What does a good night consist of on an album that ends with the words "I'll watch you die"? Victory at Sea's third full-length release sounds like the answer is gloomy stories told by a hearth with no wood in it, much less a roaring fire; accusations, to self and others; a distaste for temperate weather.

On The Good Night, the Boston-based trio – Mona Elliott on guitar and vocals, Mel Lederman on bass and keyboards, and Carl Eklof on drums – start with a storm and end up in a lull that makes even death threats sound like something to worry about later. On the first track, "Mary in June," Elliott sings to an exhausted, isolated woman plagued by state-induced heat waves. On the last high notes she can't quite reach but gets to anyway, she sings, "Wishes sometimes comes true / If I could have one wish / I'd give my wish to you," then repeats herself with a force that could be conviction but sounds more like frustration. On "Liar" she describes a state of misplaced trust in its simplest terms – "I repeat what you have told me / What you told me / It's not true" – measuring out her anger in careful, cold syllables and letting it loose in the driving guitar line that takes over the chorus: "So now I / I am a liar / Like you."

The last track, "Firefly," feels slower, more placid, with samples of children and a beach scene, but the lyrics draw a timeline in the sand that connects memories of animal mortalities to a recent affair so ill-fated that someone ends up in a bottle floating out to sea – a victory, maybe. Elliott sounds as if she were made to sing about such personal disasters (I keep thinking of Thalia Zedek, who is, in fact, credited for vocals on the traditional "The Bluebird of Happiness"); she brings a distraught intensity to the simplest lyrics. The best of the album is like that, with highs and lows that make orchestral movements out of worsening moods and unfortunate incidents. (Lynn Rapoport)

Solomon Burke
Don't Give Up on Me (Fat Possum)

To hell with neo-soul – I want that old-school soul, soul that sweats and moans, that isn't swathed in Phat Farms, Triple 5's, or any of that primped-out, prepackaged, playa playa (read: played) shit. I want soul that grinds under my fingernails, plasters the cracks, smashes my heart into a million pieces, the kind of soul Solomon Burke offers up on "Don't Give Up on Me," the opening track on his album of the same name, the best song on the best comeback album since Wilson Pickett's 1999 tour de force It's Harder Now. It's not inherently such a soulful song (although it's pretty, full of slow-rolled guitar chords and hushed modulations written by Dan Penn, Carson Whitsett, and Hoy Lindsay); its the way Burke stops singing near the end of the affair – the way the notes drop out of his gruff-and-tumble baritone and dissolve into achingly naked spoken tones – that lends the song its majesty: "Please. Promise me," Burke pleads before allowing the notes to slide back in, "don't give up on me."

Dubbed the "King of Rock and Soul" back in the '60s and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year, Burke scored hits with tunes such as "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" and "Cry to Me." And though he never achieved the status of contemporaries like Pickett, Otis Redding, and Sam Cooke, this Joe Henry-produced outing proves that Burke has staying power on his side: his voice is as supple and expressive as ever, and his interpretations of tunes by Van Morrison, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and Bob Dylan breathe more life into the material than one imagines even those artists themselves could. Henry's low-key production allows Burke's pipes to shine, and while the first track sets some high standards for the rest of the album, the Philadelphia-born singer almost outdoes himself on the closer, "Sit This One Out," a classic end-of-night blues number that sounds like it should come accompanied by a tumbler of gin and a taxicab home. (Sylvia W. Chan)

Cinematic Orchestra

Every Day (Ninja Tune)

Harps are hazardous. They tend to signal schlock, overly dramatic drama, extravagant excesses. Backed by their constant companions, swelling string sections and shimmering cymbals, harps frequently herald the arrival of ... crap. So Cinematic Orchestra take a big chance by kicking off their new full-length with the Alan Alda of instruments. But to my surprise, Cinematic pull it off. The opening song, "All That You Give," moves on to become a stately promenade led by the singing of Fontella Bass. Like most of Every Day, the pace is slow and considered, the music taking its own sweet time and letting the listener savor each woody double-bass pluck and soft sample of a turntable scratch. And Bass's rich voice, fuller from the years of experience that have followed her R&B hit "Rescue Me" in 1965, rolls out with an ease and grandeur rare in contemporary music.

The choice of Bass for vocals (recorded for the album, not merely sampled) on two tracks reflects the broad musical taste cowriters J. Swinscoe and Phil France draw on to create music that is at once modern and timeless. I find myself getting carried away with gushing praise and florid prose when addressing Every Day. Each time I put it on, its solid blend of live playing, songwriting, and studio expertise grabs my attention and doesn't let go.

Few albums are perfect, and every time I hit Roots Manuva's appearance on "All Things to All Men," I wince a bit. This is the one track where Cinematic take themselves too seriously, and the moody strings and quavering woodwinds edge from drama to melodrama, with Manuva's heavy-handed, lurching delivery compounding the problem. But six sublime tracks out of seven isn't bad. (Peter Nicholson)

Hank Dogs

Half Smile (spinART)

Half Smile, the second album from the Hank Dogs opens with arpeggios chiming in a gentle lope from dual acoustic guitars as wordless female vocals swirl in the background. The guitars accelerate to a faint and deeply mixed but insistent pulse, and the voices come forward to sing about "all those twisted little tales she's tired of telling anyway." The song's title, "Same New," seems to refer to the ambiguities of reinventing one's self but applies equally to the musical formula updated from the annals of Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, Simon and Garfunkel, and Kate and Anna McGarrigle. Through a dozen songs that enigmatically address the weight of past relationships and the burden of dreams, the London-based trio slip occasional bass, accordion, banjo, steel guitar, and mandolin into the mix, but the irresistible pull of their sound (for anyone with the folk-rock virus in their veins) comes from the velvet glove-like fit of their ringing guitars, diaphanous vocal harmonies, light-touch drums, and gently rippling melodies.