Florence Welch possesses one of the biggest, bluest and, yes, most beautiful voices in pop music. Her band’s third album is the perfect showcase for her dramatic vocals and intimate lyrics, best illustrated on songs like the gospel-laced “Delilah,” the explosive rocker “What Kind of Man” and the title track with its stately brass fanfare.
The Ladies’ currency has always been catchy songs that excel in clever rhymes and witty wordplay. After 27 years, the Ladies—Ed Robertson, Jim Creeggan, Kevin Hearn and Tyler Stewart—are at their tuneful, wisecracking best. The group’s 14th album finds the Ladies on a roll, boasting all the swagger of a group that knows its strengths. It opens with the rocking “Get Back Up,” a song about midlife resurgence that floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee with its pithy boxing metaphors. “Say What You Want” is an exuberant expression of mature confidence, while “Duct Tape Heart” uses Red Green’s favorite fix-all material to express romantic resiliency. The title track reflects Robertson’s o...
Recorded on his recent Old Ideas World Tour, Cohen’s latest is a collection of new songs and alternate versions of older classics. Highlights include a gorgeous rendition of his 1971 song “Joan of Arc,” sung with backup singer Hattie Webb, and “Got a Little Secret,” a new bluesy number written with the icon’s signature deadpan humor.
Wilder is right. Britain’s folk-rockers forsake banjos in a favor of synthesized pop-rock on their third album. Working with producer James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Florence & the Machine), Marcus Mumford and his mates aim for something closer to the National and Coldplay on stirring breakup anthems like “Tompkins Square Park” and “Ditmas.”
She may be best known for the love songs “Until It’s Time for You to Go” and “Up Where We Belong.” But Buffy Sainte-Marie has a long history of protest music, dating back to her 1964 anti-war anthem “Universal Soldier.” The Canadian-born First Nations legend pulls no punches on her new album. Covers include songs by two British bands: the title track by Alabama 3 and UB40’s “Sing Our Own Song.” Saint-Marie sings the former as a techno-laced call to arms and puts her own powwow spin on the latter, complete with a reference to the aboriginal-rights movement Idle No More. “Not the Lovin’ Kind” is a fiery reworking of her breakup song from her 1972 album Moonshot. Of her new material, stand...
Championed by Jack White, this St. Louis native draws from a deep well of early jazz, ragtime, country blues and Western swing. Timeless rather than retro, songs like the otherworldly “Goodbye, Barcelona” and Pokey’s proud Midwestern tribute “Knocking the Dust off the Rust Belt Tonight” are proof of his fresh approach.
Legendary rock producer Bob Ezrin unites the acclaimed Celtic husband-and-wife fiddlers for their recording debut as a duo. A superb collection of reels, waltz and polka styles from Cape Breton and beyond, it includes MacMaster’s and Leahy’s sweet “Wedding Day Jig” and MacMaster’s first vocal recording on the Gaelic lullaby “Cagaran Galoach.”
The original 1996 sessions, featuring veterans of Cuba’s golden age in the ’50s, became a best-selling album and a celebrated Wim Wenders documentary. Now these recently discovered unreleased tracks of singer Ibrahim Ferrer, pianist Rubén González, bassist Cachaíto López and other legends brings that sumptuous Latin sound flooding back.
The Irish legend puts a fresh spin on his repertoire, teaming up with admirers young and old. Natalie Cole joins him on the joyful “These Are the Days” and daughter Shana on the spiritual “Rough God Goes Riding.” Best of all, Michael Bublé gets ecstatic on a thrilling remake of the horn-driven “Real Real Gone.”
Björk is a pop artist who makes distinctly unpopular music, in Top 40 terms—but remains endlessly fascinating. The Icelandic innovator’s eighth studio album documents her marital breakup and is full of shifting strings, buzzing synths and emotional outpourings, peaking with Björk’s triumphant roar of “I am not hurt” on the woozy “Mouth Mantra.”
