Rob Thomas — Cradlesong (Atlantic)

Rob Thomas, frontman for Matchbox Twenty, returns with his sophomore effort, Cradlesong. It’s the follow-up to his 2005 multi-platinum solo debut, Something to Be. Never one to shy away from tough emotions, the Grammy-winning author of hits such as Bent, Unwell, Angry, Disease and Downfall continues to update his sound. The album is a collection of well-written contemporary pop rock tracks, and this time Thomas’ material is darker, exploring the fragility of life and human relationships. The simplicity of Snowblind is beautiful, the lyrics match perfectly with the delicate intro. The title track is the only balladesque track here, "All our friends have moved to Hollywood, but we ain’t that desperate yet", shows Thomas’ appreciation for the simpler things in life as he gets older, while the acoustic guitar on the stripped back Getting Late has an almost country feel as Thomas ponders his own mortality: "You’re watching over the moments that make up your life, It’s getting late, that’s the way it is." Lead single, Her Diamonds, is decently catchy, but it’s the rocking Wonderful that feels the most like an unforced step forward. Thomas’ distinctive voice strains raggedly over brass and guitar as he grapples with the idea that his prime might be past. On several tracks, Cradlesong mines musical motifs of the 1980s. Relationship kiss-off anthem Mockingbird has a New Waveish opening. Likewise, Give Me The Meltdown contains a bassline eerily similar to the one in Simple Minds’ Alive and Kicking. Among the album’s standouts is the bluesy Still Ain’t Over You, which opens with a hard, crunching riff and features appropriately angst-ridden lyrics ("You keep breakin’ me down, but I still ain’t over you").

Best track: Her Diamonds

Worst track: Fire On The Mountain

Rating: ***

George Strait — Twang (MCA)

George Strait is often referred as the King of Country. And it just may be true. After more than 50 hit singles and more recently receiving the Artist of the Decade Award at the 2009 Academy of Country Music Awards, there’s no need for him to change anything about his music. The snappy title track, written by Jim Lauderdale, Kendell`A0Marvel and Jimmy Ritchey, opens the album with a self-reflective merriment of the traditional sounds that trickle out of an ipod every night. A masterful interpreter of songs, Strait picks up the pen for only the second time in his career. The result is the heart-rending Living For The Night, a collaboration with son Bubba and his long-time lyricist Dean Dillon. With sharp, poignant lyrics such as "Every night I venture out/ Into those neon arms that hold me tight," the track is a gorgeous portrait of a grieving man trying to find the true meaning of life. Twang also features a terrific, bluesy reading of Delbert McClinton’s Same Kind Of Crazy and a self-referential take on mariachi standard El Ray that Strait sings in Spanish. Twang’s highlight, Arkansas Dave, has the loping beat and acoustic framework — A twist-ending tale of a grim-faced murdered, reminiscent of a Kenny Rogers or Johnny Cash hit from the 1970s.

Interestingly the songs here explore many geographical boundaries: Louisiana tinged (Hot Grease And Zydeco), Gulf-flavored romanticism (I Gotta Get to You), Nashville balladry (Where Have I Been All My Life), Memphis country soul (Same Kind of Crazy), and a traditional rural folk narrative (Arkansas Dave).

Best track: Arkansas Dave

Worst track: Beautiful Day for Goodbye

Rating: ***

Tori Amos — Abnormally Attracted To Sin (Universal)

On her tenth studio release, Abnormally Attracted To Sin, Tori Amos (a.k.a. Myra Ellen) sticks to her dark gothic roots. The album opens with Give, a cross of Middle Eastern flourishes and trip-hop grooves, resulting in a track that fits somewhere between Portishead and Alanis Morissette. The song intentionally plods along while Amos drones "Soon before the sun, before the sun begins to rise / I know that I, I must give/ so that I, I can live." From the sultry Strong Black Vine, on which Amos struggles to reconcile her love-hate relationship with her religious upbringing, to Maybe California, a frankly stunning plea from one mother to another who is contemplating suicide, the ideas and images in play are complicated and barbed. Curtain Call is reminiscent of Precious Things, while That Guy feels like it belongs on a West End stage. Lead single Welcome To England is an enjoyable romp through Tori’s own back catalogue, as she seems to meld various snippets of her material together to make a new song. Tori gets the creative juices going again, with stylistically varied songs running from chilly, slow piano numbers (the haunting Flavor) to quirky pop (the catchy 500 Miles) to electronic funk (the off-tempo Police Me). Lady In Blue, in particular, is a melodic tour-de-force coupled with a lounge jazz/ broadway-esque production that could put Joni Mitchell to shame. Interestingly in the seven-minute epic finale, she pulls the sublime trick of actually closing her mouth for the songfinal minute and a half, as if to say she’s stepped off the stage: listen to the band, thanks for listening, goodbye.

Best track: Maybe California

Worst track: Fire To Your Plain

Rating: **

Album of the month
Woodstock: 40 Years Back On — Back To Yasgur’s Farm (Rhino)

A six-CD set, the most comprehensive single musical document of Woodstock yet, expands significantly on what’s previously been released officially. Perhaps the most valuable aspect is the sequencing: For the first time, performances run chronologically, creating a far stronger sense of the actual event. There are nearly eight hours of music on Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back to Yasgur’s Farm, more than half of the 77 tracks previously unreleased. The festival’s impressive stylistic variation also comes into full relief, with folk, blues-rooted rock, nascent world music, psychedelia, R&B and soul, and full-throttle rock. The CD booklet includes each day’s bands and their complete set lists. A key selling point here is the trove of unreleased material, some of it — three tunes from folkie Bert Sommer, the Grateful Dead’s beatific Dark Star — truly breathtaking. There are a handful of deserving excavations in the catalogue. Country Joe & the Fish get to demonstrate that there’s more to their groove-garage than the two minutes of Rock & Soul Music that made the movie soundtrack, and it’s nice to hear Sommer’s elegant, idyllic meditations and the Incredible String Band’s folk music. Jefferson Airplane’s Volunteers roars, and so does their previously unreleased cover of Fred Neil’s The Other Side of This Life, and hearing Melanie transformed from an unknown to a minor star over the course of a few songs is pretty commendable. Hendrix’s mind-boggling performance ran approximately 90 minutes, and we still get just a fraction of it here. Presumably the truly devoted already have the full Jimi Hendrix: Live at Woodstock album released a decade ago. Even after everything that’s been said, written, photographed, filmed and recorded on the event, this set shows that we haven’t seen anything yet.

Best track: Star Spangled Banner — Jimi Hendrix

Misfit: Look Out — Sweetwater

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