HUGH MASEKELA Jabulani [Razor & Tie] As far as most Americans are concerned, Hugh Masekela was a one-hit wonder who scored a fluke pop chart-topper in 1968 with his jazzy take on the grooving “Grazing in the Grass,” and hasn’t done much since. In truth, the South African trumpeter, flugelhornist and vocalist has been recording and performing steadily for some five decades now—and if his public profile isn’t as high as it once was,... 

DIERKS BENTLEY Home [Capitol Nashville] Contemporary country success is often about establishing a persona and then reiterating it at every turn. Become the “I’m from the country” guy, the “I love America” guy, the “I love to party” guy or the “I’m free to party in the country ’cause I live in America” guy and hammer that home. Dierks Bentley is a big-tent, big-idea exception to all that. He’s comfortable on stages with... 

SHARON VAN ETTEN Tramp [Jagjaguwar] It’s not like she carried her stuff around in a bindle, but Sharon Van Etten did do some couch surfing while recording her third album. Fortunately, the fluctuations of her life outside the studio only seemed to underpin her consistency inside it. Tramp is a masterful collection that broadens the gripping sound of Van Etten’s understated 2010 album Epic. Produced by the National’s Aaron Dessner, these songs... 

THE DOORS  L.A. Woman: 40th Anniversary Edition  [Elektra/Rhino] Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek idly runs through the chords of his band’s evocative new number, “Riders on the Storm,” a brooding meditation on the inherent madness of humanity, as drummer John Densmore quietly gets a feel for the groove. As Jim Morrison steps up to the mic to prepare for a take, Manzarek’s pattern triggers an unexpected synapse in the young singer and poet’s... 

CRAIG FINN Clear Heart Full Eyes [Vagrant] After five albums with Brooklyn indie rockers the Hold Steady, frontman Craig Finn has made his first foray into solo territory. While Clear Heart Full Eyes is a down-tempo, alt-country departure from Finn’s usual classic-rock oeuvre, this is no throwaway acoustic cop-out. In lieu of electric guitar we find pedal steel warbling to fill in the negative space. The album’s production sounds thin and almost... 

SNOW PATROL Fallen Empires [Interscope] Despite considerable success in the U.K. and Ireland, Snow Patrol’s popularity in America lags behind fellow Brit-rockers like Coldplay. But while Coldplay’s albums have come to feel increasingly hollow in their grandiosity, Snow Patrol’s latest continues to hone the cinematic, downhearted sound that has yielded a string of platinum albums abroad. The band experiments a little here with pounding drums... 

CANDI STATON Who’s Hurting Now? [Honest Jon’s] Candi Staton earned the title “first lady of Southern soul” for the sides she recorded 40 years ago before turning to disco and then forsaking the secular for gospel music. Her sublime 2006 comeback record, His Hands, begged for a follow-up. Who’s Hurting Now? came out overseas in 2009, but label and licensing complications prevented its release stateside until now. Better late than never—it’s... 

TODD RUNDGREN Todd [S’More Entertainment] Last year Todd Rundgren delighted fans by performing a series of shows featuring three of his most beloved albums—1973’s A Wizard, A True Star, 1974’s Todd and 1981’s Healing—in their entirety. This DVD captures a run-through of Todd staged in September at the historic Keswick Theater in Rundgren’s hometown of Philadelphia, and it sizzles with the same progressive spirit the original double-LP... 

RHETT MILLER The Interpreter: Live at Largo [Maximum Sunshine]  Covers albums and live records both tend to be mixed bags, so it follows that making a quality album of live covers would be difficult. Rhett Miller, however, is largely successful on The Interpreter, an intimate collection recorded over two nights in 2008 at Largo, before the Los Angeles club changed locations (there are also two studio bonus tracks). Miller plays solo for much of... 

MITCH RYDER The Promise [Michigan Broadcasting Corporation] Detroit’s Mitch Ryder lays down old-school grooves with a vengeance on his first American album in nearly 30 years, singing the blue-collar blues over catchy bass and guitar riffs. Ryder lets out the Motor City funk on numbers such as “The Way We Were” and “Junkie Love,” aided by producer and fellow Detroiter Don Was. Ryder addresses the personal and political with equal ease.... 

THE BIG PINK Future This [4AD] Hyping this follow-up to their stunner of a debut, A Brief History of Love, U.K. duo Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell have talked a lot about the influence of pop and hip-hop. Indeed, synths and samples here fill space once reserved for fuzz guitar and live drums, but the Big Pink was never a traditional rock band. Like its predecessor, Future This points back to 1991, when groups like EMF, Jesus Jones and most notably... 

MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO Weather [Naïve] Meshell Ndegeocello has been pushing the limits of her genre-bending ambition for 20 years, and in the process the agile bassist has gained a reputation as a must-have session player and a solo artist whose skills are matched only by her daring. Produced by the ever-eclectic Joe Henry, Ndegeocello’s ninth album (and first since 2009’s Devil’s Halo) blends pulsating rhythms, atmospheric arrangements and... 

VARIOUS ARTISTS Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International [Shangri-La] Featuring 76 Bob Dylan covers from more than 80 artists to celebrate Amnesty International’s 50th anniversary, the four-disc Chimes of Freedom is a compilation whose intimidating breadth manages to bring unexpected acts like Ke$ha (“Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”) and Miley Cyrus (“You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When... 

LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO Ladysmith Black Mambazo & Friends [Razor & Tie] Following quickly on the heels of their last studio album, Songs from a Zulu Farm, this exceptional two-disc anthology finds South African vocal group Ladysmith Black Mambazo rounding up many of its stellar collaborations with other artists. After reaping international acclaim for its performances on Paul Simon’s 1986 landmark Graceland, the group continued to stretch... 

THE WHITE BUFFALO Once Upon a Time in the West [Unison Music Group] Given his ramshackle narratives and sober sentiments, Jake Smith (a.k.a. the White Buffalo) seems to fit comfortably into the alt-country lineage of Uncle Tupelo and its offspring, Wilco and Son Volt. But if the album title suggests an Ennio Morricone film score, it’s also true that the dark characters Smith imagines are not unlike Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name—fueled... 

JUSTIN ROBINSON & THE MARY ANNETTES Bones for Tinder justinrobinsonandthemaryannettes.com   From the Carter Family to Outkast, Robert Johnson to R.E.M., there’s a long, proud tradition of weirdness in Southern music. A key feature has always been contradiction—joy and pain, humor and dread, God and Satan—and there’s plenty to be found on Justin Robinson’s debut album with backing band the Mary Annettes. Previously known for his... 

BR’ER City of Ice fullgrownman.com By the fourth track of this harrowing collection, it’s high time for some sunlight—the tune in question is called “Hope,” but even that title turns out to be misleading. “Now there’s no hope for one,” sings Benjamin Schurr, the Philly auteur behind Br’er. “He lives in songs that are sung of pity and empathy and all in between.” That’s putting it lightly. Schurr funnels heartbreak, resentment,... 

DARRELL SCOTT Long Ride Home darrellscott.com For decades Darrell Scott’s father, recently deceased, played roadhouse bars, singing country hits while squirreling away his own material. That explains Darrell’s fondness for classic country and fascination with the musician’s lifestyle, both of which are celebrated on this disc—a literally down-home collection he cut in his house with a team of Nashville aces. Scott is a respected Music City... 

THE MARSHMALLOW GHOSTS The Marshmallow Ghosts myspace.com/themarshmallowghosts On their third straight Halloween-inspired release, the Marshmallow Ghosts move beyond singles and stretch their spookadelic aesthetic across an entire album. The band includes members of Dreamend, Hospital Ships and Black Moth Super Rainbow—bizarro pop acts from the aptly named Graveface label—but the men and women behind the instruments might as well be swirly-eyed... 

GLOSSARY Long Live All of Us glossary.us After a month holed up in a rural Tennessee house, this veteran quintet emerged with an album’s worth of revelatory self-help rock ’n’ roll. Singer Joey Kneiser comes on like a Springsteenian Southern preacher man, piling positive exhortations and affirmations (”Crawl with me out of the dark,” “You don’t have to know what got you here to be happy you’re alive”) atop Stones-via-Skynyrd guitar... 

ALERT NEW LONDON Youth facebook.com/alertnewlondon Alert old London—as in the British capital—and tell the city’s nostalgic 25-year-olds that there’s an American band reviving the sound of their teen years. On their debut, Alert New London harks back to the chiming, heroic turn-of-the-millennium U.K. rock of Travis, Doves and early Coldplay. Another reason 20-something Brits (and Americans) might dig this? The Ohio quintet packs Youth with... 

KID SAVANT Drop It on the Stereo kidsavant.net Four years after forming in Indianapolis, this electro-rock quartet has finally released its debut EP. The long delay might explain “4 Years,” in which frontman Ryan Weisberger seems intent on putting the past behind him. “Let’s let loose and forget,” he sings, but the band—now based in Brooklyn—sounds neither loose nor forgetful. All pointy guitars and walls of synth, “4 Years” recalls... 

BRETT NETSON Simple Work for the Dead thisisthenewblack.com Acoustic guitars anchor Brett Netson’s solo debut, but it’s his electric tones—coarse, buzzing and intended to agitate—that give this album its post-apocalyptic feel. The Built to Spill guitarist and longtime Caustic Resin leader plays through amps that sound as if they’re powered by iffy generators, and indeed given this disc’s major themes—greed, war, environmental and economic... 

SORRY EVER AFTER Meet Us When the Lights Go Low sorryeverafter.com Nostalgia for the ’90s was all the rage this year, and while much of it centered on Pearl Jam and Nirvana, there was more to the alt-rock era than oversensitive dudes in flannel. The Clinton years also gave us Magnapop, Letters to Cleo and the Muffs—female-fronted pop-punk bands whose spirits live on in the music of SorryEverAfter. Formed in August 2011 in San Francisco, this... 

TALE WAGON Tale Wagon kanedaily.20fr.com Don’t be fooled by the word “Wagon”—this New York trio is no outlet for bearded alt-folk softies singing sad songs and pretending to live in prairie days. Bandleader Kane Daily grew up on ’70s glam and bluesy rock, and the Big Apple nightclub lifer makes with plenty of Keith Richards riffs and red-hot slide playing. His chops are impressive, but he plays with welcome economy on the strutting standouts... 

ADRIAN YOUNGE PRESENTS VENICE DAWN Something About April waxpoetics.com/tag/adrian-younge Before he earned plaudits for scoring the 2008 neo-blaxploitation flick Black Dynamite, Adrian Younge released Venice Dawn, conceptualized as a soundtrack for a film that didn’t exist. Something About April is the sequel—and again the producer and multi-instrumentalist reveals a crate-digger sensibility, using electric pianos, organs, fuzz-tone guitars,... 

WUSSY Strawberry wussy.org The way it’s described throughout Strawberry, if love were a piece of produce you’d give it a squeeze, frown and think better of the purchase. That’s the metaphor suggested by the title, but on the rest of their fourth full-length these Cincinnati alt-rock stalwarts come up with cleverer ways of expressing romantic disappointment. Singer and guitarist Chuck Cleaver (formerly of Ass Ponys) digs space metaphors, and... 

DAN BLAKE The Aquarian Suite danielblake.net Dan Blake doesn’t need chords to hold his music together. Working with trumpet, bass and drums, the Brooklyn saxophonist and composer dabbles in formalism—you can whistle “The Whistler”—and digs deep into formlessness. Marvel as he and trumpeter Jason Palmer take turns racing into the rhythmic churn.  Read More →

JASON REEVES The Lovesick myspace.com/jasonreeves Having crunched the numbers, Jason Reeves knows the odds of finding true love and happiness are pretty slim—roughly “Infinity to One.” But that doesn’t stop him from singing the sunniest pop songs this side of Gavin DeGraw. Leave math to the mathematicians, and love to the lovers.  Read More →

DREW WILLIAMS Engineerium listn.to/drewwilliams Like a toned-down Tom Waits or T Bone Burnett, this wily Georgian does Americana with murky textures and a willingness to get weird. There are songs about hobos and migrants, and on the feral blues sketch “Wigwam” he pitches his tent as far from the suburbs as possible.  Read More →

BURAKA SOM SISTEMA Komba buraka.tv A byproduct of our shrinking world, this Portuguese dance collective comes with fierce Angolan beats and synths that blare like sirens and blip like cheap digital watches. The disc’s anthem, “(We Stay) Up All Night,” is thrilling, if redundant—with this stuff blasting, who could sleep?  Read More →

THE ICARUS LINE Wildlife theicarusline.org Born and brined in L.A. sleaze, these garage-punk miscreants draw strength from defeat and depravity. (Sample titles: “We Sick,” “Sin Man Sick Blues,” “Like a Scab.”) Catch them at their thorniest, though, and they’re all shriek, fuzz and thrust: Iggy and the Stooges for the Sunset Strip.  Read More →

JAMES McCARTNEY The Complete EP Collection [Engine Company] There’s something funny about packaging two EPs and calling it the “complete” collection, though it’s accurate in James McCartney’s case. The English singer and songwriter has released two digital EPs, and this compilation is the first time they’re available in physical form. McCartney plays with a jittery seat-of-his-pants sensibility that sets him apart from his famous father,... 

MIKE VIOLA Electro de Perfecto [RED] Fifteen years have passed since Mike Viola lent his voice to the That Thing You Do! soundtrack, and he still sounds like the boy next door who dreams of being best buds with Paul McCartney. His writing, though, has gotten dark enough to prevent him from busting the adorability scale. Using phrases like “midlife crisis” to describe Electro de Perfecto would be unfair, if only because some of the subject matter... 

PEGI YOUNG & THE SURVIVORS Bracing for Impact [Vapor Records] Pegi Young’s late-blooming musical career continues to evolve apace, as her third solo release features a rootsier, bluesier sound than earlier efforts. “Flatline Mama” is a lively tune done up in a ’50s rock ’n’ roll vein, while the gritty, bluesy edge on tunes like “Med Line” and “Gonna Walk Away” recalls Bonnie Raitt. Young convincingly serves up the soul on “Trouble... 

THE MONKEES  Instant Replay  [Rhino Handmade] In February 1986 MTV ran a marathon of episodes from the Monkees’ 1960s television show, instantly igniting a wave of new interest in an act known during its heyday as a fabricated cash-in on the appeal of the Beatles. But if MTV started the second wave of Monkeemania, the folks at reissue label Rhino made sure it stuck. The next several years saw a series of loving re-releases of the Monkees’ original... 

ADELE Live at the Royal Albert Hall [Columbia] After issuing two mega-selling albums before the tender age of 21, Adele Adkins has had fans raving about her as the second coming of Dusty Springfield. And she makes a pretty good case for that opinion on this full-length concert DVD recorded at London’s most venerable venue. Adele displays expert pitch and control, and a rare ability to wring visceral emotion out of a simple lyric like “I won’t... 

MARK YARM  Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge [Crown Archetype] Never have the people responsible for starting a musical movement been so quick to tear down their own myth. From the moment the sound known as “grunge” emerged from the Pacific Northwest, the sobriquet was universally rejected by the artists to whom it was applied. From well before the moment major record labels began making their way up to Seattle, smelling money... 

WILLIE NILE The Innocent Ones willienile.com If there were a version of the Traveling Wilburys for unfairly overlooked singer-songwriters, Willie Nile could be its very own Tom Petty. A rock ’n’ roll lifer who’s earned endorsements from Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams and just about every other guitar slinger with an opinion worth trusting, Nile has managed a mere seven studio albums since debuting in 1980. Luckily three... 

HIMALAYAN BEAR Hard Times myspace.com/himalayanbear The first riff Ryan Beattie rustles up on this seven-song collection—his third album under the name Himalayan Bear—recalls nothing so much as “Floating,” a Julee Cruise tune featured on the classic David Lynch television series Twin Peaks. It’s an apt reference, as Beattie blends his bleak alt-country with the shimmering dread of Lynch’s film soundtracks, dredging up the icky underside... 

CAMILLE BLOOM AND THE RECOVERY Never Out of Time camillebloom.com When she’s in somber acoustic mode, singing and strumming over cellist Jessika Kitzman’s slow-bowed moans, Camille Bloom earns a place among such quirk-folk queens as Suzanne Vega, Ani DiFranco and the Indigo Girls. But there’s more to this Seattle-area songwriter than unplugged self-reflection. On “Running Out of Time” and “Tonight,” guitarist Danny Godinez cuts in with... 

SUGAR RAY AND THE BLUETONES Evening sugarrayandthebluetones.com Blues enthusiast John Mayer sometimes pokes fun at himself for being from Connecticut, a place few associate with the genre. Despite its lack of hardscrabble romance, the Constitution State has produced some fine bluesmen. Case in point: Sugar Ray Norcia, a soulful vocalist and powerhouse harmonica blower who years ago “came down with the blues,” as he sings here. Norcia likes his... 

SUMMER CAMP Welcome to Condale myspace.com/summercampmusic British newcomers Elizabeth Sankey and Jeremy Warmsley have a thing for American coming-of-age movies. The duo’s debut is a concept record set in fictional Condale, Calif.—the type of sunny L.A. suburb featured in countless beach flicks and teen romps—and as explained in the handmade scrapbook-style magazine that accompanies the album, the songs center on two sets of characters, one... 

DJ CAM  Seven inflamable.com DJ Cam revisits the icy, jazzy, sexy cool of ’90s trip-hop, one of the sounds that have defined his long career, on his seventh album. The Frenchman teams with Massive Attack collaborator Nicolette Suwoton on “Love”—an electro-lounge tune complete with vintage organ tones and a martini-shaker rhythm—and newcomer Inlove on “1988,” further showcasing his music’s sensual side. He gets less from his collaboration... 

PAUL BURCH Words of Love: Songs of Buddy Holly paulburch.com Buddy Holly would have turned 75 in September. While a pair of star-studded tribute albums (Rave On and Listen to Me) got most of the press, Nashville singer-songwriter Paul Burch has released a fine disc of his own saluting the late icon. Burch reaffirms the timelessness of Holly’s songs without radically altering the source material, adding and subtracting just enough to make these ’50s... 

ROB GARCIA 4 The Drop and the Ocean robgarcia.com This disc’s title refers to the Sufi belief that man should submit to things larger than himself. It’s a concept that has always been applicable to jazz, and it hasn’t been lost on drummer Rob Garcia, leader of this Brooklyn foursome. Although Garcia sometimes cannonballs in, asserting his virtuosity with splashes of intense, restless playing, he’s plenty good at going with the flow. On the... 

ALYSSA CARLSON  This Side of Innocence  myspace.com/alyssacarlsonmusic Nashville-based singer and songwriter Alyssa Carlson takes her cues from heroes like John Mellencamp, Mary Chapin Carpenter and fellow native Minnesotan Bob Dylan—her acoustic-dominated settings gently frame poetic and carefully observed lyrics about far-off dreams and close-up heartaches. Producer Neilson Hubbard (known for his work with tunesmiths like Glen Phillips and Kim... 

KORALLREVEN An Album by Korallreven korallreven.se The sound of two Swedes on holiday, if only in their minds, Korallreven has its beginnings in a trip that founder Marcus Joons took to Samoa several years ago. Inspired by the weather, scenery and local Catholic choirs, he partnered with Daniel Tjader—keyboardist for the stellar dream-pop outfit the Radio Dept.—to recreate the tropical vibes. The duo retains the melodic aspects of Tjader’s main... 

JUNIUS Reports From the Threshold of Death juniusmusic.com   Proving that metal dudes have feelings—and maybe even listen to Joy Division and the Smiths—Junius offsets violent guitars with epic synths and the sepulchral croon of frontman Joseph Martinez. While “Betray the Grave,” “Dance on Blood,” and “A Reflection on Fire” may read like Slayer song titles, they’re anything but typical metal tunes. This Boston group pouts as... 

HINDI ZAHRA Handmade hindi-zahra.com Barely in her 30s, Hindi Zahra writes with worldliness beyond her years but indicative of her background. Her life story is all there in her music: a sophisticated jazz-folk hybrid that marries the exoticism of her native Morocco and the metropolitan cool of Paris, where she moved as a teenager to live with her father. Purring like a Middle Eastern Billie Holiday, Zahra dresses down suitors less schooled in the...