Sounds: It's dense and dark in Thompson's 'Dream Attic'

All those death-metal mongers with their morbid images of decay and degradation have nothing on Richard Thompson.

Sure, he looks like a mild-mannered artist who should be painting watercolors in a pastoral park, but the English guitar hero crafts some seriously depraved tales, accenting them with typically wild, inventive musicianship that makes "Dream Attic" an out-of-left-field gem.

The disc, his 32nd, was recorded live, but paradoxically, it's not a live album. All the songs are new, but rather than go into a studio and record them Thompson and a crack band played them at shows as complete tunes, recording them on tours. There's applause at the end of each song, but otherwise "Dream Attic" sounds like a studio record.

Kicking off with the rollicking ripped-from-the-headlines "Money Shuffle" about the financial meltdown of the past few years, Thompson careens across Middle Eastern, Irish, and traditional folk and rock styles with a band that includes a saxophone and violin.

As always, it's the lyrics and guitar work that separate Thompson from any comparisons to contemporaries. The lyrics of "Crimescene" and "Sidney Wells" are macabre and violent, each set off with wild, chaotic guitar-work that perfectly accents the strange tales.

But it's not all dark weirdness, especially on the touching ode to lost friends "A Brother Slips Away" that is as warm and welcoming as so much of "Dream Attic" is dense and dark.

If you've left Thompson behind over the course of his long career - he was in Fairport Convention back in the '60s - or gave up on him after the mid-career brilliance of "Rumor and Sigh" in 1991, this is a good time to rediscover his brilliance.

- ROD LOCKWOOD

SPREAD THE LOVE

Earl and his pals come out of the chute with a knockout version of Albert Collins' "Backstroke," wasting no time showing what they've got instrumentally. And what they've got is incredible, virtuoso talent starting with Earl on the guitar, Dave Lumina on keyboards, Jim Mouradian on bass, and Lorne Entress on drums. Their cohesiveness is impressive, since this iteration of the Broadcasters has been together for 11 years.

The group's sixth instrumental album for Stony Plain, an independent roots music label from Alberta, Canada, is a generous package with 75 minutes of blues, tinged with jazz and a dash of soul. From hard-driving, Chicago-style blues with solid backbeats to luxurious, quieter, more passionate strains that keep the dance muscles at ease, Earl and the guys mix up a fine assortment of 14 tracks.

Earl honed his skills on the six-string guitar as he played with such instrumental stalwarts as Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, Earl King, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

He was also featured with the legendary Roomful of Blues before forming his own group in 1988. In his hands the guitar becomes an expressive voice that seems to speak the notes with clarity and dexterity rarely heard. There are no weaknesses in this solidly entertaining package.

- KEN ROSENBAUM

KALEIDOSCOPE HEART

Sara Bareilles is the friend in the movie. You know, the bearer of caffeinated beverages, advice, and sisterly succor, always around with a wisecrack and an inventive plan to survive whatever wrinkle is afflicting the plot.

The L.A.-based singer-songwriter found success with her 2007 hit "Love Song," a protest ditty against commercialized pop sentimentality that contained so much cleverness and unflashy sass, it was easy to believe Janeane Garofalo might have ghostwritten it. Following up that breakthrough with her third album of cabaret pop, Bareilles faces the difficult task of maintaining her accessibly supportive persona while moving more securely into the spotlight.

"Kaleidoscope Heart" is certainly lovable, showcasing the down-to-earth emotional side of the 30-year-old songbird in a set that loosely chronicles a break-up while firmly arguing for the kind of practical self-reliance many young women see as the feminist ideal in this post-liberationist age.

Whether speaking truth to a boor in the hit "King of Anything" or revving up her own slightly damaged engines in "Bluebird" or "Uncharted," Bareilles keeps her mood hopeful, structuring her songs as well-paced ascents toward choruses meant to be sung with abandon. "Wish I were pretty, wish I were brave," she murmurs at the start of "Let the Rain." Her voice rises in intervals, and by the time the chorus takes over, the key and the mood have changed.

The singer-songwriter's background in university show choirs serves her well here, as she finds strength in complex vocal arrangements and the sorts of dramatic set-ups that have reminded us, through Fox's popular television show Glee, that the very act of raising our voices can be a hugely liberating act.

- ANN POWERS, LOS ANGELES TIMES