Omarion, “Ollusion” (Starworld/EMI)
Last summer was a tough one for the R&B singer Omarion. In June, he signed up to be a part of Lil Wayne’s Young Money Records. By August he was out, allegedly by mutual consent. “Girl You Know,” a song he recorded with that crew, was done over, with Omarion’s hook replaced with one by the tender R&B singer Lloyd. The new version, called “BedRock,” became a smash.
Omarion’s voice is slithery, not deep enough for truly felt confessional nor light enough to tease. Since the split of the R&B boy band B2K, of which he was the star, he’s struggled to land on a style of his own. He’s been best when producers have molded him to fit their needs, as on the 2006 single “Ice Box,” on which Timbaland pushed him toward nervous desperation.
Likewise, the best songs on “Ollusion,” Omarion’s first album in four years not counting “Face Off,” his underappreciated 2007 collaborative album with Bow Wow — are the noisiest and, by extension, the most demanding.
“I Think My Girl Is Bi,” produced by Maddscientist, has the digital pop of the Red- One-produced tracks that have helped make Lady Gaga a phenomenon. Clunker title notwithstanding, Omarion responds with zip and humor: “I bet she’s out with what’s-her- name/The girl that doesn’t have a man.” On “Code Red,” over blaring horns, he alternates between mutterings and gasps.
But he can’t dodge a groan- inducing simile — “We stopping them/Like cop cars” — one of many that litter this album. Clunky lyrics are everywhere, undoing some of the progress Omarion has made. The otherwise lovely “Speedin’,” Omarion’s most convincing song here, takes its car imagery a little too seriously: “I called AAA/They said they on the way.” Jon Caramanica, The New York Times
Laura Veirs, “July Flame” (Raven Marching Band)
“Honey wax/melt it down/make your heart molten somehow,” sings the Portland, Ore., singer-songwriter Laura Veirs in “Summer Is the Champion,” drawing out her vowels cleanly. The song begins with a finger-strummed nylon-string guitar, takes on horn-section harmony over wakeful rhythm and piano chords on every beat, and finally graduates to sumptuous pools of pedal- steel guitar, Neil Young in 1971 style.
It’s full of texture, this song. You almost want to run your hands across it and feel the nicks in the wood grain, or order it off the appetizer menu in your town’s new warehouse-district restaurant run by a ruddy-faced genius with a beard. And so with the rest of Veirs’ new record, “July Flame,” named after a farmer’s market peach.
It’s full of layered folk and indie-rock bucolia and plain-spoken but stretchy- thinking language, wherein everyday energies or objects transubstantiate into other, metaphorically richer ones.
On this album the sonic experimentation is a little more modest than on her previous two, “Saltbreakers” and “Year of Meteors,” which were released on Nonesuch. (“July Flame” is on her own label, Raven Marching Band Records.) At root it’s more of a one-person, solitary project, even as autoharp, pump organs and string arrangements by guest players drift in and out.
Veirs lives with Tucker Martine, the producer of her records, who can give an artisanal fussiness to any kind of music. But there are some great, seemingly unforced, seancelike moments here involving Jim James of My Morning Jacket, singing harmony vocals, as well as the violist Eyvind Kang and the keyboardist Steve Moore.
She still makes cagey, careful music, but it’s easing up, getting warmer. Ben Ratliff, The New York Times
