Ratings based on five-star system:

John Mellencamp: “Life Death Live and Freedom”
4 stars
“Life Death Live and Freedom” is a riff on the title of John Mellencamp’s recently released studio CD, “Life Death Love and Freedom.” It’s a novel idea, releasing live and studio versions almost simultaneously. And it’s a good thing; these songs were meant to be performed live, they were written in the folk tradition, the troubadour tradition, in which a song traveled from one singer to the next, morphing along the way. Living, in other words. These literal soundboard recordings, with no studio overdubbing, have an immediacy that elevates them even beyond their original, already formidable quality. When Mellencamp sings about mortality in “If I Die Sudden,” “Don’t Need This Body” and “Longest Days,” you feel the physical and psychic aches. “Troubled Land” has a guitar bite that sharpens its political edge. And the closer, the gentle rocker, “My Sweet Love,” with Dane Clark’s retro-funk drumbeats keeping time, is, well, sweet. Mellencamp may be contemplating dying, but musically, he’s more alive than ever.
— Lynne Margolis

Pete Yorn: “Back & Fourth”
2 1/2 stars
Pete Yorn has never been your happy-go-lucky type, but on his previous releases (most notably his debut, “Musicforthemorningafter”), he managed to mask the mournfulness — or cushion it, at least — with some spritely hooks. OK, maybe not spritely, but at least catchy. This time out, there’s precious little fodder to engage the brain’s hummable-tune switch. If anything, these 10 tracks will have you running for the razor blades — to hide them. The most compelling of these cuts, “Social Development Dance,” contains one of those 21st-century lyrics you don’t know whether to love or hate: “I tried to find out what happened to you/I Googled you in quotes got no results.” Can’t wait for those Kindle and Twitter references, but in the meantime, you’ll be better served revisiting his earlier misery — or waiting for his next release, an album of duets with Scarlett Johansson.
— Lynne Margolis

Wilco: “Wilco (the Album)”
4 stars
Though “Wilco (The Album)’s” melodies shimmer, on a lyrical level, frontman Jeff Tweedy at times sounds as miserable as ever. Is he finally divorcing? Hanging on for dear life? In “One Wing,” he sings, “One wing will never fly. Dear. Neither yours nor mine. I feel we can only wave goodbye.” The song crescendos into a guitar caterwaul, like the aural equivalent of one of his notorious migraines. “Bull Black Nova” sounds like a flat-out anxiety attack. (He’s supposedly conquered both forms of pain.) Musically, the tangents stretch far, then pull back with rubber-band tautness, just as lyrical tension is released in the sweet duet with Feist, “You and I,” in which he sings, “However close we get sometimes, it’s like we never met. But you and I, I think we can take it. Our good with the bad, make something that no one else has.” Maybe he’s describing inter-band relationships; whatever’s on his mind, once again it’s manifested in beauty. And that, ultimately, is all that matters.
— Lynne Margolis

Shane Dwight: “Plays the Blues,” “Gimme Back My Money”
3 1/2 stars, 3 stars
Dwight has enough sides to his music that he is releasing two CDs simultaneously. As the “Plays The Blues” title suggests, this disc, which features both studio and live cuts, is a rocking blues CD. Like the vast majority of blues artists, Dwight isn’t carving out much new stylistic territory here, but songs like “Bad News Morning” are entertaining, energetic and feature some strong guitar playing, while the big-bodied ballad “Standing” stands out with its sweet chord sequence. “Gimme Back My Money” is more diverse musically. This time Dwight impresses with the bruising but melodic rock of “What You Need” and the locomoting rocker “Break My Heart Anyway,” while retaining a good number of hard-hitting blues-rock songs, the best of which are “You’re Gonna Want Me” (which appears on both albums) and “Don’t Forget My Name When You Pray.”
— Alan Sculley