Gold Record, Bill Callahan, LP

You heard it here first - it's the Gold Record we always knew Bill Callahan had in him! Last summer, he returned from a silence of years - now, he's raring to go with another new one already. The abiding humanity of latter-day Callahan is highlighted by dark plumes of caustic wit upending standards of our everyday life and the songs that celebrate it: the job, the wife, the TV, the neighbors. Bill slips easily into his characters, whether they're easy people or not - and the cross-hatch of their light and shadow is unpredictably entertaining in the manner that belongs only one singer in this whole wide world: we're still talking about Bill Callahan.