of a rainstorm. There are also new Merritt songs, all of them legit, if in some cases mere miniatures. “Poppyland” is a grand adventure in synthetic pop textures, “Summer Day” has a melancholy Merseybeat feel, and “Maria Maria Maria” evokes Cohen and Dylan, with the droopy-voiced bard as soulful as he is doleful.

--Richard Cromelin

In Brief

*** KRS-One and the Temple of Hiphop, “Spiritually Minded,” KOCH/In the Paint. On his 10th album, the Bronx rap pioneer makes God and redemption the thrust of his sometimes bombastic platform. “Take Your Time” pleads with women to respect themselves, while elsewhere the former Boogie Down Productions frontman blasts hip-hop performers and powers that be for continuing to foist off empty messages on impressionable fans. Despite occasional tepid production, KRS-One gives the hip-hop industry a much-needed self-check.

--Soren Baker

*** The Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs, “Guitars, Guns & Gold,” Triple X. Other than the newly recorded, folk-grungy title tune, this collection spotlights past points on the eternally rebellious L.A. punk band’s map (with bonus enhanced-CD video!). Despite the changing lineup and the varying sound quality, these hard-to-find selections are coherent in their breakneck pacing, brash guitars and cranky righteousness. Along with the muscular new-waver “Generator,” highlights include leader Frank Meyer and original bassist Dino Everett dueting on a previously unreleased version of X’s “Los Angeles” and a frenzied live take on Iron Maiden’s “Sanctuary.” Rawk!

--N.N.

*

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). The albums are already released unless otherwise noted.