Dig These Discs : Paloma Faith, Mary Lambert, The Script, Colbie Caillat, Stevie Nicks

The legendary Steve Nicks offers up a solid-gold collection of 14 of her best hits, reworked for our pleasure. After years of hit singles, Mary Lambert finally drops her debut album. English artist Paloma Faith puts out a repackaged version of her hit album, with four new songs. Singer/songwriter Colbie Caillat teams up with producer Babyface for her fifth studio album, "Gypsy Heart." And Irish rockers The Script drop their fourth studio album. From across the globe from hit makers to newbies, Dig These Discs brings it all to you!

"24 Karat Gold - Songs From the Vault" (Stevie Nicks)

Looking back over her career of hit songs from the '70s to today, Stevie Nicks gathered up the best of her hits and headed to Nashville to record 14 new versions of them that she's never released. Although her voice has weathered the decades of heartbreak, turmoil and cocaine abuse, she still has the spirit that we fell in love with. She brings back the days of yore with tracks like "Starshine," "The Dealer," and the piano ballad "Lady." The electric guitar revvs up the action in "Starshine," the first track. Her voice is raspy as she sings, "I was the mistress of my fate, I was a card shark," in "The Dealer." Nicks sings about sad, beautiful, unapproachable "Mabel Normand" in a less familiar track. She looks to "take you on a slow ride" in "Blue Water." She gets bluesy in the "Cathouse Blues," and ramps up the intensity in the title track. "Hard Advice" finds her dealing with love lingering after the end of a breakup, as she sings, "sometimes he's my best friend, even when he's not around/ but the sound of his voice when it follows me down and reminds me..." Nicks sings "I'm tired of knocking on doors and there's nobody there," over simple piano chords in "Lady." She rips it up in the rocking track, "I Don't Care" professing not to care for diamonds or anything, then changing her tune to admit she would follow her love anywhere. And she tells a story of mountain women dancing in "Belle Fleur." She promises that you would never be frightened at all, "If You Were My Love." She finishes up with the slower, "Carousel" and "She Loves Him Still." For the casual Stevie Nicks fan, this will be a collection of never-before-heard hits, or at least unfamiliar B-sides. Even stalwart Fleetwood Mac fans will find something new in Nicks' reimagining of these hits. Get it now; after all, it's solid gold.
(Reprise Records)

"A Perfect Contradiction" (Paloma Faith)

English artist Paloma Faith drops her repackaged version of the album, featuring four new songs, this month. The pop album features elements of R&B, jazz, soul and Motown. The lead single, "Can't Rely On You," was produced by Pharrell Williams, who helped Faith write the tune. And it is truly excellent, as if James Brown possessed her soul. She also worked with Raphael Saadiq on "Mouth to Mouth," a song reminiscent of early Prince songs. And she sings like Aretha in "Take Me," a jazzy song with the descending keyboard scales and big brass accents. She sings her heart out in Diane Warren's ballad "Only Love Can Hurt Like This," a song that she resisted covering until Warren sang it to her over the phone, forcing her to realize its merits. She brings the '70s to life with the wronged-woman scorcher, "Other Woman" and sounds like Duffy when she sings the swinging cuts, "Taste My Own Tears" and "Trouble With My Baby." Critics championed the fact that Faith managed to keep her songs lively and uptempo, with many praising the high production values as they ragged on a 'lack of originality.' But it's easy listening when she sings her talented pipes out on gospel-tinged tracks like "The Bigger You Love (The Harder You Fall)," and "Love Only Leaves You Lonely." She even gets funky on "Impossible Heart" and "It's The Not Knowing." Faith's album cover art is a reenactment of Caravaggio's "The Entombment of Christ," with photographer David Standish. All I can say, is praise the Lord for Paloma Faith!
(Sony Music Entertainment)

"Heart on My Sleeve" (Mary Lambert)

Seattle-based lesbian singer/songwriter Mary Lambert first came into the media spotlight with the gay rights song, "Same Love," and her beautiful voice instantly made her a sensation. Now, she's released an album of eleven of her emotionally-charged songs, starting with "Secrets" singing about being bipolar, overweight, wearing mom jeans and having a dysfunctional family, with the cheery chorus, "I don't know care if the world knows what my secrets are." She gets serious in "So Far Away," a million miles away from her love. Angel Haze and K. Flay chime in on the eerie, "Rib Cage," singing, "I offer souveners, a deaf tongue and a blinded ears," inviting everyone to come inside and fill the empty space inside her. A spoken word poem "Dear One" follows, with lines like, "How can I ever speak again with this mouth when it has found where it belongs?" Her "Chasing the Moon" chronicles a hot night in the city, and her slowed-down cover of Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl" is heartbreaking in the new meaning imparted on the line, "wanna tell her that I love her but the point is probably moot." Her slow "Monochromatic" is muted and moody, with her dreams in color but her life in black and white. Her title track is a harder affair, with Lambert singing, "I could be your heart speed, running as fast as our feet will take us." She sings sweet and slow in "Wounded Animal," and finishes it up with "Sum Of Our Parts," with a spoken word intro, like a lesbian Eminem. It's high time that this talented chanteuse released an album of her own, and as debuts go, this one is a winner, defying the listener not to tear up over the depths Lambert reaches. Go ahead, try not to be moved by this album! You'd have to have a heart of steel.
(Universal Music)

"Gypsy Heart" (Colbie Caillat)

Singer/songwriter Colbie Caillat teams up with producer Babyface for her fifth studio album, "Gypsy Heart." She dropped her lead single, the fast-paced and enjoyable "Try" this summer, and sings her heart out in the R&B track, "Just Like That" in early September. The album is a departure from her earlier releases, with a more finished sound blending pop, folk, rock and R&B. She 'drop-kicks impossible' in the first track, "Live It Up," and tries to set the world on fire by dancing on tables in "Blaze." It's kind of thin stuff, but no more than other pop singers like Katy Perry. She sings "If You Love Me Let You Go" with the audio equivalent of star wipes going on in the background. A country music vibe comes through "Never Gonna Let You Down," and "Land Called Far Away." She gets down to pop in tunes like "Nice Guys," a song that basically tells guys that treating women shitty works best. "Every tear can put out a fire," she sings in "Floodgates," a fast-moving pop song with catch percussion. She balances this with an R&B vibe in "Break Free," but follows it with clunkers "Never Getting Over You" and "Bigger Love." When it comes to writing catchy pop songs about love and heartbreak, it's hard to top Taylor Swift. Caillat might do better if she brings more personal experiences to the songs she sings. With a good singing voice and plenty of pretty to back it up, Caillat's still young enough to make her mark on this unforgiving industry.
(Republic Records)

"No Sound Without Silence" (The Script)

Irish rockers The Script drop their fourth studio album. With Danny O'Donoghue on vocals and keyboards, Mark Sheehan on vocal and guitar, and Glen Plower on drums, the band prides themselves on being able to touch a chord deep within their audience. Their first track, "No Good in Goodbye" screams into life with an electric guitar shred that leads into a dreamy soundscape with the lyrics, "All the things that we've lost/breaking up comes at a cost." The lead single, "Superheroes," was released this summer, and tells the story of put-down kids who manage to soar despite abuse, with lyrics like, "he's stronger than you know, a heart of steel starts to grow." They are walking a tightrope with their heart in their throat in "Man on a Wire." Tracks like "It's Not Right For You" fall flat, a synthesized pop mess. The guitar and drums match the anthemic lyrics in "The Energy Never Dies," and the band gets heavily pop in the Katy Perry-esque single, "Flares." "Loves a battle and life's a war, and I can't go on fighting anymore," O'Donoghue resolves in "Army of Angels." He croons his words of love in "Never Seen Anything Quite Like You," a love song that's actually pro-female, as he sings of seeing his love in jeans, with no makeup on, as well as dressed for the prom, but always finding her more and more beautiful. They celebrate their Dublin's roots in "Paint the Town Green" and take a positive spin on a dour Beatles song "A Day in the Life" in "Hail Rain or Sunshine." Among the best tracks is the name-checking "Without Those Songs," giving due credit to those classic songs that changed all of our lives. The Script are those rare Irish rockers who manage to elevate their music above the pub-rock category, but still retain their classic roots and Irish sound. That's some good craic, fellows!
(Columbia Records)