Emotions, electronica give heft to Linkin Park’s rants

Linkin Park

“Meteora” (Warner Bros.)

*** 1/2

Linkin Park resurfaces to the sound of a cloudburst and the steady beat of a hammer, launching an album (in stores Tuesday) that marks a small but meaningful expansion of the band’s musical hybrid theory. Melody remains at the center of this storm. Electronic accents inch toward other genres even as hip-hop beats and metal guitars thunder into view.

The Los Angeles band’s 2000 multi-platinum debut, “Hybrid Theory,” already separated it from the breast-beating crowd of rap-metal combos, choosing drama and melody over simple volume. This album’s “Somewhere I Belong” signals a deepening interest in electronic sounds as a major resource, accompanying Mike Shinoda’s rat-a-tat raps and Chester Bennington’s roaring anger-management confessions.

Lyrics remain vague ventings about young manhood and everyday betrayals, but can still touch on emotions that are dramatic and real. Raps are slippery and raw, weaving through barriers of pain and frustration and dark metal eruptions. “Nobody’s Listening” is straight-ahead hip-hop, with sweet if ominous Japanese flute melodies that make it more Wu-Tang than Bizkit.

Linkin Park also has the courage to be brief. At just 37 minutes (almost identical to the debut), “Meteora” never lingers or reaches too hard for the grandiose. Much of it fits the existing Linkin Park mold: three-minute tunes ready for rock radio and fans not anxious to shift gears.

It is when stretching that Linkin Park (which plays the Wiltern on Monday and Tuesday) suggests a life span beyond any particular time or movement, finding new layers of feeling amid colliding beats and electronics. The instrumental track “Session” does it as convincingly as Radiohead. Just as provocative, twice as aggressive.

-- Steve Appleford

This ‘Heart’ skips a few beats

Celine Dion

“One Heart” (Epic)

** 1/2

Will anyone be able to avoid noticing “One Heart,” which comes out Tuesday, the very day Dion opens her megashow, “A New Day,” in Las Vegas, stars as the subject of a CBS special and launches her line of fragrances?

Obviously not. But it will take a committed member of Team Celine to find the high points in “One Heart,” which reveals signs of having received less than meticulous attention during the rush to create “A New Day.”

Three of the 14 tunes -- “Sorry for Love,” “Have You Ever Been in Love” and “Coulda, Woulda, Should I” -- have been previously released, and the single “I Drove All Night” is featured in Dion’s ad campaign for Chrysler.

Dion’s trademark knock-down-the-walls belting is ever present, even in nominal ballads such as “I Know What Love Is” and “Je T’Aime Encore.” Other tunes, questing for topicality, squeeze her lush sound into the throaty, little-girl-trying-to be-sexy manner of a Britney Spears. But aside from “I Drove All Night,” it’s hard to find a potential hit in the program, and the generally noisy production too often muffles the impact of one of pop’s most gloriously appealing voices.

-- Don Heckman

Groundbreakers and sonic heights

El Gran Silencio

“eforeSuper Riddim Internacional! Vol. 1” (Emi Latin)

*** 1/2

This often astonishing work (due Tuesday) opens and closes with snippets of opinion from listeners who either disparage or extol the brilliant alternative band from Monterrey, Mexico. Indeed, it’s hard to be neutral about a group that experiments so boldly with seemingly incompatible styles, from cumbia and ragamuffin to hip-hop. But love ‘em or hate ‘em, El Gran Silencio’s long-anticipated third album crowns it as one of the genre’s most sonically creative outfits.

Originally planned as a two-disc set, this batch of 15 tunes instead becomes the first of two volumes, the second expected later this year. That was wise, since there’s so much to digest. In “El Espejo” (The Mirror), guitarist, singer and songwriter Tony Hernandez reflects on his life “so beautiful, so happy and so full of suffering.”

A lovely, mournful and vaguely Moorish violin accentuates the album’s tone of tranquil introspection, infused with punk energy free of rancor and hip-hop awareness free of recriminations.

The band’s insights often don’t go beyond obvious observations about how time flies. But “Super Riddim” is brimming with the sheer joy of music, a vibrant and gorgeous kaleidoscope of tropical rhythms, ethereal guitars and the earthy accordion of Campa Valdez.

Locally grounded but globally oriented, the Great Silence now resonates with an original and transcendent sound.

-- Agustin Gurza

It’s just hard to let go of youth

The Ataris

“So Long, Astoria” (Columbia)

** 1/2

With one foot stomping in the abandon of adolescence and the other clamped in the cage of adulthood, the Santa Barbara band joins a crowded corner of the indie-rock field. Now and then, its major-label debut manages to separate it from the pack, notably on “In This Diary,” a euphoric, propulsive reverie about youth’s golden moments.

“Being grown up isn’t half as fun as growing up,” sings Kris Roe, staking out the Ataris’ turf.

That sense of longing, of experience revisited and enhanced, pervades “Astoria.”

Roe has an urgent, blue-collar, heart-on-sleeve persona, and the Ataris paint their landscapes of longing and vulnerability with a sleet of guitar sound drawn from indie archetypes Husker Du and an aggressive pastiche that evokes the Plimsouls and other power-pop pioneers.

It has a lot of dynamism and heart, but ultimately you wish it were a little less commonplace. Roe and company lack the quirks and the gift of surprise that would let them transcend their genre. In rock ‘n’ roll, being grown up doesn’t mean that you have to play by the rules.

-- Richard Cromelin

Quick spins

DJ Spooky

“Dubtometry” (Thirsty Ear)

***

Having already established one of the most successful versions of modern jazz fusion with “Optometry,” blending digital DJ composition with a quartet headed up by free-jazz pianist Matthew Shipp, DJ Spooky takes those tapes one step further by re-rendering them as dub masterpieces, remixed by the legendary Mad Professor and Lee “Scratch” Perry, along with 11 others.

The future is Spooky.

-- Dean Kuipers

Puretone

“Stuck in a Groove” (V2)

*** 1/2

On his impressive debut, Australia’s Josh Abrahams (a.k.a. Puretone) lays down a string of wicked beats. From the progressive opener, “Thrillseeker,” to the steamy club hit “Addicted to Bass” (which should make a star of vocalist Amiel Daemion) and the sweet, down-tempo groove of “Hypersensitive,” Abrahams proves to be a masterly producer and arranger in any style.

Steve Baltin

*

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.