Album

After the early patronage of Howe Gelb, Oregon's Matt Ward dished up 2001's End Of Amnesia, one of the most breathtaking albums of recent years. Transfiguration...is another masterclass in deft guitar picking, smudged with piano, harmonica and a voice like honey drizzled onto a dry creekbed. The behind-a-screen-door quality of production adds to the strangeness, while the likes of "Undertaker" often stop, start, scuff around then veer off at a tangent. Somewhere between a Gelb bothering to finish off songs and The Band at their most bucolic.

Frequently awesome country-spacerock from Washington DC

Jazz-tinged folk from prolific, political US singer-songwriter

Left-field concept album from arthouse diva

First since 2001's Returning Jesus from durable duo

Plastic pop tarts' revival confirmed by box set

Two-CD, 33-track comp of pioneering street funk with emphasis on early years

Much-bootlegged material finally given official release

After the largely unheralded triumph of 2001's Tremendous Efforts, Toronto brothers Dallas and Travis Good-along with Sean Dean and sometime Pernice Brother, Mike Belitsky-serve up their finest yet. With Blue Rodeo's Greg Keelor replacing old producer Steve Albini, their trademark mix of Sergio Leone twitch, surf, cowpunk and desert-rock is cushioned with Lee Hazlewood-like ballads ("Oak Ridges", "The Story's Often Told"), fat horns ("Mile Over Mecca") and spooky duets (Dallas and mother Margaret's "A Steep Climb"), without compromising intensity.

Folk-rock giant follows up last year's Street Cries