Bhi Bhiman

What a voice Bhi Bhiman has: full-bodied and brawny but delicate, the sort of instrument that might encourage a singer to rest on his laurels and not worry about the words he applies it to. But on “Bhiman” (BooCoo) Mr. Bhiman shows himself to be much wiser than that. This electric album is full of songs that are socially astute and a little wry and delivered with the panache of old standards, a mélange of 1920s blues, 1960s folk and 1970s soft rock. “Guttersnipe” opens the album harshly, and with purpose: “If I had a mama, at least I’d have a place to go,” he sings, from the perspective of a desperate vagabond. Best here are “Eye on You,” which almost sounds like acoustic disco, with Mr. Bhiman in full quaver; the bucolic fever dream “Take What I’m Given”; and “Kimchee Line,” a hardscrabble blues about a toiling North Korean worker — or is it a prisoner?

Jason Boland & the Stragglers

Characters abound on “Rancho Alto” (Proud Souls/Apex/Thirty Tigers), the new album by Jason Boland & the Stragglers, the raw Oklahoma country outfit that, on several previous albums, had mostly avoided them. But there’s an evident shift in the tenor of Mr. Boland’s voice and his songwriting here, turning a band that’s been appealing but not consequential into a newly invigorated and steadily striking force. Mr. Boland isn’t the most evocative singer, nor does he have much range, but there’s a sternness to his tone that hasn’t been there before, and he’s using it in service of stories about injustice and reproach. There’s a doleful criminal on “Down Here in the Hole,” a man wracked with guilt and privilege on “False Accuser’s Lament” and the ghosts of a traveling rodeo on “Fences.” But the best character here turns out to be Mr. Boland, who’s learned to massage a feeling and get the full effect from it, making his love songs like “Every Moment I’m Gone” and “Obsessed” feel like more than easy trifles.