Jubilant and purposeful songs

R. Kelly

“Happy People”/”U Saved Me” (Jive)

****

One of the great things about certain pop records is their ability to fill you with a feeling of well-being when there’s not much reason to be feeling good. The world might be going to hell in a handbasket and your personal life might be unraveling, but it doesn’t matter if “Dancing in the Street” or “Help Me Rhonda” is on the radio.

It’s only natural to assume that R. Kelly has worse days than most of us as he awaits trial in his hometown of Chicago on 14 counts of child pornography. Maybe it’s compensation for his tribulation, or maybe just fierce denial, or maybe an attempt at mass jury-pool contamination, but Kelly has imbued the first half of his new two-CD album (due in stores Tuesday) with an intoxicating, grin-inducing, body-moving, spirit-lifting effervescence.

Charming, unpretentious and effortless, the singer presides over a party whose pace never flags and whose soul is fun-loving and wholesome. There’s only one excursion out of G-rated territory and into the bedroom, “The Greatest Show on Earth” (guess what it is, ladies). Instead of bump and grind, Kelly’s favored body movement is a dance called “steppin’,” and the album’s sonic signature is a celebrative clap.

Kelly crafts his sunny kingdom with the light artillery of old-school R&B;, channeling Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye in a sound that’s live and uncluttered, played rather than programmed, classic without being retro. It melts all resistance, and Kelly’s insistence that love will prevail and that a good heart is all you need is irresistible.

Every Saturday night has its Sunday morning, and for those who want a taste of a more troubled soul, Kelly provides “U Saved Me,” a second disc that’s rooted in gospel forms and church vernacular about the passage through the wilderness and into salvation.

It takes awhile to adjust to the slower tempos and darker themes, but Kelly’s arrangements and the spontaneity of the performance keep the sparks flying as it builds toward three soaring inspirational ballads packed with celestial power and one dramatic key change after another. The finale, “Peace,” is a tour-de-force, with Kelly’s high-pitched vocal evoking Jimmy Cliff, and the African-flavored track unfolding into a series of startling textural shifts.

So how does it make sense that music this embracing and inspired would come from someone in Kelly’s shoes? Depending on the truth we might or might not learn someday, it can serve as a reminder that great art isn’t necessarily the product of a morally admirable artist. And no matter what eventually happens to R. Kelly’s world, it carries a message right out of one of those Sunday sermons: Judge not, lest ye be judged.

*

A troubadour’s songs from the front lines

Steve Earle

“The Revolution Starts ... Now” (Artemis)

*** 1/2

A lot of pop-rock figures are suddenly speaking out about the state of the union, but Earle has been going on the record ever since his tales of blue-collar alienation on his superb “Guitar Town” album almost 20 years ago.

The Nashville-based singer-songwriter, whose music blends country, folk, blues and rock into a winning Americana sound, has written eloquently about matters ranging from the death penalty to the bleakness of national politics. In 1997’s “Christmas in Washington,” Earle evoked the spirits of Woody Guthrie and labor martyr Joe Hill in longing for a return of political heroes.

But his commentaries have become even more aggressive -- first with the post-9/11 warning about the governing treading on civil liberties in his song “John Walker’s Blues” and now on this album, whose themes range from the Iraq war to outsourcing of American jobs. The CD is due in stores Tuesday.

As Bob Dylan pointed out in an interview last year, Earle has a remarkable way of getting beyond social stereotypes (from prison guards to death row inmates) by writing from the subject’s viewpoint.

It’s a strength Earle again demonstrates in “The Revolution Starts

“Rich Man’s War” is the most heartbreaking. Though the theme is an obvious one, Earle brings it to life by contrasting an American who joins the Army because he had no other place to go (“There ain’t nobody hirin’ ‘round here since all the jobs went down to Mexico”) and a young Iraqi who is taught there is honor in suicide bombings.

Earle too writes about the disillusionment of others, including a truck driver who signed up early to go to Iraq to haul supplies because the pay is good only to find he has landed in a battlefield. Elsewhere, Earle turns to humor and anger in attacking the shadow of censorship on the nation’s airwaves.

Through it all, however, he clings to hope. He tries to shake off the blues in “Comin’ Round,” on which he’s joined by Emmylou Harris, and he surrenders to the optimism of “The Seeker.”

A couple of songs (including the goofy “Condi, Condi”) seem out of place, but the heart of “The Revolution” carries the stamp of an artist and a patriot.

*

Furnaces’ introspection stands up to inspection

The Fiery Furnaces

“Blueberry Boat” (Rough Trade)

*** 1/2

With the 2003 debut “Gallowsbird’s Bark,” the Brooklyn-based band built around Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger fashioned a musical language so private-sounding one might have assumed the two were twins and not merely siblings.

It’s even more so on the follow-up, which isn’t as much an invitation as a challenge to explore their world. At 76 minutes of oddly cobbled suites and peculiar obsessions, starting with the 10-minute, restlessly shifting “Quay Cut,” the album is a bit daunting and demanding. But it’s also compelling and rewarding.

Expanding well beyond the first album with a PJ Harvey-meets-Ween mix of blues-rock and twisted carnival music, “Blueberry Boat” is a journey through an interior world where a lost locket is an omen of never-ending sorrow, where moments and tokens of joy are to be hoarded fiercely, where childhood fears only grow in adulthood.

“There was a little bird at my backdoor, said ‘Your true love’s let you down,’ ” Eleanor sings in “Chris Matthews” (the “Hardball” host?). Yeah, it’s that kind of world.

And yet there’s colorful magic alive in the music and lyrics, as fears are brought into the open. It’s not Disney magic, of course. But meet the modern, musical Siblings Grimm.

*

Basking in a gloom that’s light around the edges

Mark Lanegan Band

“Bubblegum” (Beggars Banquet)

*** 1/2

Mark LANEGAN needs the darkness. He likes it there, with a voice and raw delivery landing somewhere between Jim Morrison and Clint Eastwood’s “man with no name,” a shadowy growl of cigarettes and broken glass. He no longer requires the bright lights and MTV fame he knew as the singer of the Screaming Trees, so Lanegan continues to grow as an artist, embracing his darker, moodier self.

Lanegan sounds haunted and engaged here, groaning of desperation and madness on “Methamphetamine Blues” (“Don’t want to leave this heaven so soon ... “) and valentines and revolvers on “Bombed,” a spare folk duet with Wendy Rae Fowler, or drifting into the manly croon of “One Hundred Days.”

He’s not humorless. “Bubblegum” is an ironic title for an album that seethes and rocks with real energy and depth. There’s more here than songs of bad times and worse vibes. “Bubblegum” again unleashes the rocker within, which may have something to do with these last few years as a mysterious, sometime member of Queens of the Stone Age and Desert Sessions.

This album is credited to the Mark Lanegan Band, but the album is the result of a wide range of collaborations, with the singer joined by the likes of PJ Harvey, Joshua Homme of Queens, two ex-members of Guns N’ Roses, plus guitarist and co-producer Chris Goss, among many others. It all just feeds into the Lanegan subterranean worldview. Moody, gloomy fun.

*

A pair of old friends pick up right where they’d left off

The Notorious Cherry Bombs

“The Notorious Cherry Bombs” (Universal South)

***

This reunion project deserves attention even if you don’t know the back story, though that history is useful because it involves two of country music’s most respected figures: Vince Gill and Rodney Crowell.

The singer-songwriters worked together more than 20 years ago in Crowell’s old band, the Cherry Bombs. Some of that old all-star gang got together again two years ago and had such a good time they decided to go into the studio together.

This kind of “just for the love of it” endeavor can be risky because musicians often find out they don’t have a lot in common after all these years. But this album is a wonder -- the most enticing country album since the Loretta Lynn-Jack White collaboration last spring.

It’s fun when the Bombs toast their heroes -- the minimalist Johnny Cash touches in “Oklahoma Dust” and the exaggerated George Jones melodrama in the lighthearted “It’s Hard to Kiss the Lips at Night ...” But it’s even more enchanting when Crowell and Gill showcase some of their own sweet sensibilities, especially “Forever Someday,” which features one of Gill’s most evocative vocals.

There’s not the striking, alt-country fervor of Lynn’s “Van Lear Rose” here, but the key tracks are marked by a spirit (free and frisky) and craft (solid and smart) that once was a hallmark of country music.

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.