Why growing up isn't all it's cracked up to be

This week we look at new, mid-career works from once chart-topping artists.


Lines,?Vines and Trying?Times by the Jonas Brothers: It's come to this: The Jonas Brothers are writing lyrics that include the word "bitch".

To be fair, the term is just implied in the song Poison Ivy. The lyric is "Everybody gets the itch/Everybody hates that..." with the final word bleeped out. But you get the point. It's one of the many signs on Lines, Vines and Trying Times that the Jonas Brothers are trying to distance themselves from their bubble-gum pop heritage.

The track Don't Charge Me for the Crime features the rapper Common and the wail of a police scanner, and blues guitarist Jonny Lang plays lead on Hey Baby. While it's commendable for the trio to try to break out of its teen dream box, it's on songs like Before the Storm – featuring Miley Cyrus – where the brothers prove they're still among the best at putting the fizz in pop culture. Don't be so quick to grow up, guys.

Wait for Me by Moby: An about-face from last year's dance-floor-ready Last Night, Moby's ninth studio album, Wait for Me, is a study in melancholy. Listeners won't hear reverberating 4/4 kick drums, hooky choruses or cooing club girls. And, unlike 1999's groundbreaking Play, there aren't any gospel-blues samples dressed in pretty electronic clothing. This is Moby without his bag of tricks; the material rings truer than any of his previous work.

From the opener, Division – two earnest minutes of tremulous strings – into Pale Horses, which sounds like a Moby remix of a PJ Harvey/John Parish collaboration (tragic lyrics and operatic synth swells), Moby sets a path through cinematic territory. R&B/soul singer Leela James lends vocals to Walk With Me, which recalls the expansive work of the Brit outfit Cinematic Orchestra.

The title track references Tori Amos, with urgent grand-piano arpeggios. Hope Is Gone, a muted fifties ballad toward the end, has the same chilling effect that Nancy Sinatra's Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) had in the 2003 film Kill Bill: Vol 1. Like the indelicately hard stop of the otherwise elegant album closer, Isolate, Wait for Me continually surprises.

Black?Summer's Night by Maxwell: The adage goes: Time gone, time lost. But for R&B singer Maxwell, who has been on a hiatus from music since 2002, it's as if he never left. Full of heart-pounding melodies and true-to-life love stories, Blacksummer's Night is the first instalment of a trilogy. Over xylophone and guitar riffs, the lullaby-like lead single, Pretty Wings, finds the Brooklyn native belting, "I had to set you free, to see clearly/The way that love can be when you are not with me." The humanitarian Fist Full of Tears, uses marching-band drums. Other tracks include Cold, about a cold-hearted lover; the inspirational Help Somebody; the jazz-tinged Stop the World; and the second single, Bad Habits, a mid-tempo track with big horns. Blacksummer's Night is a testament that Maxwell hasn't lost a beat.

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