Always be wary of those who throw around Hemingway and Raymond Carver in their bios, but McCombs’ dreamy and incisive pop nearly backs up his bravado. Sporting as large an ego and sense of melancholy as classic mopers Ian McCulloch and Morrissey, McCombs’ latest, PREfection, is overloaded with woe. Songs…

Front man Jonathan Meiburg’s vocals are so tender and delicate, it’s a wonder they even make it out of his mouth. Like a choirboy in the desert, Meiburg tells tales that are both innocent and lonely. Shearwater’s new EP Thieves continues the fragile and intricate trance folk of last year’s…

“Seven Nights in Erie,” the standout track on this Austin quintet’s fine new release, makes explicit the connection between traditional Irish music and true hard-core honky-tonk. While singer Willy Braun applies his fine baritone, his brother Cody lays down a fiddle break so pristine you almost want to cry in…

Basically the brainchild of one Raymond Roposa, Castanets makes what he calls “derailed pysch-country.” Who am I to disagree with such astuteness? Cathedral is country as in western desert, sun-fried, things done in rural county shacks you don’t want to know about. Equal parts Daniel Johnson and Syd Barrett if…

In a brilliant assessment of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, critic Dave Marsh wrote that classical rock would never succeed simply by mating the complexity of one musical form to the volume of another. More recently, there has been no greater evidence of Marsh’s wisdom as Metallica shredding away while a…

Remembered as much for being a vital part of Wilco as for being unceremoniously dumped by Jeff Tweedy in the documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, Jay Bennett has gone from feast to famine as quickly as anyone in recent memory. The Beloved Enemy, his second solo effort…

There is a great but untrue story of pre-Clash Joe Strummer going into a bar and spotting Graham Parker. Strummer says he saw the Sex Pistols a week before. Asked what he thought of the band, Strummer replies, “Whole new thing, man.” Hearing Devotchka provides the same exhilarating rush of…

“I’ve been running out of stories/I’ve been stealing Tom Waits songs,” sings Canadian John Guliak on the title track of this thoughtful, funny and rootsy effort. With a voice recalling fellow countryman Leonard Cohen, Guliak fronts a large folk ensemble as his deep, gravelly tone expresses quiet, rural concerns. “I’ll…

Mistakenly thought of as a novelty act after their infamous psycho-bluegrass makeover of Snoop Dogg’s classic “Gin and Juice,” the Gourds have nonetheless released a series of compelling, whacked-out alternative country efforts for 10 years. Blood of the Ram continues in the same tradition, with top-notch playing, rough-hewed singing and…

Blissful amateurism can produce calamity or genius. Quite often, it does both. Kevin House is a British/Canadian songwriter equally adept at carnival freakishness and tender (if morose) acoustic folk. His Gutter Pastoral offers a genuine connection between Nick Drake and Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous. Weird and unnerving, the 11 cuts are…

Why can’t all country be this good? This small Nashville-based label has collected 12 relatively obscure Texas artists who turn in excellent acoustic performances highlighting the things that made rural music great in the first place. No crossover potential, no ignorant fake patriotism, no spotlights or dance routines, just honest…

Reformed after a 10-year hiatus, San Francisco’s mope-rock kings have retooled for a new generation of manic-depressives. Gone are the country/punk influences that made early releases California and Engine so vital. Instead, lead moaner Mark Eitzel has brought along the song stylist baggage that cluttered up his spotty solo efforts…

At first vaguely reminiscent of Duncan Sheik and Ben Folds, Paul Brill shakes off such god-awful comparisons and blissfully heads into Sparklehorse, Robyn Hitchcock and even Aphex Twin territory on New Pagan Love Song, a beautiful set of strikingly unpopular-sounding pop. Odd plunking of banjo and double bass collide with…

Considered one of the godfathers of Americana, Dave Alvin is having one of the most unexpected rebirths in recent memory. His new effort, Ashgrove, is being hailed as some kind of modern blues classic. It isn’t. Remotely clichéd (as was his work with the legendary Blasters), it is, however, dynamic…

“Heat of the Moment,” Asia’s original stab at melding stodgy progressive rock with pop, was Yes for those who couldn’t stomach 11 minutes of Jon Anderson’s sub-Buddhist mishmash. It was John Wetton, who at least had Robert Fripp to vouch for him, and Steve Howe satisfying all the guitar wankers…

A tribute collection must be judged not on the reverence for the source material but on the overall quality of the new product. However great the influence the Carter Family had on folk country and even rock, this gathering of the usual suspects (Willie Nelson, George Jones, the late Johnny…

As a member of the Mekons, Sally Timms’ sexy, almost secretive vocals have added loads of likability to the brooding, political, country-punk carnage of that band. The occasional solo disc has presented a keen interpreter of songwriters as diverse as John Cale and Johnny Cash. Quite often she has proven…