Billboard CD reviews: Gnarls Barkley, Panic at the Disco

ARTIST: GNARLS BARKLEY

ALBUM: THE ODD COUPLE

NEW YORK (Billboard) - If Gnarls Barkley's debut, "St. Elsewhere," was the sound of Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo Green tinkering around with the creation of their bizarre surf-pop/psychedelic hybrid monster, "The Odd Couple" is the sound of that monster escaping from the lab. It's also about a thousand times darker. Danger Mouse goes from gospel to pop to spooky, often in the same track, and Green sets a new vocal bar on the desolate, acoustic-flavored nightmare ballad "Who Will Save My Soul." Zippy first single "Run" and the vaguely romantic rubber ball "Blind Mary" are the only things here that approach the sonic territory of "Crazy," and there are times when Green's quavering falsetto gets downright evil. It seems that the more comfortable the principals get with Gnarls Barkley, the more haunted Gnarls Barkley gets. Stronger, too.

ARTIST: PANIC AT THE DISCO

ALBUM: PRETTY. ODD. (Decaydance/Fueled by Ramen)

Panic at the Disco's sophomore set has a lot more cheery moments and fewer busy elements than its smash debut, "A Fever You Can't Sweat Out," and, much like the exclamation point now absent from the band's name, the superfluous noise is hardly missed. In a Beatles nod, the album begins with the crowd-noise-enhanced intro "We Were Starving" before "Nine in the Afternoon" bursts with upbeat power chords and a singalong chorus. There's plenty of twee to go around, including tracks like "That Green Gentleman," "Behind the Sea" and ballad "Northern Downpour" -- surprising, considering the band's previous penchant for darkness on "Fever." 15 tracks of welcomed live drum sounds, symphonies and stacked harmonies.

ARTIST: FLO RIDA

ALBUM: MAIL ON SUNDAY (Poe Boy/Atlantic Records)

In 50 years, it'll be a curious thing that the best-selling digital single of all time once belonged to Flo Rida and that the song, "Low," powered the phones of hip-hop heads and sorority girls for months and months. "Low" is a well-deserved monster, and Flo Rida's relatively long-in-coming debut album sports precisely all the ingredients required of a rapper these days: production that sounds like money, exuberant materialism, several verses by Lil' Wayne and a singular desire to keep people's attention for very brief periods of time. Flo Rida's flow is an engaging/ringy-dingy/he-sounds-like-Nelly thing. But his hooks can be rock-solid, and his interest in gleaming synthesizerism (opener "American Superstar" comes into "Tubular Bells" territory, really) helps set him off from the legions of rappers clawing over one another to break out of the South.