More than 50 years into their heavy metal legacy, Judas Priest are still screaming at full power on their 19th studio full length Invincible Shield. The album, their first studio effort of its kind since 2018's Firepower, is again produced by the band's touring guitarist Andy Sneap, and its 14 songs stretch out at over just an hour long runtime. The album charges out of the gates with the dumbfounding riffery of "Panic Attack." The song touches on all of the now-signature elements of Priest's sound, with dizzying harmonic guitar solos, a relentlessly pushy beat, and layers of Rob Halford's vocals, part winking metal theater, part authentic menace. The majority of the album sticks to thrash levels of speed and force, though the band switches gears to fantastical mid-tempo lurking on the epic "Crown of Horns" and the chugging "Trial by Fire." There's an unexpected acoustic breakdown in "Giants in the Sky" and some bluesy swaggering on the chunky "Fight of Your Life," but by and large Invincible Shield finds Judas Priest delivering a tightly wound and immaculately polished rendering of everything fans have come to expect from them over the last half a century. While at this point there's some unavoidable self-awareness to their craft, it does nothing to take away from the exhilarating fun and lawless excitement of the album. Invincible Shield simply reminds us that this particular kind of excitement is synonymous with Judas Priest.© TiVo Staff /TiVo

If you could have only have one Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers disc, it absolutely must be Moanin'. This 1958 Blue Note date is the cream of the early Messengers' studio sessions. The group of this period featured the wailing Lee Morgan (trumpet), the swinging Benny Golson (sax), and the soulful Bobby Timmons (piano), with longtime bassist Jymie Merritt by Blakey's side. All of the pieces fell into place here to create one of the most hard-swinging, blues-inflected records in jazz history. Timmons' classic title cut sets the pace as its laid-back call-and-response chorus and swinging bridge will get into your soul and start your head bobbing. Golson's bouncing "Are You Real" and the subtle "Along Came Betty" feature that golden Messengers ensemble sound that can't be matched as Blakey drives his men mercilessly. The most dynamic tracks, of course, are the drum feature "The Drum Thunder Suite," a Blakey tour de force, and the powerful "Blues March" featuring Blakey's signature shuffle groove. A delightful reading of the standard "Come Rain or Come Shine" caps it all off. This is arguably the quintessential Blakey disc.© TiVo

Though sounding completely different from one another, Gov't Mule's Peace...Like a River is a companion album to 2021's Heavy Load Blues. The dates were actually recorded simultaneously in different spaces inside the same studio. In different rooms, the band -- guitarist / vocalist Warren Haynes, drummer Matt Abts, bassist Jorgen Carlsson, and keyboardist Danny Louis -- and co-producer John Paterno set up two entirely different recording areas with amps, guitars, keys, and microphones, with the intention of giving each album its own sonic and musical identity. While Heavy Load Blues is an epic blues-rock date, Peace...Like a River is a labyrinthine trek through original songs that nod at the band's classic rock influences, creating an album that sounds like it was written and recorded during the 1970s. Opener "Same as It Ever Was" offers poetic lyrics about life's difficulties and revelations during and in the aftermath of the pandemic. The fingerpicked lead guitar, psychedelic production, lilting melody, and thunderous rhythm section crescendo buoy Haynes' emotionally resonant vocal. "Shake Our Way Out" is an exercise thundering, riff-centric, distorted blues-rock with Billy F. Gibbons (ZZ Top) joining on second guitar and vocals. While "Made My Peace" introduces itself as a midtempo, swaggering blues boogie, it quickly shifts gears to reflect Pink Floyd's deep influence on Gov't Mule. The vocal harmonies, melody, and dynamics recall both the Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here eras. "Dreaming Out Loud" is a jazzy rock cum R&B production. Ruthie Foster and Ivan Neville join the crew for the souled-out, steamy, bluesy, jazzy, NOLA-inspired funk on the poignant "Dreaming Out Loud" complete with soaring horns. Its lyrics were compiled from writings and speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King, Robert F. Kennedy, congressman/activist John Lewis and John F. Kennedy. Billy Bob Thornton contributes vocals to the swampy, spooky dubwise reggae of "The River Only Flows One Way." "After the Storm" cooks, but it's just a little too derivative of the L.A. Woman-era Doors due to Haynes trying too hard to imitate Jim Morrison in the first verse. That said, Louis' fine organ work owes more to the exploratory grooves of Larry Young and Garth Hudson than Ray Manzarek. "Just Across the River" is a slow-rolling, R&B-inflected blues featuring excellent playing and singing from New York-based guitarist and vocalist Celisse Henderson (Brandi Carlile, Joni Mitchell). "Long Time Coming" is a righteous, horn-drenched, soul-blues rave-up with a powerful vocal from Haynes. Peace...Like a River closes with the slide guitar Southern-fried rock of "Gone Too Long," which nods simultaneously at Neil Young with Crazy Horse and Lynyrd Skynyrd. This set reaffirms Gov't Mule's place as one of the most musical, stylistically ambitious bands out there.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

Imagine Dragons give away the plot with the very title of Evolve, the 2017 sequel to 2015's sophomore set, Smoke + Mirrors. Not content to stay in one emotional or musical spot, Imagine Dragons consciously move forward on Evolve, pushing themselves into a positive place, a transition that mirrors lead singer Dan Reynolds working through a heavy depression. Some of that darkness seeped into Smoke + Mirrors, but it's not heard here. Opening with "I Don't Know Why," a glitzy dance-rock song that nods at a disco past but exists in an EDM present, the record often rides along to a neon pulse. It's not that Imagine Dragons have abandoned the heavy-footed stomp they patented on "Radioactive," but they've threaded in busy, percolating electronic beats and give plenty of space to gilded keyboards. When the tempo is quick, the results are festival-friendly electro-rockers. When the tempo is slow, the results feel like a hybrid of Coldplay and Mr. Mister -- power rock ballads spiked with laser drums. As throwback as that sensibility may be, the band strives to be thoroughly modern, emphasizing rhythms and gargantuan hooks to tightly constructed compositions. Whenever the group tries a new sound -- pumping up "Mouth of the River" with fuzz guitars or attempting a bit of rap-rock on "Start Over" -- it feels not like experimentation but like a quick scan through a new music playlist. And that means Evolve feels very much like the digital Zeitgeist of 2017.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

This expanded Let It Bleed edition of the Replacements' fourth studio album Tim—the final with their full, original lineup—is a marvelous, absolutely necessary corrective to the muddled-sounding original release from 1985. Tim found the band at their creative peak, with some of the best songs Paul Westerberg, Chris Mars, and brothers Tommy and Bob Stinson would ever write, fresh under their belts. Here we get to enjoy not only the demos and an entire live show that are staples of the expanded reissue game, but we get to hear a version of the original album that's worthy of the material, thanks to veteran producer and engineer Ed Stasium.The Replacements really were contenders, and it's easy to imagine they could at least have been as big as Tom Petty, if not Springsteen. In 1985, they were newly signed to a supportive label with major distribution (Sire, who had championed the Ramones and Talking Heads). And the songs! From the deadpan, self-effacing yet somehow swaggering opener "Hold My Life" to the delightful Big Star redux of "Kiss Me On The Bus," the wallflower anthem "Swingin Party," the anthemic as fuck "Bastards Of Young," the incredible college radio ass-kiss of "Left Of The Dial," and then ending with the absolute heartbreaker of "Here Comes A Regular," Tim had every right to be as good or better than their gleeful breakout 1984 album Let it Be. A Ramone (Tommy a.k.a Tom Erdelyi) was even brought in to produce the thing, after initial sessions with their hero Alex Chilton (excerpts of which are included here). The mix just never came together, and the band did not have the creative control they'd previously had under Twin/Tone Records.In those pre-Nevermind days, there were very few acts who'd made the transition from the supportive yet broke-as-heck indie label system to a major label with sonic integrity intact. R.E.M. didn't succeed at the task until 1988, and even the Replacements' longtime friends Hüsker Dü failed spectacularly in 1987 with the messy, uninspired Warehouse. Tim sounded flat and a bit strange to fans, in a manner likely similar to Detroiters first hearing the second MC5 album, or Bowie's mix of the Stooges' Raw Power. So much information seemed to be missing. The 'Mats fans watched the notoriously sloppy yet inventive band morph from jokey hardcore kids to serious contenders for the next great troubadours in the vein of the Band. To mainstream reviewers, it was a fresh blast, on the strength of the group's erratic, epic live shows and how great these songs are. In November 1985, Rolling Stone crowed that the album sounded "as if it were made by the last real band in the world." Unfortunately, the self-destruction and excess that seemed cute at first took its toll, and guitarist Bob Stinson would be asked to leave before they could record the followup, 1987's Pleased to Meet Me. Stinson died a decade later.The producers of this reissue deserve all the medals and awards for their painstaking and sonically dense paean to, resurrection of, and love letter for the Replacements' fourth studio album. The band would doubtless have still managed to fuck their career up even if the initial product had sounded this good. The released video for "Bastards" is, of course, the ultimate slacker moment: A single camera shot of a stereo playing the song, the focus pulled back to reveal a smoking male listening to it on a couch, who then kicks in the speakers when it's over. Today, we have the version of the song that should have soundtracked it. Almost forty years too late, but we have it. © Mike McGonigal/Qobuz

While he was still leader of progressive rock group Genesis, Phil Collins launched his solo career and released Face Value in 1981. A record which quickly proves to be one of the biggest musical surprises of the year, and one which allows the British artist to begin his ascension as one of the biggest stars of the 1980s. Thanks to the deep and passionate voice of the singer, as well as the numerous pop/soul ballads and his talent for aggressive rock'n'roll, this record has sold (and is currently selling) better than any installment by Genesis. The Town House studio recording sessions in London have obviously greatly inspired Collins who experiments with many studio techniques and leaves plenty of room for his own rhythm guitar, in spite of the fact that he is widely known and admired for his drumming skills. He also takes advantage of his own independence to do a tribute to black American music which is so dear to him, as he invite Phenix Horns, the prestigious brass section for Earth, Wind & Fire, to perform on the record. ©LG/Qobuz

In the liner notes to his volume of Columbia's Essential series, Bruce Springsteen immediately lays out the problem with hits collections: "In any body of work there are obvious high points. The rest depends on who's doing the listening. Where you were, when it was, who you were with when a particular song or album cut the deepest." All artists have this problem, but Springsteen has it more than most, since he not only has a deep and varied body of work, but he has a passionate, dedicated fan base. Within that following, there are listeners who prefer his big-hearted, sprawling early work, those who love the cinematic grandeur of Born to Run, those who love his stark, intimate acoustic ballads, and those who adore his pile-driving rockers. He's had hits in all of these styles, and he's had concert and album rock radio staples in all those styles -- all of these tunes for his basic canon, the "obvious high points" -- but he's such a strong songwriter and record-maker that this leaves behind songs that many other artists would be thrilled to call their best work, whether it's the epic street poetry of "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City" or the old-time rock & roll throwaway of "Pink Cadillac." Neither of those tunes are on the double-disc, 30-track Essential Bruce Springsteen, but any two-disc set can't hold all of Springsteen's great songs. It can only offer a representative sampling, which means there will be lots of terrific tracks and fan favorites absent -- Springsteen admits this, citing "Growin' Up," "Racing in the Street," "Backstreets," and "My City of Ruins" as MIA, while others could make just as convincing an argument for "My Hometown," "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," "Fade Away," "I'm on Fire," "Prove It All Night," "Adam Raised a Cain," and the list goes on. The strength of The Essential is that you never notice these songs are missing. Unlike the previous Bruce compilation, the misguided, haphazardly selected Greatest Hits, The Essential contains all the big songs -- not just the obvious hits of "Hungry Heart," "Born to Run," "Born in the U.S.A.," and "Glory Days," but selections from his first two albums that were ignored completely the previous time out -- and it also contains just the right amount of latter-day material from the acclaimed The Rising, plus "American Skin (41 Shots)" and "Land of Hope and Dreams," two songs previously only available on Live in New York City. It adds up to an ideal introduction to Springsteen's music, capturing all sides of his musical output while being a hell of a good listen. While the two main discs are for neophytes and casual fans, the third "bonus" disc is for the hardcore -- the kind of fans who will argue about the song selection on the previous two discs, and would be more interested in unreleased material than hits. This third disc is a clearing-house for items that should have made it to his previous rarities collection, Tracks, but didn't. This includes previously unreleased cuts, B-sides, contributions to soundtracks and benefit albums, covers, and an alternate, "country-blues" acoustic version of "Countin' on a Miracle" from The Rising. The disc follows a roughly chronological sequence and basically divides into early-'80s material and mid-'90s material. The '80s material has the edge due to the variety and strength of the material: the rampaging rocker "From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)," a song Bruce gave to Dave Edmunds and has never released before now; the spare, tough "The Big Payback," a B-side; the searching "None but the Brave," cut during the Born in the U.S.A. sessions; the evocative "County Fair," cut after Nebraska; a cover of Jimmy Cliff's "Trapped," cut on the River tour; a wonderfully raucous live "Held Up Without a Gun," a variation on "You Can Look but You Better Not Touch" with topical lyrics previously released as a B-side. These are fantastic performances, and while there are also very good cuts of a more recent vintage -- such as the Joe Grushecky collaboration "Code of Silence," his title song from Tim Robbins' Dead Man Walking, and a fun version of "Viva Las Vegas" -- these '80s songs are the heart of the collection. It's an unexpected gift to have them officially released as a bonus disc to a hits collection, and for the hardcore, it's worth buying two discs of songs you already have just get these rarities. And it helps make The Essential Bruce Springsteen really live up to its title.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

A “roadhouse” is a kind of roadside bar located in the middle of nowhere for drinking and listening to music. Thanks in part to David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, roadhouses have acquired a unique reputation and irremediably generate an image that is at once strange, comforting, and melancholic. For the conception of their sixth album, the members of the Australian group The Paper Kites have certainly had a Lynchian ambiance in mind, as the record’s sleeve proves. The photo taken by Dara Munnis represents an actual roadhouse where the group played every night for a month. All of the album’s songs are taken from the concerts performed during this unique residency in the small town of Campbells Creek. Sam Bentley, the leader of the group, explains that Roadhouse is the fruit of a “collective dream”. “We wanted it to be a combination of all the greatest dive bars you’ve ever been to, late-night watering holes, smoky taverns, biker bars”, he adds. The overall color of the album is country and folk, found in the ballads dominated by the banjo, the harmonica, or even the steel guitar (“Rolling On Easy”, “The Sweet Sound of You” and “Hurts So Good”). Others, like “Marietta”, “Mercy” and “I Don’t Want to Go That Way” can instead be put away in the syrupy romanticism aisle, which is emphasized by the singer’s beautifully mournful voice. As for the tracks “Black & Thunder” and “June’s Stolen Car”, they stray a bit from the original folk trajectory and swing toward a more bluesy rock flavor. It’s an atmospheric album that feels like a comforting pause in the middle of a long trip on the desert roads of Australia. ©Nicolas Magenham/Qobuz

Bruce Springsteen's make-or-break third album represented a sonic leap from his first two, which had been made for modest sums at a suburban studio; Born to Run was cut on a superstar budget, mostly at the Record Plant in New York. Springsteen's backup band had changed, with his two virtuoso players, keyboardist David Sancious and drummer Vini Lopez, replaced by the professional but less flashy Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg. The result was a full, highly produced sound that contained elements of Phil Spector's melodramatic work of the 1960s. Layers of guitar, layers of echo on the vocals, lots of keyboards, thunderous drums -- Born to Run had a big sound, and Springsteen wrote big songs to match it. The overall theme of the album was similar to that of The E Street Shuffle; Springsteen was describing, and saying farewell to, a romanticized teenage street life. But where he had been affectionate, even humorous before, he was becoming increasingly bitter. If Springsteen had celebrated his dead-end kids on his first album and viewed them nostalgically on his second, on his third he seemed to despise their failure, perhaps because he was beginning to fear he was trapped himself. Nevertheless, he now felt removed, composing an updated West Side Story with spectacular music that owed more to Bernstein than to Berry. To call Born to Run overblown is to miss the point; Springsteen's precise intention is to blow things up, both in the sense of expanding them to gargantuan size and of exploding them. If The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle was an accidental miracle, Born to Run was an intentional masterpiece. It declared its own greatness with songs and a sound that lived up to Springsteen's promise, and though some thought it took itself too seriously, many found that exalting.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

In a duet with singer and percussionist Abraham Rodriguez Jr., the bassist Avishai Cohen is now fulfilling a lifelong ambition with the release of his Iroko. He has been passionate about Latin music since his arrival in New York in 1992, where he began to take lessons from the legendary Puerto Rican bassist Andy Gonzalez. It was during this period that Cohen also crossed paths with Rodriguez, who was playing in Ray Santiago’s (a salsa pianist) group. The two musicians immediately discovered elective affinities. Embarking on the career that we now know (Iroko is nothing less than his 20th record as a leader), the double bassist never lost contact with Rodriguez, who, during a break, became known as the one of the most sought-after percussionists and singers on the New York Latin scene. Determined to make public his love for this rich and complex musical tradition, Avishai Cohen, before leaving on tour at the head of a sextet made up of his favourite New York Latin musicians, could only take advantage of the opportunity to finally record this long-awaited brotherly duet with Rodriguez. With a varied repertoire combining traditional Yoruba tunes, popular Afro-Caribbean songs, and masterfully revisited US classics (from James Brown to Frank Sinatra), the two men draw their energies and references from a vast melting pot of genre-wide hybridizations from the New York Latin music scene. What resulted was a striking catalogue of grooves combining the heritage of Afro-Cuban traditions with elements of R'n'B, jazz, and Motown soul. Both minimalist and sumptuous, bursting with heady polyrhythms, subtle vocal harmonies, and potent melodies, Iriko's music is certainly rejuvenating. © Stéphane Ollivier/Qobuz

Ray Davies' sentimental, nostalgic streak emerged on Something Else, but it developed into a manifesto on The Village Green Preservation Society, a concept album lamenting the passing of old-fashioned English traditions. As the opening title song says, the Kinks -- meaning Ray himself, in this case -- were for preserving "draught beer and virginity," and throughout the rest of the album, he creates a series of stories, sketches, and characters about a picturesque England that never really was. It's a lovely, gentle album, evoking a small British country town, and drawing the listener into its lazy rhythms and sensibilities. Although there is an undercurrent of regret running throughout the album, Davies' fondness for the past is warm, making the album feel like a sweet, hazy dream. And considering the subdued performances and the detailed instrumentations, it's not surprising that the record feels more like a Ray Davies solo project than a Kinks album. The bluesy shuffle of "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains" is the closest the album comes to rock & roll, and Dave Davies' cameo on the menacing "Wicked Annabella" comes as surprise, since the album is so calm. But calm doesn't mean tame or bland -- there are endless layers of musical and lyrical innovation on The Village Green Preservation Society, and its defiantly British sensibilities became the foundation of generations of British guitar pop.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Just seven months after Chemtrails Over the Country Club, while the planet is gradually coming out of its pandemic lethargy, Lana Del Rey has released Blue Banisters, an eighth album that's full of fresh gems... It's fascinating how the LA-based New Yorker can cut right through the dense trappings of her image (the pout, the persona, the videos, etc.) and put the spotlight firmly on her songs. Once again, amid quiet intimacy, boudoir melodies and confessional arrangements, the American shines as a songwriter of substance. The pop music on Chemtrails Over the Country Club, was folkier than ever, despite the echo and reverb that helped her exquisite voice really soar. But here she takes a more eclectic approach and makes a few nods to her previous songs. Some of the songs here were originally written for previous albums, which is another reason for the sometimes-baffling eclecticism of Blue Banisters or maybe it's just a true reflection of her personality?The "confessions of a bad girl" song is still her strong suit (Black Bathing Suit), but Del Rey can still pull out the drama, for example in her duet with Miles Kane (Dealer); and she can even manage some family-friendly material, as with Sweet Carolina, which was co-written with her father and sister. She slaloms between textures and sounds, outpourings and outbursts. Hypnotised, we can only follow... We leave Blue Banisters with less the impression of having travelled in unknown land, as with the deep conviction that we now hold in our hands a new, crucial piece of the Lana Del Rey puzzle. This record offers yet more proof that melancholy and the blues are still the most efficient fuel for songwriting... © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Instrumental and vocal firepower, the considerable ears of engineer Greg Ladanyi, and some magical mixing at the Sound Factory in Hollywood, combined to create the best known album of Jackson Browne's long career, reissued here in gloriously detailed and dynamically thrilling high resolution sound. Russ Kunkel's drum break at the climatic shift of the title track. David Lindley's mournful fiddle in "The Road." Rosemary Butler's soaring vocal solo in "Stay." A song list heavy with covers. Jackson Browne on piano. An extraordinary example of utterly masterful sequencing. Sometimes a band is in such a groove that it demands to be captured live. But making a live album that reflects being on the road, recorded literally on the road? Cutting tracks in a Holiday Inn room in Edwardsville, IL, or on a moving tour bus, complete with grinding gears? Even today with all the digital advances in home recording gear, it still seems like a disaster in the making. In addition, none of the material had ever appeared on a Browne studio record. A shambling cover of Rev. Gary Davis's "Cocaine" and a rendition of Maurice Williams' (The Zodiacs) "Stay"—with David Lindley memorably singing the falsetto part—are both knockouts. "You Love the Thunder," recorded live in Holmdel, NJ, is a classic Jackson Browne love song, one of the last before he turned to political themes. And then there’s the album's heart: the epic Lowell George/Browne/Valerie Carter collaboration, "Love Needs a Heart." It's the one tune worth having the entire record for: "Love needs a heart/And I need to find/If love needs a heart like mine." As this fresh remastering proves again, Browne and his merry band of SoCal pros better known as The Section drew a masterpiece out of the hat with Running on Empty. © Robert Baird / Qobuz

No one sounded like the Pixies in the late '80s to early '90s.  Energized by the very real and sometimes visible tensions between singer Black Francis (née Charles Thompson) and bassist Kim Deal, the foursome—rounded out with drummer David Lovering and guitarist Joey Santiago—made a series of albums that sound as visionary and otherworldly today as they did on release. In the oceanic expanse of '90s alt-rock bands, the Pixies' art stood alone until their 1993 split. Despite a trio of new albums since their 2004 reunion, it's been clear that their pervasive magic had ebbed away. But here on Doggerel, their eighth album in their 35 years together, they come closest to making what fans think of as a Pixies record. The opener "Nomatterday," which switches tempos near its middle for an arty interlude, is a beautiful example of Francis' howled vocals, Santiago's distinct, discordant guitar, Lovering's simple, forceful drumming, and menacing bass underpinning from Paz Lenchantin, who joined the band in 2014.  Best of all, it radiates some of the requisite madness that once made their music so special. However, where they were once eternally provoked and urgently reaching, old age has set in as Francis sings about being loaded at the 7-Eleven ("Vault of Heaven"), and in "Dregs of the Wine"—the first Santiago original ever recorded by the band—divulges a mundane reason why he and his ex-wife split: "While I prefer the original version of 'You Really Got Me'/ She will defer to the Van Halen version."  In an odd twist of sequencing, Doggerel closes with its two strongest numbers.  Its most memorable moment, "You're Such a Sadducee," is a stomping pop tune with cascades of vocals and a whiff of "Wave of Mutilation" and the title track effectively wields the loud-soft dynamic that was once the Pixies' most striking songwriting weapons. For new fans, there is much here to recommend, but fanatics will likely find something still missing; the struggle to live up to the Pixies continues.  © Robert Baird/Qobuz

For his first album on the label Mack Avenue Records, released in 2016, Julian Lage and his trio – made up of bassist Scott Colley and drummer Kenny Wollesen – tackled older, sometimes forgotten partitions by Willard Robison, Sidney Bechet, Jack Teagarden, Bix Beiderbecke and Spike Hughes, and incorporated original works, paying tribute to one of his many obsessions: Keith Jarrett’s American quartet. But the real shock value of this album is of course to hear Lage exclusively on the electric guitar, as opposed to the acoustic guitar, on which he had excelled so far… Two years later, still with Colley and Wollesen, he doubled down on this electric path and continued to blend jazz, blues, country and rock’n’roll. And because Julian Lage knows his classics like the back of his guitar pick, filiations keep on coming. From Bill Frisell’s current, we take a sharp turn to Pat Metheny’s branch, before going for a more streamlined path, à la Jim Hall, who in fact worked with Colley and Wollesen. But of course Lage’s Fender Telecaster isn’t the weapon of a copyist, as virtuosic as he may be. Now 30 years old, the former Californian child prodigy has not only sorted out his personal culture, but also imposed his own style thanks to an ever more mastered writing. And the compositions on his Modern Lore are among some of his more mature works. This fifth album is the result of an ever-growing complicity with his rhythm section. © MD/Qobuz

In September 1979, Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Bonnie Raitt and John Hall launched MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy), an activist organisation opposed to the use of nuclear power, particularly after the accident at the Three Mile Island power station in March of that year. They organised five giant No Nukes concerts at New York's Madison Square Garden with the Doobie Brothers, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Ry Cooder, Gil Scott-Heron, Chaka Khan, Poco, Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen. On the 21st and 22nd of September, the legendary performances by the latter, backed by his E Street Band, were finally officially released.It was an intense time for the Boss who, at the age of 30, was living through a sort of golden age, between Darkness on the Edge of Town, released in June 1978, and The River, which came out in October 1980. And even though the stage had always been his favourite terrain, Springsteen gave titanic concerts here, giving himself away every night as if it were his last show. Alongside him, Steven Van Zandt, Max Weinberg, Clarence Clemons, Roy Bittan, Danny Federici and Garry Tallent were at the peak of their virtuoso talents. Grand versions of the hits Badlands, Born To Run and Thunder Road sit alongside then-unreleased gems like The River and Sherry Darling, as well as covers of Buddy Holly (Rave On), Gary U.S. Bonds (Quarter to Three) and Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs (Stay with Jackson Browne, Tom Petty and Rosemary Butler). This makes this Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts with its striking sound an indispensable piece of music history. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

When Mastodon first reared its bucktoothed head in 2001 with the Lifesblood EP, the scriveners of metal took note: here was something promising. With 2002's Remission, the promise was kept; it was a debut that puzzled and excited listeners with an amalgam of styles: hardcore punk's intensity and angular chops; death metal's squealing, complex guitars; a heaviness usually the province of sludge and doom metal; and drumming that risked its integrity and ventured into the territory of wank by courting progressive rock and jazz. (Has anyone other than Magma's Christian Vander dared to marry percussion this complex to metal this extreme?) Other bands have flirted with this territory, most notably Dillinger Escape Plan, but their attack always had one foot firmly planted in punk's messy metalcore backyard. Mastodon, however, are leveraging with all hooves staked in the murky underworld swamp of extreme metal. We are now out of Remission and into 2004's highly anticipated follow-up, Leviathan, which again puzzles and will surely alienate one old fan for every two new admirers it gathers in its net. The naysayers will note that too many concessions were made on Leviathan in order to gain a wider audience, that the production is too polished and the vocals too melodic, and they are right. On Remission there was a claustrophobic paranoia, a suffocating heaviness like an elephant's heel pressing on someone's chest; its vocals were the raw hardcore screams of an anarchist drill sergeant. Leviathan digs out of the boot camp stampede and seeks out even heavier environs, going where few bands have gone before, straight down into the ocean. However, the studio polish of producer Matt Bayles that will be agonized by underground purists turns out to be just surface glare. Lurking beneath is an expansiveness more massive than anything found on the shores. The sound on Leviathan seems bottomless and infinite in the best possible way: it's not a dip in the pool; it's a headlong cliff dive into deep waters. There are remarkable no-they-didn't, yes-they-did changes littering Leviathan like chum in shark territory. "Megalodon" moves from angular post-hardcore to chugging boogie thrash with deceptive ease, turning from one to the other with a Southern rawk guitar lick sure to have Duane Allman raise a bony hand in deathly devil-horned approval. It's not just that the sound is now "oceanic," either; metal has always had a tendency to rehash the same dark themes and few bands have the wherewithal to attempt to broaden that vision. Leviathan may not be an out and out concept album, but it's awfully close and thank god they didn't choose anything as cheesy as a blind kid playing pinball. Instead, Mastodon's chosen guide is Moby Dick, and a good portion of the lyrical themes on songs like "Blood and Thunder," "I Am Ahab," "Aqua Dementia," and "Seabeast" are based on Herman Melville's dystopian waters. It's a good fit with the music, too. Filtered through Melville's spyglass, the watery tales and creatures of Leviathan are even more paranoid and intense than the more terrestrial Remission. Those who choose to follow Mastodon into the sea will surely agree.© Wade Kergan /TiVo

Moving to a major label was inevitable for the Replacements: they garnered too much acclaim and attention after Let It Be to stay on Twin/Tone, especially as the label faced the same distribution problems that plagued many indies in the mid-'80s -- plus, the 'Mats' crosstown rivals, Hüsker Dü, made the leap to the big leagues, paving the way for their own hop over to Sire. The Replacements may have left Twin/Tone behind but they weren't quite ready to leave Minneapolis in the dust, choosing to record in their hometown with Tommy Erdelyi -- aka Tommy Ramone -- who gives the 'Mats a big, roomy sound without quite giving them gloss; compared to Let It Be, Tim is polished, but compared to many American underground rock records of the mid-'80s (including those by the Ramones), it's loose and kinetic. The production -- guitars that gained muscle, drums and vocals that gained reverb -- is the biggest surface difference, but there aren't just changes in how the Replacements sound; what they're playing is different too, as Paul Westerberg begins to turn into a self-aware songwriter. A large part of the charm of Let It Be was how it split almost evenly between ragged vulgarity and open-hearted rockers, with Westerberg's best songs betraying a startling, beguiling lack of affect. That's not quite the case with Tim, as Westerberg consciously writes alienation anthems: the rallying cry of "Bastards of Young" and the college radio love letter "Left of the Dial," songs written with a larger audience in mind -- not a popular audience, but a collection of misfits across the nation, who huddled around Westerberg's raw, twitchy loneliness on "Swingin Party" and "Here Comes a Regular," or the urgent and directionless "Hold My Life." These songs are Westerberg at his confessional peak, but instead of undercutting this ragged emotion or hiding it away, as he did on the Twin/Tone albums, he pairs it with the exuberance of "Kiss Me on the Bus" -- an adolescent cousin to "I Will Dare" -- and channels his smart-ass comments into the terrifically cynical rockabilly shuffle "Waitress in the Sky." All this eats up so much oxygen that there's not much air left for any of the recklessness of the Twin/Tone LPs: there's no stumbling, no throwaway jokes, with even the twin rave-ups of "Dose of Thunder" and "Lay It Down Clown" straightened out, no matter how much Bob Stinson might try to pull them apart, which is perhaps the greatest indication that the Replacements were no longer the band they were just a couple years ago. Some 'Mats fans never got over this change, but something was gained in this loss: the Replacements turned into a deeper band on Tim, one that spoke, sometimes mumbled, to the hearts of losers and outcasts who lived their lives on the fringe. If Let It Be captured the spirit of the Replacements, then Tim captured their soul.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo