The title song to Lloyd Cole’s Music In A Foreign Language is so exquisitely written, so proficiently executed, that it makes even the most mannered singer-songwriter sound slovenly. Not just poetic, the lyrics are rendered like a poem — sung, not just written, in a kind of iambic pentameter. Cole wears the theme of romantic [...]

The hardest working man in show business? That’s easy: Jon Langford. Since 1998, he’s been the key man on more than a dozen albums with the Sadies, Pine Valley Cosmonauts, Waco Brothers, Sally Timms, and perhaps first among equals, the Mekons, the infinitely evolving, organically changing entity that sprouted from the first wave of British [...]

“O Death” might not be on your Top 40 station, but has there ever been so much good bluegrass within easy earshot? With Alison Krauss accumulating Grammys and country crossover stars from Patty Loveless to Dolly Parton to the Dixie Chicks playing up their mountain roots, there hasn’t been so much bluegrass in the air [...]

How could you not fall in love with New York club favorite Soozie Tyrell? The violin-playing redhead sang like a horny angel as part of Buster Poindexter’s backup group in the 1980s; since then, she’s played with everyone from John Hammond to Sheryl Crow to Bruce Springsteen. The Boss returns the favor to play lead [...]

Is John Hammond ready to bust a move? For 40 years he has been a staunch traditionalist, an often solitary troubadour keeping the Delta blues flame alive. His engagement with any pop currents was nil until 2001′s Wicked Grin, a fascinating joyride through Tom Waits songs and production, a kind of musical Being John Malkovich. [...]

Credit the Tex-Mex band Los Pacaminos one thing: There’s no hokey pseudo-biography with fake names and tall tales about growing up in Juarez or San Antonio. The photo on the cover of their self-titled album suggests the truth: A guy with embroidered pants is sitting on a horse with what looks like an English saddle. [...]

Mark Knopfler’s often beautiful and affecting third solo album is about exile. It’s not about the exile forced by war or famine, but by the natural progression of ordinary life. “Why Aye Man”, the opening tune, could have anchored a good early Dire Straits album. It’s a landlubber’s shanty about the emigration of blue-collar workers [...]

It’s a strange new world when Dolly Parton sings “Stairway to Heaven” and Robert Plant does an album of Tim Buckley, Tim Rose, Bob Dylan, Jesse Colin Young, and Bukka White tunes. But it’s a good world. Plant’s astute vocal musicianship gave Led Zeppelin its singular layer of refinement. Now 54, Plant possesses a seriousness [...]