Two Tongues
Two Tongues
(Vagrant)

There are so many ways to make errors in judgment and lapses in taste. The wrong tie spoils the outfit. Too much salt ruins the soup. So it is with Two Tongues: crappy singing cripples the band. Comprised of members of Say Anything and Saves the Day, Two Tongues has some appealingly knotted guitar lines punctuated with pregnant gaps and dramatic explosive surges—plenty of tension and release. But it’s all for nothing when the pipsqueak emo whine-sighing drives you to shut it off in a hurry.  —John Adamian

Anne Briggs
Anne Briggs
(Water)

As interest in the British folk revival crests, Anne Briggs’ famed 1971 debut finally reaches these shores. The enigmatic musician recorded only 30 songs, but influenced a generation of singers. This album focuses on her breathtaking voice—six of its tracks are a cappella! Anne Briggs represents some sort of square-root of the freak-folk movement, a radical distillation of form and content. Her haunting versions of “Reynardine” and “The Snow It Melts the Soonest” are uncannily hypnotic, ancient and immediate. The purity of purpose in these performances can be daunting. They spurn casual listening and plunge the listener into a world of tradition that seemed comforting only because we weren’t paying attention. —Jeff Jackson

Chris Vallillo
Abraham Lincoln in Song
(Gin Ridge Music)

Presidents’ Day doesn’t inspire a lot of music, but since Obama-Lincoln comparisons are in the air, check this one out. Illinois-based singer and guitar wizard Vallillo avoids the modern folk music conceit of jettisoning tradition in the name of hipness. Instead he skillfully chronicles the Civil War era and explores its diversity on 13 tracks and in succinct liner notes. We hear songs of Lincoln’s youth, ballyhooed campaign odes, tales from the Underground Railroad, mid-battle love songs, stirring martial music, and mournful offerings. Okay, so maybe Stephen Foster never envisioned “Hard Times Come Again No More” on a Nashville steel guitar, but I can’t imagine he would have objected.  —Rob Weir

Charlie Louvin
Sings Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs
(Tompkins Square)

The Louvin Brothers, aside from their exquisite, tight harmonies, are also remembered and adored for their dark apocalyptic Christian world view, and Charlie, one half of the sublime brother-harmony duo, visits some fittingly grim subjects (murder ballads and disaster songs) on this one. He’s incomplete without the heavenly high vocal lines supplied by his long-dead brother Ira, but it’s comforting to know that Charlie Louvin’s morbid streak remains intact more than 60 years after he started recording.  —John Adamian