Presenting new tracks by Springsteen, Jenn Grant, Seratones, Boy & Bear and Big Thief

Bruce Springsteen's new album, Western Stars, has received a lot of positive reviews (although we saw one critic call it tedious). It's a stylistic departure from Bruce's typical Jersey Rock sound, filled largely with "mid-tempo songs lush with the type of string-and-horn arrangements that once kept session players busy in recording studios up and down Sunset Boulevard," as the Los Angeles Times put it. We think the Toronto Sun describes it best, as having "the rich, warm sound of songs like 'By The Time I Get to Phoenix,' 'Wichita Lineman' and 'Everybody’s Talkin' - but populated by Springsteen’s latest cast of misfits, wanderers, blue-collar heroes and broken men." Fifty-some minutes of Mellow Bruce can get a bit tiresome, but the individual songs are mostly well-crafted. We've been spinning the lead single, "Hello Sunshine," and we're now featuring album track "Tucson Train" in our New Music Bin.

We've also been playing the first single ("Raven") from Jenn Grant's new album, and now that the rest of Love, Inevitable has been released, we're adding the beautiful second track, "Our Love." The Halifax singer-songwriter went west to Portland, Ore., and worked with a new producer on this, her seventh album. “It came from this strange time in my life where I was sort of taking a leap of faith in several ways,” Grant says. You'll be hearing other songs from the album in our big mix and on The Birch Street Bistro.

As always, our New Music picks of the week feature a wide variety of sounds. We turn now to the Southern soul-rock of Seratones, who have just released the title track of their upcoming second album, Power. The Shreveport, Louisiana-based five-piece band creates a hard-driving groove backing A.J. Haynes commanding vocal: "We take two steps forward / They take one step backward / We take each step 'cause we've got the power."

Rounding out this week's picks:

Boy & Bear: "Hold Your Nerve" - The upbeat track is the first release from the Australian band since 2015's Limit of Love. After a hiatus due to frontman Dave Hosking's illness, the group traveled to Nashville to work on its fourth album, due later this year.

Big Thief: "UFOF" - Pitchfork calls the Brooklyn quartet's third album "undoubtedly" their best, "a mesmerizing flood of life filtered down into a concentrated drip." We're spinning the dreamy title track, in which songwriter/vocalist Adrianne Lenker bids farewell to her "UFO friend."