Neil Young & the Promise of the Real

“The Visitor”

(Reprise ***)

At 72, Neil Young remains a riveting live performer. In the studio, though, he’s been erratic at best in recent years, as he moves from one experiment to another, such as 2014’s low-fi collection “A Letter Home” or 2015’s “The Monsanto Years,” an assault on agribusiness recorded with the Promise of the Real, the band that features Willie Nelson’s sons Lukas and Micah.

On “The Visitor,” Young is back with the young and hungry POTR and sounds more focused and on target than he has in years. Credit for that goes to — who else? — Donald Trump. Over a steady garage-rock rumble, Young lays out his point of view: “I’m Canadian, by the way, and I love the U.S.A,” he sings at the start of “Already Great,” as the band chimes in with chants of “No wall, no hate” and “Whose streets? Our streets!” But what’s notable about “The Visitor” is the variety of perspectives and musical approaches it presents. Young does label Trump a “game show host” and “liar-in-chief,” but the album is neither musically one-dimensional nor a nonstop rant along the lines of, say, 2006’s anti-Bush “Living with War.” Instead, Young uses both delicate musings like “Almost Always” and overblown resistance anthems such as “Children of Destiny” to animate ideas about a natural order under attack. And he’s perhaps most effective on the gently rambling closer “Forever,” in which he frames his concerns about a world without responsible leadership in religious terms: “The earth is like a church without a preacher,” he sings. “The people have to pray for themselves.”

— Dan DeLuca 

Jaden Smith

“Syre”

(MSFTS Music/Roc Nation ** 1/2)

First, forget that “Syre” is the debut album from one of West Philly-born Will Smith’s kids, Jaden: a young actor and singer-rapper in his own right who has recorded many a guest feature and mixtape long before this. If you’re not paying attention to birthright (or his goofball videos that preceded the album’s release, yikes), “Syre” is a deliciously low-key, exquisitely eccentric — even cinematic — hip-hop nu-soul effort.

Half of “Syre” was coproduced by Norwegian songwriter Lido (Chance the Rapper, Halsey), and there’s a woozy electronic film to the proceedings, whether it’s the slow, filmic four-part suite “B,” “L,” “U,” “E,” (featuring haunting female vocals from sister Willow), or the rickety atmospheric rap of “Breakfast” featuring rough soul mouthpiece A$AP Rocky. Whether on the Lido tracks or beyond — the spacey, low-slung “Watch Me,” the wonky, thumping “Batman” — Smith’s scattered lyrics are best rendered in his deepest, sing-songy manner. His attempt at vocalizing on the caramel jazzy “Fallen” is fine as wine, as his baritone register tickles an electric piano’s tinkling. Then there are wrong songs, such as the third-rate Kanye crib “Watch Me” (OK, he samples Yeezy’s “Black Skinhead”) and the miserably screechy “Icon,” which samples “The Hi De Ho Man” and finds Smith’s voice and lyrics in a dumb, too-high place. Syre is good, not great, and certainly promising for the 19-year-old Smith. Just keep it low-down and deep. — A.D. Amorosi

Cindy Wilson

"Change"

(Kill Rock Stars *** 1/2)

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the wildly influential danz-punk ensemble the B-52s, vocalist Cindy Wilson has watched fellow cofounders Kate Pierson and Fred Schneider touch upon solo music outside the B-52s' quirky frenetic pop and surrealistic lyricism without a peep. Shame that. Alone or with Pierson — one of pop's greatest harmonists — Wilson's tenor moves from coolly nuanced and warbly to a scratchy bellow (e.g. "Private Idaho," "Give Me Back My Man") for a truly unique signature sound. Only recently has Wilson dipped a toe into solo waters, first with 2017 EPs Sunrise and Supernatural, and now, a spooky, but cheerful, electro-pop album, "Change."

Ripe with tinges of motorik Krautrock, French yé-yé and heated electro-clash, Wilson and cowriter Suny Lyons create un-Dada-ist, non-B-52s fare: the heartfelt "Memory," the trip hoppy "Change," the slow, sentimental likes of "Things I'd Like to Say" and "Sunrise," the subtly disco-ish "On the Inside" — all with southern belle insinuating her signature croon into the mix as another instrument. Moving away from the kink of the B-52s doesn't mean that Wilson eschews that new wave wonk entirely. While the bop and bounce of "Mystic" would fit handsomely within the B52s' oeuvre, "Brother" — a warm reference to cofounder-composer Ricky Wilson who died from the effects of AIDS in 1985 — shares the frenetic kitsch of her origin story, while moving her own soulful, nu-electronica forward.

— A.D. Amorosi 

Bob Seger

"I Knew You When"

(Capitol ***)

Bob Seger has some fallen peers on his mind. "I Knew You When" is dedicated to Glenn Frey, who is also the subject of "Glenn Song": "You were young, you were bold / And you loved your rock and soul." (Never associated Frey or the Eagles with soul of any kind, but that's another story.) The song "Blue Ridge" is likewise dedicated to Little Feat's Richie Hayward, who drummed on the track and others on the album. Seger also delivers songs by Lou Reed ("Busload of Faith") and Leonard Cohen ("Democracy"), pointed choices obviously meant to serve as commentary on the times.

The 72-year-old Seger is often in a reflective mood here, with numbers such as the title song and "Forward into the Past" grappling with the distance between youthful idealism and the sober realities of maturity. But then again the Michigan rocker has always been something of an old soul. Throughout he never strays far from his solid and straightforward heartland rock. It can be lumbering and florid ("The Sea Within"), but it can also move like a "Runaway Train."

— Nick Cristiano