New and noteworthy

Peace Be Still

Eighteen Mile

In addition to the guitar-mandolin-fiddle-banjo-bass instrumentation, this quintet (a husband and a wife, a brother and a sister, one friend, two BJU degrees among them) announces its engagement with tradition by partly rewriting “Down to the River to Pray” (“Calvary’s River”) and by inserting a verse from “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” into “Perfect Love.” Engagement with the 21st century comes courtesy of one composition apiece by Ron Block and Keith and Kristyn Getty. Elsewhere, the fine art of translating God’s love and mercy into the kind of gospel-bluegrass you’ll want more of abounds.

Disappointed E.P.

Starflyer 59

The final song’s title shouts out the New York Dolls, but it’s the Ramones whom Jason Martin, Steve Dail, and Charlie Martin are making like on this three-cut quickie: “I’m Disappointed” is “Pinhead” with lyrics emerging from influencer culture and its discontents. The other two are equally simple, blunt, and emotionally claustrophobic. What isn’t Ramones-like at all: the “All praise and glory to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior” in the fine print.

Long Long Road

Ringo Starr

A solid piece of Americana marketed as Starr’s return to country form, 2025’s Look Up now sounds like a prequel to what Starr and his producer T Bone Burnett were really going for. Noteworthy subtleties this time include a smattering of Beach Boys–style vocal choruses and the eerie auroras of Rory Hoffman’s CryptoClav. Less subtly, there’s better-than-solid material. The Molly Tuttle duet “You and I (Wave of Love)” is new. Carl Perkins’ “I Don’t See Me in Your Eyes Anymore” and Starr’s own “Choose Love” are not. Mix it all together and you have a project with timelessness in its crosshairs and a willingness to pull the trigger.

Wednesday Morning 6am: Radio Hits From the Small Hours 1970–1983

Various

All but two of these 22 songs (23 on the two-LP vinyl) were released as singles in the U.S. or in the compiler Bob Stanley’s U.K. or both. The Air Supply, Crystal Gayle, Dolly Parton, Carly Simon, John Denver, and Suzi Quatro and Chris Norman songs were big hits on one chart or another, but unless you grew up in England during the years specified in the title and ate breakfast to BBC Radio 2, you probably haven’t heard them all, let alone in one place. The Hoyt Axton, Don McLean, Paul Simon, Alan Parsons, and Art Garfunkel cuts more than make up for the occasional dud.

Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images

Encore

Need proof that the Mamas & the Papas, “MacArthur Park,” the Association, and Smiley Smile were the chief ingredients in the secret sauce of the best obscure American pop between the British Invasion and disco? Bob Stanley’s 2025 compilation Safe in My Garden: American Pop in the Shadows 1967–1972 (Ace) has your back. Chief cases in point: the Groop’s “A Famous Myth,” Tommy James & the Shondells’ “She,” the Eighth Day’s “How Can I Stop Loving You,” and the Critters’ “A Moment of Being With You.”

Not all of the other 20 selections are as obviously derivative (chief case in point: the New Colony Six’s strangely moving coming-of-age recitation-with-orchestra, “Prairie Grey”), but they all sustain the vibe. That Stanley is a member of the pop trio Saint Etienne and an author of two excellent pop-music history books explains his familiarity with sunshine pop’s more shadowy manifestations. But it also confirms that he doesn’t have to be making these compilations. So it’s awfully nice that he does. —A.O.