New Releases 5-17-11

Though this is Bachelorette’s fourth album, this set of songs is such a statement of purpose that it deserves to be the project’s namesake. With Annabel Alpers’ fondness for folk and synth pop, the genres have never blended together so seamlessly before, as on “The Light Seekers,” which marries acoustic picking with electronic beats so delicate they feel more like heartbeats than man-made rhythms.

Rome, a long-gestating collaboration between producer Brian Joseph Burton (aka Danger Mouse) and Italian composer Daniele Luppi, pays tribute to Italian cinema’s spaghetti Western era with the subtlety of a revolver to the forehead. Lovingly detailed, atmospheric, and oozing the Technicolor glow of a smoke-stained ’70s movie screen, Rome is awfully hard not to cheer for, even when it’s stuck on autopilot, as rarely do pet projects feel this alive and sumptuous.

Unless you’re Jenny Lewis, being in Rilo Kiley is probably a bit like being one of the guys from Paramore — forever stuck in the background, relegated to a sideman role due to the good looks and sheer charisma of the frontwoman. No one knows the story better than Blake Sennett. After sharing power with Lewis during Rilo Kiley’s early days, he gradually became part of the band’s all-male backdrop, often singing one song per album and letting Lewis croon the rest. Bury Me in My Rings, his third album with side project the Elected, proves he still deserves his own share of the spotlight.

Inspired by the isolation that comes from “being the only person awake (or alive) in an empty city” in the middle of the night, Destroyed is not too much of a departure fromWait for Me, Moby’s previous studio album. Apart from being more electronic-oriented — there’s significantly less guitar and more prominent throbbing pulse — the approach and effect are largely the same.

Seven years after they last released a studio album, NRBQ are back — well, sort of. NRBQ quietly called it a day in 2004, the same year they released the album Dummy, and since then keyboard man, songwriter, and de facto leader Terry Adams has been touring and recording with a new combo, the Terry Adams Rock & Roll Quartet. However, for the album Keep This Love Goin’, Adams has rechristened his Rock & Roll Quartet NRBQ, even though he’s the only original member of the group on board (longtime Q drummer Tom Ardolino does sit in on two numbers and contributes cover artwork).