The Jayhawks, 'Mockingbird Time'

Release date: Sept. 20, 2011
Record label: Rounder
Official website: http://www.jayhawksofficial.com/

The buzz: Although Gary Louris and Mark Olson released an album together in 2009 (the understated “Ready for the Flood”), “Mockingbird Time” marks the first time since 1995’s classic “Tomorrow the Green Grass” that the acclaimed songwriting duo have worked together as the Jayhawks. Also back with the alt-country pioneers: founding bassist Marc Perlman, keyboardist Karen Grotberg and longtime drummer Tim O’Reagan.

The verdict: It’s no “Green Grass” or “Hollywood Town Hall,” but “Mockingbird Time” is a solid effort all around that should please longtime fans of the Jayhawks’ rootsy, jangly sound. Louris and Olson are happy to evoke the ghosts of their influences—“Gold Rush”–era Neil Young on the mournful “Tiny Arrows,” the Byrds on “She Walks in So Many Ways”—but they save the most obvious nods to their own past for the album’s latter half, twanging it up to great effect on the lovely “Pouring Rain at Dawn” and the Decemberists-meets-Fairport Convention folk of “Black-Eyed Susan.”

Did you know? The Jayhawks’ 1986 self-titled debut album (often referred to as “The Bunkhouse Album”) was released on CD for the first time just last year.