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In the tradition of any good country troubadour, Rocky Votolato knows his muse lies at the bottom of a highball glass. His fifth and most graceful album nurtures the hushed, wispy harmonies of 2006's Makers (yep, named after the whiskey) in somber tales of nights spent drinking alone, missing his family, and staving off the weariness that descends long before last call.

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Tiger Army practically invented modern American psychobilly -- that rousing, darkly romantic amalgam of punk and rockabilly -- but their fourth album is a schizophrenic inversion of everything that made the genre fun. Instead of breakneck strumming, the Los Angeles trio two-steps into pinched new wave ("As the Cold Rain Falls").

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For the past 15 years, Mary Timony has been an inspiration to teenage girls, and she's still committed to the cause. The pro-choice "Pause/Off" ("Paws off, Supreme Court misters / Don't mess around with me and my sisters") brings to mind the height of '90s fem rock.

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"Babe, it's time we gave something new a try," Paul Banks sings on "No I in Threesome," a surprisingly amorous track from Interpol's third album.

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Rare is the 24-piece symphonic rock collective that takes criticism constructively, but singer/songwriter Tim DeLaughter and his Dallas-based crew seem to have done exactly that. The Fragile Army trades the cluttered arrangements and too-long instrumental passages of their first two albums for tightly focused orchestral pop with big Technicolor hooks.

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Of today's numerous punk bands reminding us that the Jesus Lizard and their queasy ilk didn't die in vain, this quartet of mopes from Allentown, Pennsylvania, might be the best. Their blown-amp sludge punk demonstrates, as noise-rock godfather Steve Albini once put it, "how fucking holy distortion sounds on just about anything." Amen, brother.