Raising Sand
Robert Plant & Alison Kraus
Talk about going back to one’s roots. Plant abandons his Led Zeppelin rock god screeching and adopts a softer, more soulful voice in an unexpectedly wonderful partnership with Alison Kraus. Bluegrass, blues, pedal-steel guitars, fiddles, and acoustic guitars (even the jingle of the tambourine) abound. This is the kind of music you hear in a dimly lit, smoke-filled lounge. These are lyrics that are sorrowful, beautiful, and melancholy. And this is a duet that really works well together. Click on the image to buy now!
 

Sino
By Café Tacuba
Mexico’s premier rock band finally has a new album, their first since 2003, and Sino is like an unexpected but welcome encore. It has a very different vibe from Cuatro Caminos, and even the band’s other work. There is a maturity—one might say almost a forced maturity—that you find so commonly in rock bands that start out pushing the envelope and then mellow over time. The music has been stripped down almost to its bare essentials, but there are still some anthemic tracks: “53100” will remind you of “Who Are You” and “Volver a Comenzar” could be a New Order track in Spanish. Click on the image to buy now!