VARIOUS ARTISTS My Black Country – The Songs of Alice Randall (Oh Boy) — A prolific country music songwriter and author (her Gone with the Wind satire, The Wind Done Gone, was a scandalous bestseller at the turn of the century), Alice Randall published the nonfiction work My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music’s Black Past, Present, and Future Randall earlier this year. A celebration and corrective, the book celebrates Black country music artists who’ve generally been shunted to the margins over the decades. A companion compilation album is a natural fit and has the bonus of providing Randall with a fulfilling experience that had previously eluded her. “I had songs recorded in the 80s, in the 90s, in the 2000s, and 2010s, but I never once had the joy of hearing one of the songs that I wrote from the perspective of a Black woman recorded by a Black woman,” Randall notes. The strategic pairings of performer and song prove to be as a powerful as Randall hoped. Adia Victoria, who’s been unyielding engaged in her own stirring reclamation of Southern-music territory these past few years, offers an airy and intense reading of “Went for a Ride,” and Rhiannon Giddens brings a compelling meld of bluegrass and jazz to the harrowing lynching tale “The Ballad of Sally Anne.” Allison Russell is as adaptable as ever, sounding on “Many Mansions” like she should be a fixture of the radio stations that look to Nashville for their playlist additions. Randall longed for this collection. Happily, it’s a gift for everyone. In addition to the cuts already mentioned, check Leyla McCalla’s spare and insistent “Small Towns,” Sunny War’s lean, slinky “Solitary Hero,” Saaneah Jamison’s bluesy “Get the Hell Outta Dodge,” and Valerie June’s sweet, tender “Big Dream.”

CLOUD NOTHINGS Final Summer (Pure Noise) — In a few key particulars, Final Summer is a new start for Cloud Nothings. The ninth studio full-length from the Cleveland-born band is their first for Pure Noise, a label that proudly lives up to its name, and it’s their first as a trio (longtime bassist TJ Duke exited in the middle of last year). In the all-important categories of sound and quality, the album is a heart reassurance that Cloud Nothings remain fiercely dependable. They pound out artful hard rock with the same resolute fervor that has distinguished them going al the way back to at least their 2012 breakthrough, Attack on Memory. The title cuts kicks of the album with the relentlessness of a pulsating alarm that can’t be disabled and lyrics that declare hard-won, newfound optimism (“Coming into final summer/ What’s the use in trying/ To be undercover/ Put your hand in my hand”). That’s more or less the mode all the way down, Cloud Nothings making a mighty racket and frontman and chief songwriter Dylan Baldi hollering about how everything might be okay after all. The snarly noise of the ironically titled “Silence” and thunder-dose goodness of “The Golden Halo” are formidable, but Cloud Nothings aren’t merely purveyors of blunt force. They bring layers and complexity to these tracks, even recalling noted sonic expansionists Built to Spill on “Running Through the Campus.” Final Summer shows how satisfying it is when a new beginning is simultaneously one more step in the midst of a long artistic journey. Don’t let the sun go down on the following tracks: “Daggers of Light,” “I’d Get Along,” “Thank Me for Playing,” and “On the Chain.”