Unlike virtually every other act in his age group, veteran singer/songwriter John Prine is doing the best work of his career right now. Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings is an even stronger piece of work than his acclaimed comeback effort, "The Missing Years." Produced once again with grace and taste by Howie Epstein of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, "Lost Dogs" is full of new, typically idiosyncratic Prine delights including the ravishing "Lake Marie," "All The Way With You," "Ain't Hurt Nobody," and "This Love is Real."

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”