Townes Van Zandt
Texas Rain: The Texas Hill Country Recordings
Townes Van Zandt's reputation as the finest singer/songwriter to hail from the musically rich state of Texas is well deserved. He was able to explore the dark recesses of human experience with a poet's touch that borrowed equally from Hank Williams and Bob Dylan — his best work stands shoulder to shoulder with theirs. Unfortunately, drink, drugs and depression plagued the troubadour's near 30-year recording career and the results are uneven. Texas Rain is one of the highpoints, a series of duets recorded over several years prior to his death in 1997. They've been artfully fleshed out by producer Kevin Eggers.

Highlights include Marie, where Van Zandt and Willie Nelson swap verses with grave sincerity on the haunting tale of a homeless couple trying to cope with a baby and the chill impending autumn. Emmylou Harris, Kathy Mattea, Doug Sahm and Jerry Jeff Walker also bring out the best in Van Zandt on tunes with themes that range from pining for lost love to celebrating barroom pleasures. Poncho and Lefty, featuring Tex-Mex icon Freddy Fender and the Mariachi brass, has an authentic borderland feel absent on the original or the 1983 smash by Nelson and Merle Haggard.

In all, Van Zandt's earthy, plaintive vocals have never sounded better on tape. His empathetic collaborators and the inventive production — ranging from searing electric blues guitar solos to sax interludes and Western swing fiddles — makes this disc an extremely welcome addition to the Van Zandt catalog and a solid place to start for listeners unacquainted with The Lonestar State's most talented cowboy poet (Tomato).
—Wade Tatangelo

Hedder
Ventilate
It really says something about the current state of modern rock that Hedder's debut album is better than most of its ilk — and still not any great shakes. Most of Ventilate inhabits the murky space between classic rock-influenced radio fodder (Creed, Nickelback) and its more jagged nu-metal brethren. Excepting the conspicuously out-of-place, pop-grounded and frightfully generic Save Your Face (if you have any trouble picking out the big single on a rock album, just search the credits for the one song mixed by a different, slightly more famous guy), it's a fairly metallic, contemporary affair. It's also a little tough to pin down: Dynamic changes, Eastern melodies and jazzy rhythms keep cropping up, elevating the material slightly above the pedestrian. However, for every intriguing bit of riffage, there's an equal and opposite flaw — here, Matt Roberts' postured, overwrought vocals spring easily, and painfully, to mind. It's certainly not a great album. Or, perhaps, even a good one. After all, how much of a compliment is well, it's got more attitude than Default? (Gold Circle, www.goldcircle.com)
— Scott Harrell

Dash
Sonic Boom
The new release from the band formerly known as Dash Rip Rock, Sonic Boom, is a twang-rock hybrid similar to the sounds forged by Gram Parsons and 1970s doper-country acts such as Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. On any given track, Dash is as likely to rock as it is to do the Ray Price shuffle or, as in the case of We'll Waltz Again, play in time. Solid through and through, Bill Davis and his new cohorts are able to capture the energy they bring to barrooms and clubs nationwide with a tight set of a dozen originals and a smile-inducing cover of The Beatles' I Don't Wanna Spoil The Party. (Write On)
—Wade Tatangelo

Tom Russell
Borderland
Had Lou Reed stalked the hills of the U.S.-Mexico border as opposed to the mean streets of Gotham and augmented his detail-intensive prose with Hammond B3 organ and accordion instead of Bowie-esque synthesizers and distorted six-strings, he might have created songs reminiscent of fellow New York-based singer-songwriter Tom Russell. The troubadour boasts a haunting baritone and cinematic narrative skills. After 12 years of recording, Russell is one of the most underrated voices on the Americana circuit. His albums continue to sound more polished with each release. Whether singing about Orson Welles and Marlene Dietrich trading lines in Touch of Evil, drug smugglers in The Hills of Old Juarez, or perseverance in the rollicking The Next Thing Smokin', Russell paints vivid images that draw the listener smack in the middle of his red, dusty Borderland. The setting remains constant throughout, but the myriad emotions ingrained in these tunes runs the gamut of human experience. Unlike many other lyric-intensive folk albums that grow tedious halfway through, the sonic thrust of Borderland ranges from straight-up Texas rock to acoustic folk and bouncy, squeeze-box drenched swing. (Hightone)
— Wade Tatangelo