The album’s immediacy is impossible to escape.

Anyone feeling the mildest desire to get on with their day may reach for the volume control and reduce the endless drone to background level – hardly the point of the exercise.

The guitar solos are the album’s single saving grace.

Melodically bewitching throughout, Nadler’s vocals are as nuanced and strong as Dunn’s production.

This is a one-joke album, but the joke is a good one, and more than a few bona fide country fans will be convinced.

From the opening refrain of Whistleblowers, Spectre is an astounding work.

Shonna Tucker may have left the fold for a solo career, but in Hood and Cooley the Truckers still have two of the most eloquent songwriters working in Americana.

All in all though, a fair return.

Pritchard is at his self-deprecatory best on the witty but barbed break-up song Yeah Yeah Girl, while producer/guitarist Tim Bradshaw deserves credit for so fearlessly jettisoning the indie comfort blanket on the stylish, Chris Isaak-esque noir of Posters.

Acoustic At The Ryman is an unplugged album done right. A live record that’s not just for hardcore fans, it’s a must for all lovers of alt.country.

No Squeeze fan is going to feel short-changed.

Their best--and most radical-sounding--LP to date.

Reader’s own explanatory notes enrich these universal songs with a personal edge, completing a particularly satisfying package.

All in all, another envelope-pushing opus from a pathfinding musician whose talent doesn’t recognise boundaries.

High on ambition, musicianship and charm the end result is a set of well-meaning if often uninspiring afro-rock.

Deceptively simple, Morning Phase rewards repeated immersion.

The overall sense of experimentation arguably makes Dizzy Heights Finn’s most surprising and accomplished release since Crowded House’s Together Alone, the work of confident tunesmith daring to stretch himself.

Making up for lost time, Strut have produced a collection that’s broad in scope, detailed in its sleevenotes and packed with a raft of outstanding music.

From the barroom country-rock of Shouting Match to the tear-stained seasonal misgivings of A Very Sorry Christmas, the whimsical warmth of If Only You Knew Her and the back porch baroque of Out Of The Lime, this is perfect and brilliantly realised melodic pop.

It never feels quite enough to warrant the repeated listens that any one of Malkmus’ other solo records deserve, which feels something of a travesty.

This tribute has been a long timing coming, but it doesn’t quite do justice to an artist whose integrity ultimately saw him turn his back on fame.

If you want to hear the emphasis of some of Callahan’s most satisfyingly minimalist lyrics shift slightly in this foreign landscape, this is a keeper. Otherwise, it’s merely a cool, respectful diversion that’s way better in practice than it looks on paper.

A bygone feel permeates a few of the songs; the joyful saloon rock of Frankie Fell In Love takes listeners back to The River, and Down In The Hole recalls the more reflective Bruce of Born In The USA and Tunnel Of Love.

Its return is to be celebrated, not just for the bonus disc of a previously unavailable live show, but because it illustrates the formation of a blueprint (tough country-rock, literate confessional lyrics) that would serve Williams well for the next quarter century.

Strutting arrogance is his game, and it’s sometimes an uneasy mix with the ghosts of those whose spirit he aims to evoke.

Everything is despatched with verve and attitude, respectful of country music traditions but filtered through a broader, more urbane worldview.

She steps gingerly out of her comfort zone again on I Never Wear White, its harsh guitars veering towards garage rock, and the banjo-led angry man blues of Song Of The Stoic. If any of this proves too much for less adventurous fans, the literate whimsy of Crack In The Wall and Silver Bridge trek across more familiar terrain.

It’s a relatively muted return, and we can only hope it’s a casual curtain-raiser to something fresher and more tangible to come.