Album: Lucinda Williams, Blessed (Lost Highway)

Americana's most ripped and bleeding soul gets down with a Don Was co-production, which means presence and rough warmth in the ear.

The songs are mostly shaped in her traditional chord-to-chord method, their melodies looping behind the tempo of the guitars and, for once, in a spirit of uplift. Sort of. The production's fatness certainly suits her self-dramatising tone. Guitars? A lot of Stonesy ones by Greg Leisz and Val McCallum, a few by Elvis Costello.