Roy Orbison
The Soul of Rock and Roll
(Columbia/Legacy)
One of the pleasant surprises of the season, The Soul of Rock and Roll spans 15 labels and four decades to offer a complete portrait of Orbison. Though he was best known for his unearthly voice and black sunglasses, this set proves there was much more to Orbison. It showcases his revved-up rockabilly, unearths affecting demos, and cherry-picks the best songs of his final decades. The heart of the set is material Orbison wrote during the 1960s, mini-operas of loneliness and longing, sophisticated concoctions that remain mysterious, doom-struck, and indelibly dramatic. Classics like "Running Scared" still resonate, but it's lesser-known gems like "Crawling Back" and "Night Life" that ultimately make this set so compelling. —Jeff Jackson
Neil Young
Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968
(Reprise)
This latest dispatch from the seemingly bottomless pit known as the Neil Young Archives Performance Series is an amazing artifact. The 1968 document, comprised solely of Young's voice on the left track and his guitar on the right track, features a 22-year-old running through a repertoire for which many an octogenarian musician would give his right leg. Simple renderings of wonders like "On the Way Home," "I've Been Waiting for You" and "Broken Arrow" serve as an acoustic calm before the electric storm of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, released only months later. The songs are interspersed with engaging spoken bits. —Matthew Dube
Uxia
Eterno Navegar
(World Village)
Uxia is considered a diva in Galicia, but I doubt she'll garner that accolade outside of northwestern Spain. Eterno Navegar is an album that would have been much better had Uxia chosen her material more wisely. She has a gorgeous voice, and when she sticks to songs with strong rhythms, such as the pop bop "Danza Ritual" or "Berenguela," which is framed by cascading West African guitar riffs, Uxia weaves vocal magic. Alas, too much of the album is devoted to fado, Cape Verdean morna, Brazilian jazz, and other light arrangements. These styles require singers to have presence as well as good voices, and Uxia isn't up to the task. She's a pop singer adrift in a smooth jazz world. She sets foot on many shores, but is rooted in none. —Rob Weir
The Alchemystics
Live 2008
(independent)
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Alchemystics' new live album is that the band is capable of delivering such complex arrangements with dead-on skill in an onstage setting. From the first strains, vocalists overlap in ever-changing combinations, and the many rhythmic hits fall beautifully. The album settles into a comfortable series of grooves mixing hip-hop, dub and reggae with singing, rapping, and wide-ranging textures, primarily Jamaican-flavored. This is a band with a winning combination of sounds and a habit of delivering non-stop grooves, and this live album is a fantastic vehicle to bring those grooves straight to your inner ear. —James Heflin
