Slow

Starflyer 59

Twenty-two years after this band’s debut, Jason Martin’s sotto voce singing, insinuating hooks, ominous textures, and varying tempos still mesh so seamlessly that his terse, vernacular lyrics seem not only natural but also inevitable. This time, the lyrics keep returning to the natural and inevitable phenomenon known as aging. Admittedly, anyone can wonder where the years have gone (the title cut) or question whether nostalgia is all it’s cracked up to be (“Numb”). Movingly sympathizing with the plight of a novice retiree, however, is another matter (“Retired”).

Big Day in a Small Town

Brandy Clark

Clark called her 2013 album 12 Stories because each song had a plot replete with characters and conflicts. She didn’t call this one 11 More Stories, but it has plots, characters, and conflicts too. The most interesting character tells her man that if he wants the girl next door he should go next door. The second-most-interesting wishes future payback on her hellion daughter. Some of the characters need their mouths washed out with soap. All of them are apparently too busy making numerous ends meet to bother.

Where the Light Shines Through

Switchfoot

If not the best album ever overseen by Jon and Tim Foreman, this one is certainly among their least derivative (of U2 or anyone else they’ve ever brought to mind) and one of their most varied. The cell-phone-waving anthems sound as fully inhabited as the modern-rock tracks. Only Lecrae’s blinkered cameo feels forced. “The Day That I Found God” is perfect. And in the nearly perfect “If the House Burns Down Tonight,” Jon joins Anne Bradstreet and David Byrne in a great, quintessentially American tradition.

Believe

Take 6

This album has little in common with One, the 2012 Take 6 tour de force to which these Ross Vannelli–produced (and, in all but one case, co-written) tracks serve as a belated follow-up. For one thing, they include instruments other than the group members’ voices. For another, whereas One’s songs celebrated “vertical” agape, Believe’s play out along mostly horizontal lines. Neither difference is a detriment, not with new jack swing as svelte as the vocal harmonies and horizontal agape as poignant as “When Angels Cry.”

Encore

Ever since its appearance 42 years ago, Van Morrison’s It’s Too Late to Stop Now has been regarded as one of the greatest live albums ever. Now, SMG has released It’s Too Late to Stop Now ... Volumes II, III, IV & DVD, a box set of previously unheard recordings from the same run of 1973-1974 shows that Warner Bros. cherry-picked for Volume I. Some of the 54 newly available performances are simply different versions of the original 20. But 17 titles make their debut.

A few of them (“Buona Sera,” “Bein’ Green,” maybe “Snow in San Anselmo”) feel less than essential. The ones that don’t, however (“Sweet Thing,” “Moonshine Whiskey,” maybe “Hey Good Lookin’”), add considerably to Morrison’s reputation as the most in-the-moment blue-eyed soul singer of his time. The DVD, meanwhile, adds the sight of Morrison doing the chorus girl kicks during “Caravan” that until now one had to watch The Last Waltz to see. —A.O.