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Joslyn & the Sweet Compression (Robert Hall Records).Misery,” they polish that wheel until it shines. The Jellybricks aren’t reinventing the wheel, but on songs like “Corner of My Eye” and “Mrs. The latest disc from this veteran Pennsylvania-based band is straightforward power pop. The Jellybricks - Some Kind of Lucky (Wicked Cool Records).Each of the four gets at least one moment in the spotlight on their self-titled debut, and the album is alternately introspective and rocking. The women in question are Brandi Carlisle, Amanda Shires, Maren Morris and Natalie Hemby. The Highwomen are a country-rock supergroup - a female answer to ‘80s band The Highwaymen. The album’s centerpiece is a haunting meditation on Mary Magdalene, repurposed for the trip-hop age. This is a concise masterpiece, drawing equally from Kate Bush and urban music. Magdalene is the long-awaited sophomore set from English artist Tahliah Barnett (better known as FKA Twigs) - and it was worth the wait. It It’s a testimony to Lambert that she can cram 17 tracks onto an album and not overstay her welcome. Grief Creature is her first album since 2014 and it’s a great one, tackling everything from breakups (from both sides of the coin) to living with bipolar disorder to surviving rape. Lambert is a singer-songwriter who writes on piano. Her own music couldn’t be further from hip-hop, though. Mary Lambert came to prominence in 2012 when she sang the hook of Macklemore’s #1 hit “Same Love” - one of the few hip-hop songs to support same sex marriage. Mary Lambert - Grief Creature (Tender Heart Records).2.0 covers a lot of ground - from the radio-friendly rocker “Midnight in Hollywood” to the unabashedly vulnerable ballad “Made for You” to the Beatlesque pop song “Tell Me Tonight.” Then there’s the great opening track, “White Lace and Blue Jeans,” an ode to a woman who is “sometimes wild and crazy, sometimes so austere.” File under “Comeback of the Year.” The resulting album confirms that he had more than one great song in him. Now, frontman Bob Monroe returns with a new album and lineup more than three decades after the fact. The Monroes are best known for their 1982 hit “What Do All the People Know,” one of the great songs of the New Wave era.
These days, it’s easy to throw around phrases like “his/her most personal work to date.” But in Amanda Palmer’s case, if anything, this is an understatement.