COUNTRY

CARRIE UNDERWOOD 'Carnival Ride' (Arista)

"You can call me 'not country' until your blue in the face, but I sing country music," Carrie Underwood recently told Entertainment Weekly.

Whatever you may want to call it, the real emphasis in that sentence should be on the word "sing," because, if nothing else, Carrie Underwood can sing. The Oklahoma native won "American Idol" in 2005 because she could hit that crucial moment in the song and raise the roof every time.

It carried over into her major-label debut, "Some Hearts," one of the biggest-selling records of the decade so far. If you liked that, you're going to love the second helping, "Carnival Ride."

Having established her footing in the country market, Underwood sounds even more forceful and sure of herself on this record that features a little rock and a lot of twang. She opens by belting out a stormy rocker, "Flat on the Floor," sounding more like an ol' Nashville pro than a newbie.

Underwood mixes honky tonk with stirring ballads, electric guitars with fiddles and banjos, showing off her vocal range at the right times. The lyrics are pure down-home Americana: "All-American Girl" is a tender little drama about football dads and baby girls; "Get Out of This Town" is a roll-down-the-windows country rocker about lovers on the run; "Crazy Dreams" pays a tribute to aspiring musicians; "Just a Dream" is a scorching ballad about a would-be bride who ends up at a funeral instead, her man lost to the war. "This can't be happening to me/this is just a dream," Underwood sings to full dramatic effect.

Just when "Carnival Ride" starts to seem too sappy with the over-the-top "I Know You Won't," Underwood's girl-next-door image takes a turn on "Last Name," a spicy roadhouse yarn in the Shania vein that ends up with an impulsive Vegas wedding: "It started as 'Hey cutie, where you from?'/and turned into 'Oh no, what have I done?' "

Also clever is the cheeky "The More Boys I Meet," allowing the young singer who wanted to be a vet to sing, "The more boys I meet/the more I love my dog."

Between the sales and the awards, Underwood clearly got the cream of the crop here in terms of songs. There are 13 in all and most of them could be hits. Be prepared to see and hear a lot of Carrie Underwood -- it's really not so painful.

-- Scott Mervis,
Post-Gazette pop music critic

ROBERT PLANT / ALISON KRAUSS 'RAISING SAND' (ROUNDER)

No need to belabor the oddity of this pair. Robert Plant, besides wielding the hammer of the gods with Led Zeppelin, did dig into roots music with the Honeydrippers and always had a feel for the ancient, be it folk or blues.

None of that prepares you, though, for gentleness and subtlety of this country-folk collaboration with the pretty-voiced bluegrass star. It originated with Plant reaching out to Krauss and the two singers collaborating for a Leadbelly tribute at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where the vocal chemistry was immediate.

All they needed was an ace producer, and they got one in T-Bone Burnett ("O Brother, Where Art Thou?"), who assembled a fine group of veteran players -- guitarists Marc Ribot and Norman Blake, multi-instrumentalist Mike Seeger, drummer Jay Bellerose and bassist Dennis Crouch. They play so as not to wake the baby in a muted, reverb-heavy approach, reminiscent of some of the latter Los Lobos or Tom Waits records.

Krauss and Plant, keeping his voice almost at a whisper, glide through rockabilly, country, folk and blues tunes by the likes of Waits, Gene Clark, Mel Tillis, Doc Watson and Everly Brothers, making it all feel like one song cycle. For Zep fans, there's one little touch of metal, on Townes Van Zandt's "Nothin'," but even that fits right in.

Plant brings a darker cast to Krauss' work and she and Burnett make him sound more vital than he's been in years.

-- Scott Mervis

CLASSICAL

ROBERT CASADESUS 'MOZART: PIANO CONCERTOS NOS. 24 AND 27' (MEDICI MASTERS)

For my ears, the greatest Mozart pianists of the past century were Clara Haskil (1895-1960) and Robert Casadesus (1899-1972). I knew Haskil only from her recordings, but had some opportunities to hear Casadesus live. His performances of Mozart concertos were marked by clean technique, pearly tone and elegant phrasing that made the piano parts sound like extended arias from unwritten operas. They became exquisite vocal lines expressing the gamut of human emotions beyond the range limitations of the human voice.

The new and valuable Medici Masters label has reissued two of Casadesus' best Mozart performances, along with Weber's "Konzertstuck," a delightful single-movement concerto that was another Casadesus specialty. The Mozart concertos (No. 24 from 1958, No. 27 from 1960) are all the more exemplary for the superb collaboration of the conductor George Szell and the Cologne Radio Orchestra. One of the most beautiful moments is the slow movement of No. 24, which this pianist turns into a sublime love song. At the other end of the spectrum is the exuberant joy he achieves in the finale of No. 27, and his ability to play full passages without becoming at all harsh.

-- Robert Croan