RECORDINGS : Quick Spins

THE RIVER IN REVERSE

Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint

After years spent wrestling into submission musical genres ranging from pop standards to ballet scores, it was probably only a matter of time until Elvis Costello got around to making an R&B album.

"The River in Reverse," a collaboration among Costello, venerated New Orleans pianist Allen Toussaint and their respective backing teams, was, according to its press materials, the first major album recorded in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina. Though its aftereffects can be felt in any number of recent releases, "River" may be the first bona fide Katrina set piece. It's as woeful and angry an album as you might have figured, helped along by several Costello-Toussaint compositions that speak either implicitly ("Ascension Day") or directly ("Broken Promise Land") to the disaster, and several Toussaint standards likely chosen for their ability to do the same.

There's a poignancy to even the simplest lines ("Baby won't you please come home?"), underscored by Toussaint's masterly piano-and-horn-centric arrangements, though "River" isn't any darker than it needs to be. Unlike many of Costello's other stylistic wanderings, the disc has a game, let's-put-on-a-show quality, though it's often more willing than it is great: "River" is fenced in by Costello's voice, which has grown in warmth since his sharp-elbowed early days but is still no match for Toussaint classics such as "Tears, Tears and More Tears," which have tested the limits of voices far greater than his.

( Costello and Toussaint will perform at Wolf Trap on June 15.)

-- Allison Stewart

DOWNLOAD THESE: "Nearer to You," "The Sharpest Thorn," "On Your Way Down"

MOVE BY YOURSELF

Donavon Frankenreiter

Like his longtime friend and musical collaborator Jack Johnson, Donavon Frankenreiter followed up a professional surfing career with a foray into recording. His self-titled 2004 debut of languid acoustic rock sounded much like his buddy's music.

Frankenreiter's sophomore outing, "Move by Yourself," is not on Johnson's Brushfire Records label, signaling Frankenreiter's intent to step out of his pal's shadow. That he does on a handful of this record's 11 balmy tracks, stepping into the much longer shadows of Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone, the Eagles and a half-dozen others.

Frankenreiter (remember when people had to change their names to become rock stars?) wants to party like it's 1974. There's nothing wrong with that, but after a pair of splendid opening tracks, the party bogs down in vanilla balladry.

The title cut, built on Eric Brigmond's propulsive organ groove, is the best Stevie Wonder homage since Van Hunt's debut two years ago, and the Spinnersesque "The Way It Is" is a lovely Philly soul throwback. But despite excellent musicianship and warm production, the record never again threatens to make you leave your chair.

Frankenreiter suffers from Lenny Kravitz syndrome, expertly aping other artists' melodic sense while penning lyrics so ersatz they barely register as words.

His career is still young, so it may not be a terminal case. "Move by Yourself" is a record few will hate, but fewer still will remember.

-- Chris Klimek

DOWNLOAD THESE: "Move by Yourself," "The Way It Is."