Merge of The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)

Air
"Pocket Symphony"
Ambient Pop: B+

Leaving behind the honeyed bounce of "Talkie Walkie" for a more dreamy sound, French duo Air is back in the business of quietly mesmerizing you. These guys can build something hypnotic out of the subtlest of sounds. On their fifth CD, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel rely as heavily on the koto, a Japanese acoustic guitar, as they do on their trademark moog. Only four of the dozen tracks are instrumentals but with the exception of a pair of tunes sung by Jarvis Cocker of Pulp ("One Hell of a Party") and Neil Hannon of Divine Comedy ("Somewhere Between Waking and Sleeping"), "Pocket Symphony" is as wispy as a smoke ring. Vive le haze.

Amy Longsdorf

Amy Winehouse
"Back to Black"
Pop/Soul: B+

Boy, this girl can sing _ and not in that annoying, note-pulverizing way so beloved by devotees of "American Idol." Swinging a mixture of soul, ska and girl-group theatrics, the 23-year-old Brit sounds like she's lived every one of her lyrics. Whether she's singing about flying solo (the feisty "Tears Dry on Their Own"), losing a soul mate (the harrowing "Love Is a Losing Game") or refusing to give up the bottle (the defiant "Rehab"), she squeezes every last drop of emotion out of the songs, while still managing to deliver plenty of snark and sass along the way. The CD _ Winehouse's second _ gets much of its hip-hop energy from producers Salaam Remi (Joss Stone) and Mark Ronson (Lily Allen, Ghostface.) But in any setting, Winehouse would shine; "Back to Black" is a left-field stunner.

Amy Longsdorf

The Rosebuds
"Night of the Furies"
Rock: C+

On their third album, North Carolina duo Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp continue their move away from energetic indie-pop toward with moody, gloom rock, full of synths and artificial-sounding beats.

Whereas their first record sounded fresh and vibrant, Night of the Furies sounds like ghosts playing along to a drum machine accidentally left on "disco." Not necessarily unhappy ghosts, but there's an ephemeral sheen that takes the place of the punchy infectiousness of their first record. The album is full of dance beats that don't inspire dancing, as morose vocals and instrumentation suck the energy out of the upbeat rhythms.

While the gloominess is disappointing, it's incorporated well in the pleasingly sinister "When the Lights Went Dim" and the somber "Silence by the Lakeside." Ironically, it's the upbeat songs that fall the flattest. "Get Up Get Out," is a rather generic stab at a dance track, while the soaring synthesizers of "Cemetery Lawns" evoke a Cure song that doesn't go anywhere.

While Night of the Furies draws inspiration from the mythological Roman spirits of vengeance, the Rosebuds might've been better off focusing instead on Apollo: god of the sun, poetry ... and music.

Greg Chow

Reviewers write for Merge, an edition of The (Allentown, Pa.) Morning Call. Find Merge online at: www.mergedigital.com

© 2007, The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)