Josh Ritter – Beast in it’s Tracks
Masterful break-up albums are nothing new in music (personal favorites include Blood on the Tracks, Sea Change, Noah and The Whale’s The First Days of Spring). However, with The Beast in Its Tracks, the Moscow, Idaho native has crafted both the newest addition into the annals of the true greats, and he has crafted a personal journey of recorded heartbreak that is unlike any break-up album that came before it. The differentiation rests in Ritter’s heroic ability to turn pain and anger into intimate songs of nearly unthinkable empathy, kindness and, ultimately, optimism. Read the full review on No Depression

Robyn Hitchcock – Love from London
His capacity to surprise is in full effect on Love From London. Although the album’s psychedelic moments are quintessential Hitchcock—the jagged electric-pop jams “Fix You” and “I Love You,” the cosmic oceanic coda of “End Of Time”—the record overall is quite subdued. (The major exception to this rule is the album’s rowdiest moment: “Devil On A String,” a Bowie-circa-Aladdin Sane glam-blues pastiche.) Read the full review on The AV Club

Jimi Hendrix – People, Hell & Angels
The gifts continue to arrive, this time with the release of People, Hell & Angels. For Hendrix fanatics, each new installment signifies an event and is to be celebrated accordingly. Of course the aficionados will know in advance how much of this material has appeared, in various forms, on previous releases – both sanctioned and not. For the merely curious, or anyone who has not yet properly experienced Hendrix (are you experienced?), this is not the place to start. For anyone else, this disc, like the aforementioned Valleys of Neptune affords the chance to get caught up on a dozen tracks all in one spot as opposed to the aforementioned bootlegs. Put another way, this is hardly essential unless anything Hendrix did is essential and you want to hear everything he did. Read the full review on Pop Matters