This is Where I Live

William Bell

Until now, it seemed as if Bell’s nearly flawless 20-track compilation from 2007 would be his last gift to the world. It turns out, however, that at 77 the writer of “You Don’t Miss Your Water” still has plenty of aphoristic common sense to dispense. It’s tempting to credit his renaissance to John Leventhal, this album’s producer, primary co-composer, and chief instrumentalist. But, truth be told, Bell sounds so invested in this batch of instant Southern-soul classics that it may be the other way around.

God's Highway

Sandra McCracken

More than McCracken’s meditative Americana melodies or the unpretentious approach to them that she and her band take, it’s the ache in her voice that makes the Scriptures that she sets to music sound like spontaneous expressions of faith, hope, and love. If, in other words, you find over-familiarity blunting the impact of the Lord’s Prayer, Jude 23-24, 1 Peter, Psalms 104 and 131, or doctrinal declarations such as “Father, Son, and Spirit … Three in one,” McCracken will help you hear, feel, and believe in them afresh.

The Complete Capitol Singles: 1957-1966

Buck Owens and The Buckaroos

Twenty of this two-disc set’s 56 recordings hit the country Top 10, with 12 reaching No. 1. But except for “Act Naturally,” which Ringo sang with The Beatles, they’ll be news to rock ’n’ roll fans, many of whom only remember Owens as a picker and a grinner on Hee Haw. There is humor in these songs, but there’s honky-tonk pathos too, and Owens could sing both to the hilt. As for his instrumental smash “Buckaroo,” it was the “Walk, Don’t Run” of the Bakersfield sound.

Alone

Pretenders

Chrissie Hynde pays homage to the F-bomb that she infamously dropped on the first Pretenders album by dropping one on this album’s gleefully misanthropic title cut. But, unless the more retro elements of the funky junkyard vibe coaxed by the producer Dan Auerbach from his hired musicians counts, it’s her only backward-looking (and only vulgar) moment. Where Hynde has been hiding these songs is anyone’s guess, but she hasn’t put so many good ones in one place since she packed 11 onto Packed! 27 years ago.

ENCORE

With their 2009 album In the Music, the Scottish band Trashcan Sinatras entered a period of middle-aged reconciliation—with their perennial cult status, with writing songs rooted in contentment, and with the perfectionism driving them to craft melodies that equal or exceed those of their endearing 1990s output. One song, “Prisons,” even invoked the language of Christian conversion. “Gotta find me a preacher man,” sang Frank Reader. “Maybe he’ll show me / a vision of the day He was risen, / and I’ll rise right out of this prison.”

Wild Pendulum, the group’s latest, offers nothing as spiritually direct, but the contentment and the melodies persist, making the Sinatras’ cult status harder than ever to fathom. Certainly no currently active popsters have mastered a sound more unashamedly gorgeous, with shimmering orchestral effects nudging the lyrics toward wisdom. Case in point: “The Family Way,” in which an overworked blue-collar household head discovers the joys of discovering the greenness of his own grass.