The Band Jericho

Jericho was a surprise. The reunited Band, minus guitarist Robbie Robertson, created an album that built on their strengths by using carefully selected contemporary songwriters and covers. Although it lacked the resonance of Music From Big Pink or even Stage Fright, the group sounded fresh and it was a better album than most of the Band's solo records. High on the Hog, the second album by the reunited Band, isn't quite as good but it has a number of stellar moments. The key to the album's success isn't the material – they're saddled with a couple of weak songs – but the group's interplay. By now, the musicians have developed a sympathetic interaction that sounds ancient but still living, breathing and vital. It's a joy to hear them play and that's what carries High on the Hog over its rough spots.

Manchester’s The Slow Readers Club return with their fourth album, The Joy Of The Return. Opening to an energetic blend of driving drums and infectious guitar lines, the opening track builds through evocative verses and anthemic choruses, imbued with their idiosyncratic brand of insightful and confronting lyricism and set against relentlessly danceable and energy-provoking instrumentation. “‘All I Hear’ is about a lack of agency and an inability to affect change. That there’s something happening, and you have no choice but to go along with it,” explains singer Aaron Starkie.

Considering the amount of quality music the ad hoc Canadian singer/songwriter "supergroup" has released under the Blackie & the Rodeo Kings moniker – five albums, including a double from 1996-2007 – this 14-song, 55-minute set should have used the extra 20 minutes of its CD playing time to better advantage. The trio – Colin Linden, Tom Wilson, and Stephen Fearing, all solo artists with well-regarded catalogs of their own – began life by covering the songs of journeyman Canadian songwriter Willie P. Bennett before expanding into original material…

Teeming with revved-up riffs and apocalyptic imagery, the post-hardcore group’s first album since 2005 reasserts their status as the most merciless band in their scene.