Deserter's Songs
Artist: Mercury Rev
Community Score: 8.42

Four albums in and Mercury Rev remain as surprising and daring as ever -- exchanging the volcanic noise and twisted sensibilities of earlier releases for ornate arrangements and ethereal strings, Deserter's Songs unlocks the beauty always hidden just below the band's surface, its lush harmonics and soothing textures bathing in an almost... Read More

The Last Place to Go
Artist: Boxhead Ensemble

The Boxhead Ensemble is a collective of ever-changing musicians that provide the soundtrack for the film Dutch Harbor. Featured on this record are Will Oldham, of Palace fame, Edith Frost, Ken Vandermark and a host of others. Last Place to Go was recorded during the European tour of Dutch Harbor. The musicians provided improvised accompaniment... Read More

Faith in Space
Artist: Lida Husik

As always with Lida Husik, the title of this album seems accompanied by a slight tongue-in-cheek wink to her electronic-obsessed peers, but it also happens to be entirely appropriate. The main difference between Faith In Space and many of the artists who make their music on machines is three-fold: one, Husik plays various instruments on each... Read More

Moon Pix
Artist: Cat Power
Community Score: 6.83
The Black Light
Artist: Calexico
Community Score: 8.00

Deeper and richer than their debut, Spoke, Calexico's second album expands upon the sun-baked, cinematic sound of before with the addition of Latin jazz rhythms, mariachi trumpets, and pedal steel; in and of themselves, the group's songs are not exactly compelling, but they're produced with such a fine sense of texture and atmosphere that The... Read More

Pink Elephants
Artist: Mick Harvey
Community Score: 6.00

Pink Elephants continues what Mick Harvey began with Intoxicated Man -- it's the second collection of Serge Gainsbourg covers that the Bad Seeds guitarist has recorded. This time around, he concentrates on lesser-known songs like like "Manon," "Comic Strip," "The Ballad of Melody Nelson" and "Hotel Specific" and while the results aren't as... Read More

Singles, Live, Unreleased
Artist: Royal Trux

Royal Trux celebrated their freedom from Virgin and return to Drag City by releasing Singles, Live, Unreleased, a sprawling 32-song set filled with rarities and obscurities. Sure, it seems like this falls into the "fans-only" category, but this mess has a certain charm. Also, in its own way, it captures what Royal Trux is all about, containing... Read More

Spoke
Artist: Calexico
Community Score: 10.00

The back cover photo of Spoke is a furrowing farm machine. When I see such machinery working, clouds of birds follow to eat up the disturbed insects. Calexico snatches up the bits of Americana turned out by a rototilling of the national music psyche. The nineteen resultant tracks can be insect small (0:28 to 3:54) and erratic in flight. The... Read More

1212
Artist: Barbara Manning

For all of her past recorded output, Barbara Manning has never been the most prolific of composers, her many albums relying instead on her gifts as an interpreter of other writers' songs; the achievement of 1212 isn't simply that it's made up largely of Manning originals, but that chief among them is her most ambitious creation to date, a... Read More

This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours
Artist: Manic Street Preachers
Community Score: 7.35

If Everything Must Go found Manic Street Preachers coping with Richey James' sudden, unexplained disappearance, its follow-up, This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours, finds them putting the tragedy behind them and flourishing as a trio. Wisely, the group builds on the grand sound of Everything Must Go, creating a strangely effective fusion of... Read More