Folks have been finding all kinds of truth in Willie Nelson’s music for decades, and now it’s Matthew Houck, the indie-country star better known as Phosphorescent, trying on 11 songs Willie wrote (or covered himself). Houck, who relocated to Brooklyn from Athens, Georgia, a few years back, occasionally plays it too safe on To Willie—we’d have liked him more raucous on “I Gotta Get Drunk,” for instance—but he succeeds grandly in restyling the particular details of Willie’s own vocals (that sui generis lilt, the cracking notes that seem to reseal themselves instantly). Fans of Houck’s past work—not to mention stellar songwriting—will find much to wrap themselves in on To Willie; his backing band kicks up a nice cloud of dust on “Pick Up the Tempo” and the aforementioned “I Gotta Get Drunk,” but we favor the quieter pieces like “It’s Not Supposed to Be That Way” (a duet with Angel Deradoorian) and the deceptively layered solo turn on “Can I Sleep in Your Arms.” (M.L. Thrope)

There are plenty of good things to spotlight with Cotton Jones—Michael Nau’s songs; the sweet harmonizing and call-and-response-izing between him and Whitney McGraw; their shared history in the well-liked Page France—but it’s the easy amble, the stately pacing of these rootsy, ever-so-slightly lysergic tunes that make Paranoid Cocoon so immediately charming. (You’ll thank us for holding off on the cotton/comfortable analogies, though they’d work.) This trio’s debut includes fleshed-out versions of a handful of songs that appeared on a few earlier EP’s, but nothing (including a few somewhat generic songs) disrupts Paranoid Cocoon’s solid vibe. McGraw sings “Gotta cheer up now” (on the song of the same name, the record’s best) with a yearning bittersweetness; she won’t quite get there, but just hearing her try is somehow reassuring. (M.L. Thrope)

Sound Fix fave Loney Dear hits a high-water mark with his fifth album, the kaleidoscopic Dear John. Multi-instrumentalist Emil Svanängen (yup, that’s Loney’s real name) displays the kind of pop versatility that brings to mind an Andrew Bird, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the two are currently on tour together (and appear on each other’s newest releases). The bedrock of every Loney track is Svanängen’s coolly sensitive vocals, but he’s never been more ambitious with the way he surrounds his songs: neatly layered guitars, synths that build and shimmer, electronic beats that somehow augment the music’s overall warmth. Svanängen says this particular album has been on his mind since he started Loney Dear early this decade, and you can hear that dedication in the details on the surging “Under a Silent Sea” and the crackling “Airport Surroundings,” as well as on quieter numbers “Harm” and “I Got Lost,” where every breath seems freighted with emotion. (M.L. Thrope)

Considering all the various forms of dance-rock populating clubs these days, it’s funny you don’t hear more bands following Lemonade’s apparent credo: Pretty much everything sounds good with a pounding 4/4 techno beat underneath. Perhaps the whole live-drummer thing is overrated! It helps that this Brooklyn trio (imported from the Bay Area) has solid pop sensibilities when it comes to adorning those rubbery beats on their debut, self-titled album; they layer on additional percussion, terse synths and at least two different dudes’ vocals while retaining the lean, spare structure this kind of music needs to be effective in a party/dance context. It came as no surprise to see longtime SF techno fixture Safety Scissors credited with the album’s mastering, but even if techno isn’t your flavor, you’re likely to bliss out to the song of the same name, as well as to “Real Slime.” (M.L. Thrope)

Matt sings and plays keyboards; Kim plays drums and adds vocals. And in a lot of ways, it really is that simple! But what’s made Matt and Kim one of NYC’s most popular acts is their unrestrained jubilence in making clap-along, sing-along, shout-along and dance-along modern pop music. Grand is their second proper album (and first for the Fader magazine’s in-house label) and if it offers few surprises, the duo’s legion of fans probably weren’t looking for them anyway. What is abundant on Grand is Matt and Kim’s signature energy and effusively catchy tunes—11 of them in under 30 minutes, by which point you’ll likely be exhausted from bouncing around your apartment anyway. Pulling out the best songs is kind of hard, but “Daylight,” “Good Ol’ Fashion Nightmare” and the oddly Zombiesesque “Turn This Boat Around” each show some growth in Matt and Kim’s songwriting on top of that unmistakable energy. (M.L. Thrope)

Round these parts, you can’t get a cup of coffee without tripping over a dozen middling, rootsy singer-songwriters doing their damnedest to re-create some mythical lost vibe of the 70s. Then you find a guy like Doug Paisley—who’s probably never heard of Pitchfork, let alone anyone written about there—who has an elemental grasp of what makes all those old Neil Young records so great. Like Neil, Paisley’s from up Canada way (Toronto, we believe), and like Neil, he has a native talent for disarmingly direct and piercingly beautiful music. Rich as the earth and often dirt-simple too, Paisley’s music is so genuine as to be anachronistic—can he really be so plain and plain good? Simone Schmidt pulls gold-standard duty as his Nicolette Larson (though she projects her own atmosphere in the full); you won’t be able to forget “A Day Is Very Long” or “Last Duet,” though this album vibes as a whole like few others in recent memory. (M.L. Thrope)

That’s an eye-catching band name if you’re a fan of old Welsh legends (this specific one inspired a beloved book in the 60s and a subsequent TV series, as well as more recently a great Pram song). It’s hard not to be suspicious of a new group that name-drops all the “right” old folk artists, but England’s Steven Collins seems to have constructed his band with the greatest devotion to tradition—and with more in mind than merely aping it. Though A Garland of Song, The Owl Service’s first album, can be quite dark and affecting, there’s precious little freakiness within its folk; instead, two pristine female voices spin considerable ancient-to-modern magic throughout. The 13 tracks include two Child Ballads (Nos. 49 and 219, for those keeping score at home) and a stirring version of the folk standard “Katie Cruel,” heard recently on albums by Bert Jansch and White Magic, as well as last year’s killer collection of old Karen Dalton recordings, Green Rocky Road. Turns out A Garland of Song is quite the well-earned title. (M.L. Thrope)