New music: Blake Shelton, Blondshell, Ingrid Laubrock, Elation Pauls
For Recreational Use Only (Wheelhouse)
Blake Shelton's 13th studio album opens with a fitting declaration for both his latest project and the current state of his career: Stay Country or Die Tryin'.
It would be more accurately phrased like a question.
At this stage, Shelton is a longtime veteran of Hollywood on The Voice stage with a pop superstar wife in Gwen Stefani, far removed from his Nashville roots, all while maintaining the position of one of the most high-profile country stars of the current moment.
But if country is a lifestyle and an image beyond its musical forms — saying nothing of the opening track's arena-sized rock elements — is he staying true to some ethos? Is Shelton speaking diaristically when he sings, 'Boots ain't never seen easy street,' in the album's opening verse?
Perhaps not. In 2025, he performs between worlds, but no matter. He's long dedicated himself to big country radio hits and returns to those roots across For Recreational Use Only. The songs here concern themselves with lived-in bars (Cold Can) and backroad acuity (Life's Been Comin' Too Fast.)
Charms are found across the release, like in the honky-tonk happy Texas, and its cheerful reference to George Strait's classic All My Ex's Live In Texas, or the big-hearted and big-voiced ballad on God and grief, Let Him In Anyway.
Collaborations are few and pointed. Shelton and Stefani harmonize beautifully on Hanging On; he does the same with Craig Morgan on Heaven Sweet Home, an affecting meditation of mortality. He taps Josh Anderson for the slow-burn closer Years.
Shelton might live a very different life than the characters found in his songs, as is often true of any larger-than-life celebrity performer, but make no mistake, this is a giant pop-country record with limitless potential for radio ubiquity. ★★★ out of five
Stream: Cold Can; Stay Country or Die Tryin'
— Maria Sherman, The Associated Press
Blondshell
If You Asked for a Picture (Partisan)
Sabrina Teitelbaum, who records under the band name Blondshell, is a longtime student of alt-rock. She knows a thing or two about all the ways in which a cutting lyric and thunderous guitar can rejuvenate the soul and soundtrack rage.
On her sophomore album, If You Asked for a Picture, she builds from the success of her earlier work — 2023's self-titled debut and its haunting single Salad.
Over the course of 12 tracks, Blondshell reckons with a woman's role in her various relationships, personally and societally. Those messages — gritty, real, existential and fluid as they are — arrive atop visceral instrumentation, hearty guitars and punchy percussion.
Much of the album sits at the intersection of modern indie, '90s grunge and '80s college radio rock, like that of Event of a Fire. On the acoustic fake-out Thumbtack, instrumentation builds slow and remains restrained. Man is muscular, with its soaring distortion and layered production.
On If You Asked for a Picture, relationships are nuanced, awkward and honest — her flawed and frustrated characters show how easy it is to succumb to the whims of someone who doesn't have your best interest in mind, to become someone else when you don't know who you are.
If there is a main weakness it is that a number of the tracks bleed together sonically near the record's end, making it hard to distinguish a three-song run: Toy to Man. Fans will likely label it stylistic consistency rather than tiresome repetition.
There's a lot to love here, though. T&A, Model Rockets and the palm-muted power chords of What's Fair warrant repeat listens.
The swaying mellotron of Model Rockets things and might serve as a mission statement for the album — where identity and desire are malleable, influenced by relationships and the evolving nature of the world, made more complicated by simply being a woman in it. ★★★½ out of five
Stream: What's Fair; T&A
— Rachel S. Hunt, The Associated Press
Ingrid Laubrock
Purposing The Air (Pyroclastic)
Ingrid Laubrock is a terrific saxophonist who is not playing on her second release; instead, she has written and produced one of the most unique and fascinating albums in recent memory.
The album has 60 brief tracks called koans. A koan is defined as 'a story, dialogue, question or statement from Chinese Buddhist Lore, supplemented with commentaries, that is used in Zen Buddhist practice in different ways.'
Laubrock has created 60 brief moods as koans, all fragments from the poetry of Erica Hunt.
To present them, she has miniature phrases of the poems delivered by four duets: vocalist Fay Victor with cellist Mariel Roberts; vocalist Sara Serpa with pianist Matt Mitchell; vocalist Theo Bleckmann with guitarist Ben Monder; and vocalist Rachel Calloway with violinist Ari Streisfeld.
This might sound confusing but the impact is extremely powerful.
The range of moods and musical accompaniments is extraordinary. With each duo getting 15 koans, there is wide room for experimentation. From intense repeated words to humorous riffs ('Catch the ball and now I throw it') the surprises are endless.
Most of the koans are several minutes at best and while perhaps wanting more, the whole mood is then spun out of shape with a totally different idea.
The vocalists are very different and the duet partners are tied in beautifully. For example Koan 5 with Serpa/Mitchell makes 1:37 seem just the right length. Bleckmann's vocals, as the only male singer, make a different sense of the concept.
Figuring out how to listen to this album is an important decision. It can sound different the second time through while initially captivating the listener. Cello, piano, guitar and violin work well with the poetic fragments Laubrock has chosen.
To my ear, the least successful is the classically trained voice of Calloway. While beautiful, it seems to overpower the moods of the koans, but this is a small comment in an album of challenging and complex music. Expect a new experience. ★★★★½ out of five
Stream: Koans 1, 16, 31, 46
— Keith Black
Elation Pauls
Sustenance (Spektral)
Canadian violinist Elation Pauls celebrates her inaugural recording with Sustenance, a self-curated program on Germany's Spektral label featuring nine contemporary chamber works for solo violin and piano, including several commissioned world premières by prominent national composers.
What becomes clear in this labour-of-love project born in the crucible of the global pandemic is its fearless sense of adventure. Pauls, who serves as the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's assistant principal second violin, immediately displays her expressive artistry in such arresting works as Iman Habibi's Offering of Water. Another is Kelly-Marie Murphy's Fire-and-Ice-Bodied-Doubled-Up-Withdrawal-Anxiety, its driving moto perpetuo figures conjuring the (frankly) uncharted craziness of those unprecedented COVID-19 days.
Particular highlights include David Braid's lushly lyrical The Interior Castle and Without Words, as well as Serouj Kradjian's deeply poetic Sari Aghtchig (Girl from the Mountain), derived from a folk melody from his Armenian homeland that enthralls, with Pauls joined by the two composers on piano during their respective pieces.
For those who appreciate more narrative-based works, there is Karen Sunabacka's Jack the Fiddler, based on her maternal grandfather Jack's rediscovery and healing through Red River Métis culture, with the Manitoba-born composer also serving as storyteller.
Cris Derksen's Country Food similarly features a thoughtful narration regarding Indigenous food sovereignty as a timely topical issue, punctuated by Pauls's dramatic flourishes.
The ambitious album is capped by a second Kradjian offering, Tango Melancolico. The internationally renowned composer, now on piano, and Pauls hold nothing back in this passionate ride into the heart of tango; the highly stylized dance fuelled by lyrical passagework and syncopated rhythmic accents seemingly mirroring the intense emotionalism of those gone-but-never forgotten pandemic years that changed us all forever. ★★★★½ out of five
Stream: Sari Aghtchig; Tango Melancolico
— Holly Harris
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