Ian Gillan

Loosely structured around a travel-oriented theme, One Eye to Morocco might just be 2009's most polyrhythmic hard-rock album. Backed by a keyboard-and-sax-equipped sextet built to swing, Gillan doesn't need to get lyrically deep or purple; he just has to sing, in a classic high tenor that's deteriorated little over four decades. The groove starts cello-embellished in the Middle East , but before long it's shifting seamlessly between Latin syncopation and funky stomp, echoing '70s Eno here and the Beatles' "Come Together" there, until a lovely flugelhorn solo takes over near the end.