2008's Little Honey was Williams at her most content. But on her 10th disc, she revives the literary realism that's turned so many of her songs into true-talk crushers. The quietly heartbreaking "Soldier's Song" is an imagining of home from the front lines, and even humid evocations of romantic awakening (like the soul study "Kiss Like Your Kiss") suggest rapture might break her. Williams' wearied singing and rich guitar shadings from Greg Leisz and Elvis Costello bring out the emotionalism in an hourlong set of often somber roots-rock songs. "I'm 57, but I could be seven years old," she sings in "Copenhagen," mourning the death of her former manager and letting loss make her new again.

Listen to "Buttercup":

Gallery: Random Notes, Rock's Hottest Photos

“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

Quite a few musicians have utilized initials for song titles -- Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T.," Abba's "S.O.S.," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," etc. But the more curiously initialed tune has to be "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.," short for "Voyage to the Land of the Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts." Fishbone's original guitarist, Kendall Jones, explained to Rolling Stone, "When Norwood [Fisher] wrote it, he introduced it to the band saying, 'Man, I've been hearing about all these Nazi right-wing groups on the news saying the Holocaust was staged. So what if America said it never dropped two atom bombs on Japan, that it was actually Godzilla popping a couple off?' Only Norwood would come up with something that out." The same year "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F." was released, the film Godzilla 1985 appeared in North America.