Long Trip Alone keeps the country genre in another pair of capable hands.
The only thing keeping Bleeding Heart Graffiti from being relevant is Warner Bros.’s nearly nonexistent promotion.
The Be Good Tanyas’s choices of cover tunes are fairly obvious and the album’s arrangements lack the band’s usual verve.
The emotions here are real and often outsized, but the memories themselves, like the album, are better when they get a bit fuzzy.
Like Red on a Rose is a wholly unexpected move from an artist who seemed perfectly content with his status and already-secured legacy.
Jamie Stewart, the experimental-pop brainchild of Xiu Xiu, structures his songs like miniature horror films.
Continuum just doesn’t convince as a heady, soulful rock album or as Mayer’s creative quantum leap forward.
Twenty years and 10 albums into their career, the Indigo Girls are still finding ways to tinker with their trademark formula.
Dan Bern finally reconciles his brazen wiseass side with his insightful, empathetic folksinger side on Breathe.
Jonny Lang is obviously a soldier, but his soul isn’t all that convincing.
Carnival is a fine showcase for one of the most distinctive talents to emerge in any genre in recent memory.
Nightcrawler finds Pete Yorn in something of a holding pattern.
Hanging over the album is the impression that nothing fun or beautiful goes untainted by the world.
Classics lays down a consistently low-key groove that never draws attention to itself but which sustains a real sense of momentum.
In perpetuating every unfortunate, ugly stereotype of the country genre, Dangerous Man is still an embarrassment.
There’s not much to any given song on the album to distinguish it from its obvious sub-genre counterparts.
DiFranco takes a relatively stripped-down approach to her ever-insightful meditations on matters both personal and political.
Avatar is bold and intense enough to justify Comets on Fire’s swagger.
For Malo, at least there’s comfort in knowing that he’s never recorded the same album twice.
The high points of the album at least show that Cyrus has a surprising degree of self-awareness as a songwriter.