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POP/ROCK

Bonnie Raitt, "Dig in Deep" (Redwing)

Raitt has chops a mile deep on slide guitar. Within a few seconds, her tone is instantly recognizable, with its bluesy bent and hint of lingering melancholy, as if she were trying to savor a note just a little bit longer before it vanishes. Memories linger in much the same way, and Raitt's 20th album works as a survey of the singer's past and a mature expression of where she is now.

Operating as her own producer and record company president, Raitt came roaring back after a seven-year hiatus to release the acclaimed "Slipstream" in 2012, and the follow-up continues in a similar vein: showcasing the versatility of her veteran band in a variety of roots-rock idioms and underlining Raitt's ability to make even songs she hasn't written her own. Raitt's interplay with her rhythm section on INXS' "Need You Tonight" threatens to blow up its sultry vibe, and her slide guitar rips through Los Lobos' "Shakin' Shakin' Shakes" with a nastiness that is all the more thrilling because it disregards the otherwise clean production. Raitt is at her best when she lets her rough spots fly, and her performances on this record rarely sound manicured or smoothed over.

Five Raitt originals, the most songs she's contributed to one of her albums since the '90s, up the ante. "The Comin' Round is Going Through" provides an excuse to slam out a raspy riff-rocker worthy of Keith Richards in his Rolling Stones heyday. On "What You're Doin' to Me," Raitt shifts to piano for some barrelhouse rock 'n' roll.

For all her reputation as a blues-rocker, Raitt is equally accomplished as a ballad singer. She ties together devastating performances of Bonnie Bishop's "Undone" and Joe Henry's acoustic "You've Changed My Mind," with her own stark composition, "The Ones We Couldn't Be." After the anger and bitterness over a faded romance have melted with the years, the song's narrator looks back on a relationship with a kind of rueful appreciation of what might've been, as if seeing all the possibilities clearly for the first time. Similarly, "Dig in Deep" prompts a fresh perspective on Raitt herself and a five-decade musical career that is still unfolding and revealing new facets.

Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune

Wolfmother, "Victorious" (EMI/Ume )

After that metal mess of a performance from the Hollywood Vampires at the Grammys (Alice Cooper, yes; Johnny Depp, no), it's good to hear that cleaving heavy rawk isn't just for dilettantes — that Australia's Wolfmother and leader Andrew Stockdale have something to say on the matter. Sure, that might seem a wee disingenuous, considering that Stockdale's interchangeable band has done little but ape Blue Cheer and regurgitate aged Zep and Sabbath riffs since its 2004 debut. Still, there's something to be said for anyone who feels such a genuine passion for heavy metal's misty mountaintop of yore that he can think of (or play) nothing else.

Done up in a densely packed production courtesy of Brendan O'Brien (Pearl Jam, Springsteen), "Victorious" eschews most of Stockdale's usual Tolkien preoccupation and regales listeners with the real and the romantic on thick-riffing songs such as "Happy Face" and "City Light." From there, Stockdale travels through handsomely conditioned hair metal ("Best of a Bad Situation"), fuzzed-out Santana-worthy psychedelia ("Gypsy Caravan"), rustic, boot-stomping balladry ("Pretty Peggy") and sludgy stoner-soul ("The Love That You Give"). Though not as holy as Wolfmother's debut, "Victorious" is still a winner.

A.D. Amorosi, Philadelphia Inquirer