CDs of the week

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Big ego: Snoop Dogg's Ego Trippin'

Giant hit: Gnarls Barkley's The Odd Couple

Distinctive: REM's Accelerate

Exceptional: Clark Tracey Quintet's Given Time

Catchy: Tea Hodzic Trio's Stay Awhile

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• REM review
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Quality time with REM, an impressive follow-up from Gnarls Barkley and a record to boost Snoop Dogg's ego.

POP

SNOOP DOGG
Ego Trippin'(Geffen)
****
Nine albums in, once controversial rapper Snoop Dogg has hardly grown up — here he promises us a Sexual Eruption and his familiar cry of “Bee-yatch!” still dominates — but he has come up with a mature, mellow sound, mainly thanks to veteran R&B producer Teddy Riley. Riley's fondness for robotic vocoder voices dominates on tracks such as SD Is Out. There's also slinky disco on cool, horn-laden soul on Press Play and Johnny Cash-style guitar on My Medicine, though the Neptunes sneak the real highlight with their production job on the skeletal rhythms and organ of Sets Up. At 22 tracks, this collection is half an hour too long but Snoop's bleary-eyed drawl remains one of the most enjoyable voices in hip hop. DAVID SMYTH

GNARLS BARKLEY
The Odd Couple(Warner Bros)
****
The global smash Crazy might have been divine, but Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo were always too canny to be one-hit wonders. If Gnarls Barkley's debut album, St Elsewhere, showed they were more than their giant hit, the follow-up takes them further still. With Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton crafting the musical backdrops and Thomas “CeeLo” Callaway providing the throaty vocals, The Odd Couple is rarely predictable — from the massed choral vocals which herald the surprising Surprise to the hushed, dark Who's Gonna Save My Soul. They click their fingers on She Knows, take dreamy flights of fancy on Charity Case and exude genuine menace on the languid Would-Be Killer and the disturbed Open Book. These fertile, maverick minds will be with us for some time. JOHN AIZLEWOOD

REM
Accelerate (Warner Bros)
****
It's time to spend some quality time inside Michael Stipe's head again as REM release their 14th album. It doesn't seem that long since Murmur first alerted the world to a new way of doing rock and, if anything, the band seem to have got younger. The opening track, Living Well's The Best Revenge, announces itself with chiming guitars, pounding drums and swelling vocals — and despite these conventional ingredients, couldn't be by anyone else. Songs such as Mansized Wreath and Horse to Water manage to be both hairy-chested and delicately wrought, while the slower material allows Stipe to indulge his penchant for being simultaneously melancholy and uplifting. This is distinctive rock 'n' roll played by men who have paid their dues and are floating free. PETE CLARK

JAZZ

CLARK TRACEY QUARTET
Given Time (Ten to Ten)
****
Any select anthology of British songs must contain such evergreen standards as Cherokee (Ray Noble) and Smile (Charlie Chaplin), but this one also covers worthy lesser-known originals by Tim Garland, David Newton, Bobby Wellins and other contemporary jazz musicians. Drummer Tracey puts quality before quantity, leading a studio trio with the sparky Gareth Williams on piano, augmented to a quartet by eclectic tenorist Brandon Allen, best of the current crop of Australian saxophonists. Seven Steps to Heaven, by Victor Feldman, and Django Bates's moodily repetitive but fascinating line, I Can't Get Started Either, are the pick of a straight-ahead jazz set performed with exceptional skill, imagination and conviction. JACK MASSARIK

WORLD

TEA HODZIC TRIO
Stay Awhile(Taith Records)
****
Originally from Sarajevo, the husky-voiced singer Tea Hodzic has been resident in the UK for nearly 20 years and has performed with her sister, Mirella Hodzic, in the excellent Balkan-style group Szapora. But this slimmed-down trio project gives a close focus to the Serbian, Bosnian and gipsy songs that are at the heart of Tea Hodzic's repertoire. There's a dark and haunting beauty to this music and it's carried well by instrumentalists Oliver Wilson-Dickson on violin and Luke Carver Goss on accordion. The catchy title track is newly composed by Hodzic in a Macedonian rhythm with English words. There's a nostalgia here for a world that's far away, or even lost for ever, but no sentimentality. The Tea Hodzic Trio deserve every success. SIMON BROUGHTON

 

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