Joel and Ethan Coen have long established themselves as film stylists without peer: from Blood Simple to Fargo, their movies have never been less than fascinating, and there has never been any question that their films could not have been made by anyone else. In T-Bone Burnett, the producer of the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, they have finally met their match: ...

Manufacturer: Mercury Records Ltd (London)

Typecast them as rootin', tootin' cowboy rockers if you will, but Aha Shake Heartbreak shows the Kings Of Leon have more to offer than beardy rock classicism. Indeed, for all the talk of Neil Young or Creedence Clearwater Revival, the outfit this Nashville-based band of brothers (and one cousin) resembles most is New York new-wavers The Strokes: it's there in Nathan Followill's minimal, ...

Manufacturer: Handmedown/RCA

Manufacturer: Rough Trade

Kings of Leon are four members of the Followill family, three brothers and a cousin. The title Youth & Young Manhood is an accurate summary of their places in life--the oldest member, drummer Nathan Followill, is 23, while the youngest, bass player Jared Followill, is just 16. The brothers had a childhood that was both eccentric and peripatetic, living out of a car while their preacher ...

Manufacturer: Hand Me Down

Martha is the youngest of the Wainwright clan (with brother Rufus two years her senior), and she's also still the one with the most to prove, even after her eponymous 2005 debut captured hearts aplenty via a delightful bundle of timeless folk ruminations with intriguingly fraught seams--and one infamously foul-mouthed diatribe against her father (folk singer Loudon Wainwright III). It's hard to ...

Manufacturer: Drowned in Sound

Manufacturer: EMI

Manufacturer: Mercury

Manufacturer: City Slang

Emmylou Harris has always had a way with woe. On All I Intended To Be, she seems more maudlin than ever as she sings her way through songs about loss, heartbreak, even the odd funeral. Of course, this is the kind of material Harris has always been comfortable with, but as her career and years advance gracefully, so her gliding soprano seems to breathe ever more refinement and soul into her ...

Manufacturer: Warner

Manufacturer: Island/American/Columbia/Legacy