The Enemy – Streets In The Sky (2012)

The band's debut album, recorded sometime in 2007/2008 prior to the band's extended hiatus and originally released in a limited run of fifty handmade, screen-printed copies. Features the original Myrrors lineup of Nik Rayne, Grant Beyschau, and bassist Claira Safi, who also designed the now somewhat iconic sleeve. These are quite literally the first recordings made by the band, cut at Nik's house, quick and loose and on the fly. That original self-released edition sold out long ago, but the album has since been reissued internationally multiple times on CD, cassette, and LP by labels like Fuzz Club Records, Cardinal Fuzz, and Rewolfed Gloom.

Throughout the distinct phases of their recording career, from straight rhythmic gospel to Civil Rights protest anthems, to what might be called soul folk to the funky grit of their Stax years, the Staple Singers always delivered songs that said something, and even when the grooves of songs like 1971's "Respect Yourself" or 1972's reggae-tinged "I'll Take You There" were sending people to the dancefloors, the lyrics were hopeful, message-driven missives of support for a better self, a better community, and a better world. Stax Profiles is a fine anthology which collects tracks recorded between 1968 and 1975 during the Staple Singers productive stay at Stax Records, and includes both "Respect Yourself" and "I'll Take You There," as well as the powerful "City in the Sky," "Touch a Hand, Make a Friend," "Are You Sure," with its brilliantly staggered vocals, and the Steve Cropper produced "Long Walk to D.C." There isn't a single lame track here, and while there are lengthier collections of the Staple Singers' Stax years on the market, this one has a wonderful flow.

The Future Sound Of London's Translations takes their very essence, subverts it, turns it on it's head, twists and nurtures it. This is an album that makes a global journey of rare insight and beauty through the history of musical composition. Translations grew from the seminal 'Papua New Guinea' and is a transportive journey through the world of music and image, an album which is a stepping stone between their former works and their new incarnation.

This might be the best debut album ever delivered by an American blues band, a bold, powerful, hard-edged, soulful essay in electric blues with a native Southern ambience. Some lingering elements of the psychedelic era then drawing to a close can be found in "Dreams," along with the template for the group's on-stage workouts with "Whipping Post," and a solid cover of Muddy Waters' "Trouble No More."

As part of Columbia/Legacy's ongoing celebration of Johnny Cash's 80th birthday in 2012, the label assembled a series of compilations under the rubric "The Greatest." This 19-track collection covers ground so obvious that it's a wonder there hasn't been a similar compilation before: it showcases Cash's chart-toppers. Strictly speaking, some of these singles did not reach number one – 1958's "The Ways of a Woman in Love" and 1979's "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky" peaked at two, while 1958's "What Do I Care" topped out at eight – and a good case could be made that "Get Rhythm," the charting flip of "I Walk the Line," should have been here, but that's ultimately nitpicking as this provides a single-disc overview of Cash's charting years unlike any other compilation on the market.