Music Library: The Bunch, Burial, Butch Hancock

The Bunch - Rock On. This is the sound of a young Richard and Linda Thompson doing a bunch of rockabilly and country covers with a number of other Brit-folk luminaries, including Sandy Denny and Trevor Lucas. Best track: Linda Thompson (as yet unmarried to Richard, so listed as Linda Peters) duetting with Sandy Denny on the Everly Brothers' "When Will I Be Loved?"

Burial - Untrue. Not really my thing, but I don't hate it, either. This is an electronica album (dubstep, they call it) filled with moody synthesizers, heavily reverbed and digitally manipulated vocals, and skittery rhythms. If I had heard it before I got it from eMusic, I wouldn't have downloaded it. I was really just curious about the near-universal accolades. And it sounds to me like the kind of music that would be blaring at an expensive haircut shop or hip thrift store, which doesn't really feel all that necessary.

Butch Hancock - Own and Own. This is a best-of by the folkiest (Woody-est?) of the Lubbock crew. Hancock is a West Texas songwriter (and a member of the Flatlanders, along with Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore) with a penchant for a clever turn of phrase and a powerful emotional undercurrent running through his songs.