Lynne's follow-up to 2003's Identity Crisis works the same sparse, moody territory, but if the title of the former spoke to her self-esteem at the time, Suit Yourself shows her being more confident in every way. Again acting as her own producer, Lynne took the demo tapes she made in her California home studio to Nashville, where she augmented her first-take vocals with guitar (the Wallflowers' Michael Ward), keyboards (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' Benmont Tench), bass, drums, pedal steel, Dobro, and mandolin, employing those instruments merely as brush strokes on a wide-open canvas of voice and emotion. Throughout, Lynne strives to make the project so relaxed that a listener feels as if he's sitting cross-legged in the room-the first track begins with studio chatter, and elsewhere you can hear ice cubes clinking in a glass and the sound of someone pushing the stop button on a tape recorder. For those who prefer a more polished production, this fly-on-the-wall approach may be disconcerting, especially as the occasional track seems unfinished or a bit too rough, with an out-of-tune guitar or a rhythmic disconnect between singer and players. But ultimately, the album satisfies with the honesty and strength of the material, which ranges from Lynne's killer cover of guest Tony Joe White's "Rainy Night in Georgia" (here titled simply "Track 12") to the smoky groove of "I Cry Everyday," the wistful ballad "Old Time's Sake," and the Waylon Jennings-like "Iced Tea. " Speaking of outlaws, "Johnny Met June," one of the most memorable tracks, details the Cashes' "meeting" on the far banks of the Jordan. Lynne wrote it the day Johnny died. -Alanna Nash.

There's probably something worth calling a "concept album" buried deep in the slo-fi, psychedelic-tinged alt-country grooves of Make the Robot Cowboys Cry, with its cryptic references to Columbus, Charles Darwin and Spanish conquistador Ponce De Leon's search for the mythical Fountain of Youth, the third album (or EP, clocking in at 28 minutes) from the soporific, Gram Parsons-influenced Beachwood Sparks. Like Grandaddy's Sophtware Slump in both tone and theme (and robots), there is something a little Luddite and back-to-nature about Make the Robot Cowboys Cry, with "Galapagos" exploring a fantasy about reverse evolution ("fins were now my skin and bones") and "Ponce De Leon Blues" (the Byrds gone stratospheric) expressing a desire for time to stand still. Beachwood Sparks have yet to match Flaming Lips or Mercury Rev for innovation or Grandaddy for tingling tunesmithery but their hypnotic glaze-banjos, steel guitars and harmonica hanging as listlessly as drooping sails on a still day-is finally paying dividends. -Kevin Maidment.