Underwater Sunshine – Counting Crows – All too often you find yourself reviewing Adam Duritz's hair when you should be reviewing his band. And that's not fair. because his hair is awful. So I listened to the album, and there is maybe two songs that don't make me want to string him up by his wig. "All My Failures" is a solid enough song.I might even claim that if you have never heard the original "Return Of The Grievous Angel" before, this plodding cover might make you search out Gram Parsons. But the "Ooh La La" is a witless abomination, all the humor distelled from Ronnie Lane's creation. And any way… why not review his hair? Grade: D+
A Wasteland Companion – M. Ward – The kick against Ward is that a) he isn't Conor and b) he is boring. Both of these caveats remain untouched on his more of the same latest album. But if Ward can hold your attention, around half of these songs are real keepers. Grade: B
Love On A Real Train – Love On A Real Train – Joachim Cooder takes his synth drenched sound paintings very seriously and that's fine if not exactly fun. Except here it is really, really fun, because he has written some terrific Real songs to go along with them and gotten some perfect singers to add their voices on top. Grade: A-
MTV Unplugged – Florence + The Machine – This doesn't work because it completely ignores its Unplugged concept. If she had dropped everything accept an acoustic guitar and re-arranged her thoughts, we could've really heard the band. I mean, isn't unplugged a euphemism for solo on stage? The songs are great. Grade: B
The Strange Case Of… – Halestorm – I'd convinced myself that the chick leader was a high pitched guy!!! If you performed 250 times a year, you might record a metal monster as great as this. Grade: A-
Roman Reloaded – Nicki Minaj – Yup, a re-review: All the rapping is excellent and maybe four of the pop songs ain't terrible. Grade: B