Henry Carrigan

Cascading banjo rolls swirl and eddy in the opening measures of the “Dark Side,” launching Justin Hiltner’s achingly beautiful solo debut, 1992. The sonic spareness of “Dark Side” conveys an emotional vulnerability that runs through every song on the album, which features Hiltner’s warm vocals and his banjo

From the very first guitar notes of Ruthie Foster’s exuberantly joyous new album, Healing Time, to the quietly meditative, almost melancholic, final strains, we’re lifted up, exalted, transformed. Foster’s capacious vocals soar into the stratosphere at one moment and descend slowly and tenderly into warm, delicate tones

A slithering resonator guitar note glides through “Deep Stays Down,” the opening track on Larkin Poe’s new album, Blood Harmony, snaking its way through a hypnotic Mississippi blues. The swampy rhythm evokes the murkiness of a society in which secrets remain buried from generation to generation — “the river runs

The opening track of Witness starts sparely, with Angela Easterling’s aching, crystalline vocals ascending over Brandon Turner’s Rusty Young-like lap steel guitar licks. The song builds layer by layer, evoking the exquisite pain of looking back folded into the clear-eyed embrace of moving forward. Easterling’s arresting vocals