If asked forcefully to imagine the ideal scenario while listening to Antony and the Johnsons eponymous album I'd have to imagine him sitting in a dark Upper East Side loft, hunched over a metallic and broken desk, sipping merlot and smoking packs of American Spirits. An operatic voice, Antony can grab the happiness from your stomach and turn it into reflection of relationship, love and abuse. But the album isn't Music Noir, it has a sense of doves flying out of their cages.

Like Rufus Wainwright, Antony seems to proudly express his sexual preferences through music and give power to himself by a voice that could shake mountains. An instrument in itself, the chords and levels he reaches bring even the slower songs to a monumental peak and finish. His sound is best displayed in "Cripple and the Starfish" and "Hitler My Heart." The former is a scene about relationship abuse and the strength that Antony might have had to obtain in such a situation. "Hitler My Heart" might be the effect of such a relationship, trying to express his kindness but having an evil side in his heart he can't let go.

The album changes on "River of Sorrow" a title that breads blue and lonely evenings, but reminds that there is promise in the future. "Can you see the light/At the end of the dark passageway/Take me with you towards this light/Into the darkness passing over the faces in the river."

Antony's album is much expected lyrically. He steps wayside to Wainwright in song writing, but where Rufus is strong in text Antony is strong in sound. Antony and the Johnsons can lead you through an album with little care to what is being said. A mother's lullaby has little meaning to a child that understands no language, but is relaxing and shows love. Antony accomplishes this feat with great esteem, and shows much promise outside of the realm of popular music.

Josh Ritter, an artist with little household name recognition, sends as much emotion through his fingers and voice than any artist in recent memory on his sophomore album Hello Starling. Completed in just 14 days, the album could very well be as complete and finished as an album that took months in the studio. But Ritter is simple and needs little time to set himself apart. Matter of factly, he needed no time in the studio as the album was recorded in an old barn on the French countryside using vintage equipment of the legendary Curtis Mayfield.

Hello Starling opens happy and mellow with Bright Smile and continues through subsequent tracks that can be accompanied by passionate love making or a cigarette on the front porch. I often try to relate music to emotions or events and Ritter excels like that of other great albums allowing the listener to appreciate his music at all times of the day and the year.

Wings, perhaps the most important and powerful track, displays Josh Ritter's songwriting talent. Again simple but effective. With a touch of the church and early Willie Nelson, Wings (a Joan Baez recentely recorded track) seems to be a contemporary storyboard for those who love to think of freedom and all of that stuff. Unlike many artists, Ritter shows he can change tune and tone by piggybacking Wings and the subsequent California with Snow is Gone. You can picture Ritter smiling/dancing on stage with this number six and it excretes joy with the smell of a window-down car trip.

An accomplished artist overseas, Ritter seems a distant star in the ears of American listeners. He follows in the footsteps of other now loved musicians like Nick Drake, whom at the release of their albums failed to find sales and fanbase, but it seems that with Hello Starling and his future endeavors Ritter will gather followers of his mellow simplistic vision of guitar folk.