N.E.R.D.'s 'Nothing' has good vibes for dance clubs

Before putting out its excellent fourth album, "Nothing," dance-beat trio N.E.R.D. had an argument with executives from its record label, Interscope. "You know, they're like: 'The club, the club,' " leader Pharrell Williams recently told The Canadian Press. "We're more like: 'The vibe, the vibe.' " Both ideas turned out to be correct.

In a contrast from the band's early hits, like 2001's stomping near-metal anthem "Lapdance," "Nothing" (Interscope) is all relaxed, well-crafted pop tunes grafted onto slinky dancehall beats, and the effect is a sort of fade from '60s soul to '70s funk to disco, stopping just short of hip-hop. Sometimes, this mixture is generic, as on "The Man," a lightweight piece of bongo-driven, feel-good funk with a whistling sample from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"; more often, it's ridiculously potent, as on "Sacred Temple," a disco homage to monogamy that builds from a sparse, tense bass line to a beautifully chaotic R&B chorus.

The core of N.E.R.D. is Williams and Chad Hugo, better known as The Neptunes, who for a decade built hits for Jay-Z, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and others. But Shay Haley, the band's inexplicably unknown lead singer, frequently rises above the electric pianos, bleating horns and synths and whooping background vocals, channeling Curtis Mayfield's falsetto on the whispery, Daft Punk-produced "Hypnotize U" and mimicking John Legend perfectly on the cooing, march-time "God Bless Us All."

T.I. ("Party People") and Nelly Furtado ("Hot-n-Fun") show up for the requisite star cameos, but it's to N.E.R.D.'s credit that they come and go as additional sounds in the mix.

 
N.E.R.D. "Nothing"

GRADE A-

BOTTOM LINE Well-crafted, funky dance anthems