MEKONS (4 STARS -- SEE MY REVIEW) first Mekons album of new material in five years, NATURAL moves further in the direction staked out by JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT (2000) and OUT OF OUR HEADS (2002) -- folky, deliberately non-heroic, living in the cracks of the Beast of Capital

JOHN DOE (5 STARS -- SEE MY REVIEW) another great album from Doe, truly an under-appreciated singer -- his best since FREEDOM IS... from 2000 (see my review)

MANU CHAO) latest from the voice of the global justice movement, and you can dance to it, too!

BJORK) "Earth Intruders" is the first single from Bjork's new one, with tribal rhythms and spiced with progressive politics. Not a return to POST-style dance music though, VOLTA continues the more introspective turn of Bjork's recent albums.

ANTIBALAS) latest from the political Afrobeat unit, keeping Fela's style vital into the new millennium

QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE) another great rock album from the Queens!

MEAT PUPPETS) This is something I thought I'd never see, a reunited Meat Puppets (with brothers Curt and Cris, but not the original drummer Derrick Bostrom). It continues to be Curt's band, with or without others, though, and is a mellower version than the last go-around in 2000, the under-rated GOLDEN LIES (see my review).

LIARS) a stripped-down, rock-oriented outing

RICHARD THOMPSON) Sufi bard Richard Thompson plugs in his guitar for the first time on record for several years, a return to the sound of great 1990s Capitol albums like MIRROR BLUE and MOCK TUDOR, and an anti-war song "'Dad's Gonna Kill Me" about a U.S. soldier in Baghdad

STEVE EARLE) Steve Earle is now a New Yorker, and he has a really long beard. Mainly acoustic, with Dust Brothers beats, and a tribute to Peter Seeger, "Steve's Hammer."

MARK KNOPFLER) nearly 30 years now since "Sultans of Swing," Knopfler with a mellow set of Celtic-tinged songs

NEKO CASE (LIVE -- 2003) Austin City Limits, 2003 -- Neko was on tour at the time behind her 2002 record BLACKLISTED

MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER) a political set from the singer-songwriter

LUCINDA WILLIAMS) brilliant producer Hal Wilner is in the seat for Lucinda's latest, her most eclectic yet, branching out from alt.country

VARIOUS) covers of Lennon songs by an all-star line-up -- the originals are better, but hey, it's to raise money for Amnesty International and for Darfur

GRATEFUL DEAD (1976 -- LIVE) This is a 3-disc set from the last night of 1976, the year the Dead returned from their vacation. I don't know how it's decided which sets are released as From the Vault (like this one), and which as Dick's Picks -- do you?

NEIL YOUNG (1971 -- LIVE) a solo live acoustic show from Toronto 1/19/71, after AFTER THE GOLDRUSH and with 5 songs from the forthcoming HARVEST, #2 release in Neil's Archive Performance series ("Neil's Picks").