Branch back, new album ‘excellent’

‘InFinite’ deep

MRecords) The last time Michelle Branch released a full-length solo album was the same year Apple launched iTunes and “Finding Nemo” was in movie theaters. Judging by Branch’s excellent new album, let’s try to get her back in the studio as soon as possible.

A mature, complex Branch emerges on “Hopeless Romantic ,” her voice able to go huskier and much slinkier. Her songwriting is confident about life’s utter messiness and her sound is rooted more in rock than pop. She’s still writing about heartbreak and love, but now it’s sung by a mother and an ex-wife.

“I don’t want to waste any more time,” she sings in the superb first song, the lusty “Best You Ever.” She’s spiky and defiant at an old flame in “Not a Love Song,” ready to be naughty in “Bad Side” and sloppily drunk in love in “Carry Me Home.” On “Knock Yourself Out,” she sings: “I’m just trying to figure out who I am.” There are shimmery guitars, handclaps and electronic touches, but the 14-track album — flawlessly produced by Gus Seyffert and Branch’s boyfriend, Patrick Carney of The Black Keys — always, and wisely, keeps Branch front and center.

Branch, who had hits with “Everywhere” and “All You Wanted,” largely slipped away after her last solo album in 2003, emerging in 2006 with the short-lived country duo The Wreckers. There was a sense that this promising artist was missing. It turned out that we were the ones missing out.

Branch

By Mark Kennedy

“Hopeless Romantic”

(Verve

“Pure Comedy” (Sub Pop) Father John Misty, Josh Tillman’s alias, makes his bleak, wordy account of today’s human condition sound like a long-lost Elton John album from the early ‘70s.

Drenched in piano and strings, “Pure Comedy” offers small measures of comic relief amid the misery, virtual reality and hopes of keeping aging at bay.

Tillman, who has co-written recent Beyonce and Lady Gaga songs and was formerly in Fleet Foxes, describes the travails of modern man in the First World, often making it seem like the apocalypse is just around the corner.

The album’s centerpiece is “Leaving LA,” Tillman’s “10-verse, chorus-less diatribe” lasting over 13 minutes, an autobiographical road song reflecting on everything from his fans’ possible reaction to the song itself to childhood trauma and the limitations of a pseudonym.

“Ballad of the Dying Man” describes the last moments of one of those self-proclaimed guardians of the internet, forever seeking to put someone in their place, while “Love Returns There’ll Be Hell to Pay” is a dim — but maybe accurate — evaluation of human nature.

“In Twenty Years or So” ends the album in grand fashion, one of Tillman’s more hopeful lyrics wrapped around a bit of Pink Floyd-like acoustic art-rock and a gut-wrenching coda with strings. “It’s a miracle to be alive … There’s nothing to fear,” he sings. But it’s hard to take that at face value and you can’t help but look for a darker interpretation.

As you check your social media account one last time, Tillman’s ballads gorgeously usher you to Armageddon. Or just another day.

“inFinite” (earMUSIC) This album is so Purple even Prince would love it. Deep Purple, those space truckers from the late ‘60s whose four-chord intro to “Smoke on the Water” became the go-to practice riff for every kid picking up guitar for the first time, is back with what may or may not be the final album in its Hall of Fame career. The band is being deliberately coy in the album title, the tour nickname (“The Long Goodbye”) and recent interview comments.

But whether or not this is as deep as they ultimately go, this album has plenty of what keeps Deep Purple great. Singer Ian Gillan’s glass-shattering screams of yesteryear have been replaced by mid-range rock rumblings, and founding guitarist Ritchie Blackmore has been gone for 20 years now, ably replaced by the fluid licks of Steve Morse.

Morse and keyboardist Don Airey (Rainbow, Ozzy Osbourne) deserve particular credit for keeping the trademark Purple sound fresh on tracks like “Time for Bedlam” and “All I Got Is You,” with the intricate interplay between guitar and keyboard solos, saturated in the keyboard distortion that makes this band’s sound so instantly recognizable.

“Hip Boots” evokes the classic “Lazy” guitar and keyboard riff, and a cover of The Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues” is worth the price of the disc all by itself.

“Memories... Do Not Open” (Columbia)

The Chainsmokers wowed with their infectious single “Closer” and gave Coldplay a trendy EDM makeover on “Something Just Like This.” But high hopes for a whole album by the DJ duo of Andrew Taggart and Alex Pall have gone up in smoke.

This 12-track collection not only fails to break new ground, it spins its tires into a deep hole. The songs usually begin with slow, moody piano that builds into monster synth beats, interrupted by a period of calm. That’s thrilling in a single dose. It’s formulaic and tiresome on a full album.

The Chainsmokers are best when they let others sing, like Emily Warren on “Don’t Say” and “Just My Type”; Jhene Aiko on “Wake Up Alone”; and the lovely Coldplay collaboration. (It turns out The Chainsmokers need Coldplay more than Coldplay needs them.)

Cynics might say this is just an attempt by a couple of musical hucksters — one approaching 30 and the other on the other side of that milestone — to appeal to teens with easily digestible, morose dance songs punctuated with expletives that give it an appearance of honesty. How else to explain lyrics that deal with cutting class, endlessly hooking up and drinking too much? “It’s hard when you’re young,” goes one song. So hard.

Standing still like this in EDM — like standing still in a club, for that matter — is a dangerous proposition. Other DJs are creating thrilling stuff — Calvin Harris’ “Slide” or Zedd’s “Stay” — so to hear The Chainsmokers blowing the same old smoke is a real disappointment. (AP)