The Fuse,
Keith Urban's first album in three years, delivers a slicker, more sophisticated version of his solitary demo recording process as a radical-sounding change in direction. Throughout, he melds drum machines, synths, and samplers with his guitars, banjos, mandolins, and voice.
Urban's experience as a judge on American Idol also contributes to his song and production choices: he's heard enough commercial pop to know what works. If ever a contemporary country record was strategically created to crossover, this is it. Recorded in California and Nashville,
Urban employed a slew of co-producers, songwriters, and co-writers. The set's clever first single, "Little Bit of Everything," with its punchy handclaps, hip-hop rhythms, and pulsing synth, underscores his banjo and stinging guitar; his voice accents the hook and rings clear above it all. "Even the Stars Fall 4 U" is introduced by thrumming, brittle loops, enormous handclaps, a nasty guitar vamp, and a chorus shouting "Hey!" Though the banjo-drenched melody is subtler, the anthemic chorus explodes. The muted drum loop that fuels the shimmering "Cop Car," is layered in atmospherics worthy of
Achtung Baby, but the melody is pure country.
Miranda Lambert duets on what initially appears to be the purest country tune on the set, but that's a feint as well. The chorus is pure pop, with crisscrossing cut-time rhythms accenting the end of every line. The layered, midtempo ballad "Shame" was co-written and co-produced by the Norwegian hip-hop/R&B team
Stargate, with synths hovering through the loop-saturated backdrop. Another ballad, "Come Back to Me," co-produced by
Urban and
Butch Walker, is deeply indebted to
Daniel Lanois' warm-as-bathwater production style, with subdued sonics, edgeless rhythms, rounded and heavily reverbed guitars, and keys. Only his voice is crystalline. The hook is less pronounced but ever present, with a restrained dynamic slowly building to a climax. Contrast this with "Red Camaro," with its rattling banjo, bright, '90s-era drum loop, zig-zagging synths, a fiddle that sounds like an outtake from
Dexy's Too-Rye-Ay, and a crisp meld of acoustic and electric guitars under
Urban's multi-tracked (and perhaps pitch-enhanced) vocals. The numerous production dimensions here sometimes mask this set's almost uniformly good songs, like the muddied textures that overshadow "Raise 'Em Up," an otherwise fine duet with
Eric Church. The set finishes strong with the "Heart Like Mine," another galloping anthem whose rhythmic bounce and cadence sound like they came from
Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill." For all the piecemeal recording, technological obsession, and sheer ambition on
The Fuse,
Urban manages to fashion it all into a (mostly) working whole and maintains his identity as a contemporary country artist, even as he reaches for the mainstream pop fences. [The Deluxe Version adds three bonus tracks for a total of 16. They include "Black Leather Jacket," "Gonna B Good," and "Lucky Charm."] ~ Thom Jurek