Reviews music

Taken together the tracks on Stuart's 18th studio album form not quite a concept album but a contiguous tapestry of engagement with and love for the idealized West, from the Native American chants on the "Desert Prayer" prologue and the laid-back mariachi flavor and slide guitar licks of the tasty instrumental "El Fantasmo Del Toro" to the mellow-catchy Johnny Cash cloak of "Old Mexico" and the drugged-out haze of the title track.

Traces of cabaret and swing music can be found in the smooth texture of her register and the enchanting way she sings a lyric, emphasizing the underlying emotions and creating an intimate atmosphere.

Her new album matches the blues-rock-soul singer's honeyed voice with a varied batch of songs by top talents ranging from Mississippi John Hurt to The Weepies' Deb Talan to Black Sabbath.

Like crushed train cars telescoping into one another, these seven tracks fuse song and soundtrack-style music, contemporary newspaper accounts and musique concrète, into a gumbo of "you are there" tone poems about real-life train crashes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Now, with time on its side, fans (and critics) have come to embrace the charm of 'Pop Life,' making it one of the group's essential albums. The LP's cheek and ability are recurring elements central to the enduring appeal of the Bananarama legend.

'Freedom Highway' from Rhiannon Giddens is one of those amazing rarities, a politically charged and artistically refined album. The music is spectacular, the lyrics are beautiful and inspiring, and the singing is as glorious as you'll hear anywhere.

This exquisite vocal group puts on energetic, high-spirited concerts that free the ancient music of the Renaissance from the museum and dance it out into the town square.

One-off or not, 'Crystal Fairy' should still go down as a late career highlight for The Melvins maestros (Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover) and a breakout performance for Teri Gender Bender.

Weitz writes moving narratives with his saxophone, varying the traits of each track and keeping the album progressing to another level with each arrangement.

If you are a fan of punk rock, then you more than likely have a copy of this album somewhere, so this might not be an essential purchase, you’d think. I think that the clarity on this album and the immediacy of the music despite the four decades since its recording makes it essential.