Smith has it covered

Patti Smith

“Twelve” (Columbia)

* * * 1/2

PATTI SMITH has done memorable covers since the beginning of her long career -- “Land of 1,000 Dances,” “Gloria” -- but this is her first collection entirely comprising other people’s songs. In addition to indulging herself with some old favorites, the celebrated punk matriarch has something to tell us about what these songs mean in this modern world of war, strife, lies and struggle.

Although the dozen selections include many ‘60s classics and rock legends, Smith hears and conveys messages from a range of eras. Some of her takes are surprising -- Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” done with banjos (?!), the Doors’ “Soul Kitchen” slow and flavored with R&B.; But these arrangements emphasize the weirdly transcendent poetry of the originals and seem natural for Smith. Not so much, at first, Tears for Fears’ 1985 hit “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” But somewhere around the carefully pronounced lines “I can’t stand this indecision / married with a lack of vision,” her nearly faithful rendition shows how much this tune speaks to the now.

Smith and her band of bassist Tony Shanahan, guitarist Lenny Kaye and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty -- abetted by her son and daughter, Black Crowes guitarist Rich Robinson and playwright Sam Shepard (on the aforementioned banjo) -- mix up a bluesy, psychedelic witches’ brew that feels like one long, complex incantation to keep us safe, to make us see there is indeed some kinda way out of here.

The opener, Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced?,” does a slow burn from challenge to taunt, channeling the original in sound and spirit. Neil Young’s “Helpless” has a hushed lushness, at once bleak and lovely. And Smith’s roadhouse-ragged version of the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” is increasingly raw and portentous, echoing with eerie, bent-string guitar and her deep, direct vocal.

Alongside these, the Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” is merely amusing, and the mind begins to wander during the Allman Brothers Band’s “Midnight Rider.” But Smith snaps you back to attention with the closer, Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise,” as the accusatory lyric becomes a warning to those who glorify the past and romanticize the future while never actually acting to change the present.

Natalie Nichols

*

Lavigne lightens up, and the result is fun

Avril Lavigne

“The Best Damn Thing” (RCA)

* * *

IF any single song kicked off the tween-rock craze that made stars out of Ashlee Simpson and Aly & AJ, it was “Complicated,” Avril Lavigne’s smash 2002 single, in which the young Canadian singer presented herself as a gritty alternative to poised teen-pop glamazons like Britney Spears and Simpson’s sister Jessica. In those days, Lavigne seemed like a trailblazer, a perception she shored up on 2004’s “Under My Skin,” a darker effort that delved deeper into teenage psychology than stuff by most of Lavigne’s peers.

On “The Best Damn Thing,” Lavigne comes off more like a follower than a leader. It’s a consciously lightweight pop-punk romp that appears to have been inspired by “Since U Been Gone,” Kelly Clarkson’s massive hit. Fortunately, inspirations don’t get much better than “Since U Been Gone,” whose precision-geared exuberance Lavigne replicates perfectly in “Girlfriend” and “I Can Do Better,” both produced by Dr. Luke, one of the mixing-board magicians behind the Clarkson tune.

In interviews, Lavigne has demurred from suggestions that the new album’s more upbeat tone is a product of her marriage last year to Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley (who produced “Contagious”). But her denials aren’t very convincing: In “Innocence,” one of the disc’s ballads, she describes feeling safe for the first time in her life, while “I Don’t Have to Try” lets us know that in the Lavigne-Whibley home, she’s “the one who wears the pants.” This isn’t groundbreaking work, but it’s great fun.

Mikael Wood

*

Arthur once again seeks his own orbit

Joseph Arthur & the Lonely Astronauts

“Let’s Just Be”

(Lonely Astronaut Records)

* * *

ANOTHER title that twists a classic pop reference (Arthur’s 2002 album was “Redemption’s Son”) and another Arthurian application of pretzel logic to classic pop traditions. But might surrounding himself with a six-strong support crew rein in some of this often-lone astronaut’s more indulgent, introspective tendencies? The album certainly starts on a relatively straight-ahead note with the shambling, Stones-y “Diamond Ring.” But never fear: The next song, “Good Life,” begins with sloshing-water sounds and ends with a snort and a scream.

Even that doesn’t prepare one for the theme song, “Lonely Astronaut,” the 20-minute centerpiece of this sprawling 78-minute epic. The track starts innocently enough, on the quieter end of the rough-hewn American scale covering most of the album. But then it churns into increasing intensity and ultimately chaos, out of which a little repeating pattern emerges. It’s as if the song got hiccups and can’t shake them. For about eight minutes.

Still, even that carries the album’s casual feel, a down-to-earth tone that grounds even such otherworldly highlights as the Bowie-referencing “Spaceman” and the closing, melancholy raga-folk “Star Song.” It’s the natural setting for the coed Astronauts, whose members’ past credits include the Jayhawks, Natalie Merchant and the Twilight Singers. Some more outre passages could have benefited from mad-scientist tinkering. But the mad-Mick Jagger that Arthur affects on the nasty “Cocaine Feet” and elsewhere is still nicely twisted.

-- Steve Hochman*

Albums are rated on a scale of four stars (excellent), three stars (good), two stars (fair) and one star (poor). Albums reviewed will be released Tuesday.