Shawn Colvin
?Live? (Nonesuch)
American folk icon of the ?80s Shawn Colvin introduces this live album by singing, ?Too old for a lullaby/Too old for life on the ledge.? With just an acoustic guitar, she then spends the rest of the record turning quiet stories of love and survival into restless lullabies.

In a live setting, her kind of folk music gains a certain desperation only hinted at in her studio releases.

Colvin understands how her compositions shift sonic shape when performed before an audience. She calls her most famous protest song, ?Sunny Came Home,? as a murder ballad. In this context, even her sensitive stuff like ?Polaroids,? ?Nothing Like You? and particularly ?Shotgun Down the Avalanche? evolve into fragile murder balladry.

She transforms into mutant folk-pop Gnarls Barkley?s ?Crazy? and the Talking Heads? ?This Must Be The Place? ? crazy choices but in Colvin?s picking, they?re in the pocket and on the money.

In this album, Colvin actually shoves her love lullabies to the edge. They?re that intimate and ominous at the same time.

Daniel Merriweather
?Love & War? (Sony Music)
His voice is a pliant instrument ? sometimes strident, sometimes defiant, yet literate and articulate either way. The beats are quite simple, the melodies hook-laden enough for pedestrian tastes and sufficiently attractive for fans of old and new school pop.

Voice and music are tangled up in lyrics that express shifting emotions: thoughtful, candid, searching, aching.

Welcome to the electro-pop wonderland of Brit newcomer Daniel Merriweather. His debut opens with a tale of suicide in New York as a meditation on love and money. A clutch of giddy keyboard flourishes and grand power chords later, the album unlocks a cycle of triumphs and tragedies: Love as a battlefield.

In ?Chainsaw? he sings, ?When I get over you/Will I look like a fool/Or just a whole lot older?? For the record, he hardly sounds ridiculous, even as producer Mark Ronson alludes to older music like Motown soul and ?60s pop in laying down ear-hugging tracks.

Listen to the duo bridge the time warp in ?Could You,? transforming ?California Dreaming? by The Mamas and The Papas from adult contemporary hit to current club fare. Then there?s the ubiquitous Motown rhythm and beats configuring ?Not Giving Up? and ?Live By Night? into veritable warhorses.

Despite yesterday?s buzz leaping out of every song, ?Love & War? is a creative groundswell and Merriweather is a name to watch.

Dave Matthews Band
?Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King? (Warner Music)
What is it with DMB? The band writes good-natured, perfectly nice songs and the members seem like good-hearted, perfectly normal people. Unfortunately, those who still care about contemporary music appear to have a divided opinion: They either love or hate the band.

The seventh and latest album from DMB will probably have little effect on the critical divide. Produced after the untimely death of founding member and saxophonist LeRoi Moore, long-time fans might be put off by periodic references to the end of things ? such as the heaven-or-hell choice in ?Why I Am?"

The holdouts, most likely rock and roll snobs, could bend their biases by thinking of the record as a happy jam band?s take on death and loss.

?Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King? is not by any means a concept album on life's Final Question, although a spate of lyrics has the specter of death hovering above the band?s colorful interplay.

It?s a tribute to the band?s collective chops that its distinctive gumbo of pop, rock and New Orleans funk keeps the entire record zesty and alive. The first track starts with a serpentine sax solo before the band kicks into high gear. Midway through the second song, Dave Matthews sings of ?licking from your back to your belly.?

That?s a celebration of life?s major ecstasy. Likewise, most of the showcase numbers in the album (?Shake Me Like a Monkey,? ?Squirm?) wind down in a rousing surge of drums, electric guitars and hot horns. You gotta love a band that plays joyful music in memory of a friend and, quite possibly, to mark the passing of a phase in its checkered career.

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
?Lonely Road? (Virgin)

This new album from The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus is bundled with its 2006 debut, ?Don?t You Fake It,? in a two-CD souvenir set of the quartet?s 2009 tour. It?s a bargain for fans of the Chemical Romance/Fall Out Boy emo-punk crossover. The box set also puts the band?s sophomore effort in perspective.

Rather than borrow from the success of its debut, the Florida-based band shows off its musical muscle. Instead of milking the aggression of its best-known song, ?Face Down,? it tempers its assault for the Van Halen-like metallic crunch of ?You Better Pay,? the addictive power pop of ?Senioritis,? as well as the bloated balladry in the title track.

As a group, RJA has taken a stand against domestic violence, animal cruelty and teen suicide. But these issues can hardly be heard in the nebulous lyrics sung by lead vocalist Ronnie Winter.

The album closes with Winter promising better days ahead. In sonic terms, the lean attack and mean disposition of the band?s previous album add up to a more superior deal.